Heavenly Spirits?

In the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, there’s an essential exchange between our globetrotting British spy (Sean Connery) and his Japanese counterpart Tiger Tanaka (played by Tetsuro Tanba but voiced by Robert Rietti).

This moment comes just after Bond is offered the rice-based alcoholic beverage sake, instead of his usual dry vodka martini. He surprises all when he graciously accepts, saying that he enjoys the Japanese drop – especially when it’s served at the ‘correct temperature’, 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

The moment is something to drink in, and 98.4ºF would sound fair enough to most people since, in common Western perception, sake is doled up piping hot to wash down raw fish. But for those a tad more in the know about Japanese cuisine a rumour has circulated over the past 44 years that Bond got it wrong; that sake served at this temperature – 37ºC for those like me who are Fahrenheit inept – is invariably inferior in quality.

In truth that might have indeed been the case in the mid ‘60s, around the time of the making of You Only Live Twice, as many breweries fortified their product with distilled alcohol – a hangover from Second World War rice shortages. Serving it steaming helped mask any of the sharp or unbalanced flavours.

But in the intervening period brewers have been able to return to the prescribed method of naturally brewing pure rice sake, with no shoehorned artificial alcohol, to recreate mixes that are refined and pure enough to serve chilled.

Even so, we don’t need to take sides here.


Bond wasn’t wrong – and neither were the rumours. 98.4ºF isn’t exactly the ‘correct’ temperature for sake, but it’s perfect for Ozeki One Cup and some more expensive premium blends; the Japan Sake Brewers Association reports that this drink can be enjoyed anywhere within the range of 5ºC (41ºF) to 55ºC (131ºF), depending on the concoction.

Then there’s the Holy Grail of modern day nihonshu (which is what the Japanese tend to call sake).

Myouka Rangyoku (‘heavenly flower’) has been touted as the world’s best sake at urbansake.com and in the pages of The Japan Times newspaper – and like all chart-topping, divinely-inspired beverages this one comes with a healthy price tag: A 720 ml bottle retails upwards from ¥12,600 (about US$150).

“As a brewery, we do our utmost to create a truly great and perfect sake with Myouka Rangyoku – made according to a totally new concept, both as regards the flavour of the sake and the design of the bottle – and therefore we have been able to have a sizeable impact.”

So last year I was informed by Ad G. Blankestijn, the Director of Overseas Marketing and Sales at Daishichi Sake Brewing Co., Ltd., located in Fukushima, 230 km northeast of Tokyo.

Unfortunately this placed the brewery slap-bang in the middle of the massive March 11 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, and they're located 60 km from the ongoing nuclear reactor debacle at Fukushima Daiichi.


On their website they strive to be reassuring:

"The walls of the brewery consist of 25 cm thick concrete. In addition there are fire-resistant tiles and hollow concrete blocks, making a total of 32 cm of protection from the outside. The sake storage area has even thicker walls in order to keep the products cool. No radiation can penetrate these walls.

"When we heard about the nuclear problems on March 11, we have immediately stopped air conditioners and ventilators and covered the windows and air ducts in plastic sheets to keep the inside of the brewery and storage areas airtight.

"Sake brewing is almost finished and the accident has had no major influence on our activities. Products being shipped now are vintage 2008-2009 sakes, and 2010 for the plum sake. These products are completely free from any influence of the nuclear accident."

I haven't spoken to Blankestijn at the brewery since I interviewed him last year, but the nuclear crisis is in no way going to deter me from my aspiration to (one day) road-test this particular drop.

Even bottles matter to these people and theirs is a classic (see below); the brew itself has been dubbed ambrosial by critics far more canny than myself.

“Most exclusive sakes are made with a modern, simplified process, but ours has been made with the ‘Kimoto’ method, the most traditional, laborious and time-consuming way of brewing a handcrafted sake,” Blankestijn said.

“The result is that it tastes very pure while at the same time possessing much complexity and depth. In contrast to other exclusive sakes which have to be drunk relatively young, Myouka Rangyoku is very slowly matured, so that over the course of many years it ripens into a rich and beautiful sake that we do not sell every year; we only make it in good years when we can attain the highest level. And even then, we only make it in a limited quantity. Of course, we are happy with the very positive judgment of many sake specialists, as well as the fact that it is often selected by the Japanese government for important diplomatic events – such as at the G8 Summit in 2008 in Hokkaido.”

While it's kind of tricky to hope that the nuclear crisis gets nipped in the bud overnight when people like Prime Minister Naoto Kan mutter that it'll take somewhere in the vicinity of two decades to clean up, I have several fingers crossed that essential Japanese sake brewers like Daishichi can get back into the groove of their handicraft as soon as possible.

Only final final word needs to be uttered here. Kampai! 乾杯

Crow Castle in a Flap

Just a three-hour drive east of Shinjuku on the Keio Line Bus is Matsumoto, in the mountainous Nagano Prefecture.

This is the sister-city to Utah’s Salt Lake City and Nepal’s Kathmandu, and is one of the best places to try basashi (raw horse meat) and soba (buckwheat noodles).



The city itself is located on an open plain in the Japanese Alps, just over half an hour from the historic watermills at the nation’s largest wasabi farm – Daio at Azumino – where Akira Kurosawa in fact shot part of his epic movie about his own fitful Dreams (1990).

But the standout here is Matsumoto Castle (松本城), and it’s actually a genuine keep unlike the faux fort closer to Tokyo at Odawara.


Matsumoto Castle is a gorgeous and immaculately maintained building that dates back to the Sengoku (Warring States) era prior to the 17th century. It’s locally dubbed 'Karasu-Jo' (Crow Castle) because of the somewhat sinister black lines, but for me (I’ve visited twice) this is a stunning place that lives up to its confirmation as a National Treasure of Japan in 1952.

It’s one of only four castles in this country to receive the honour.

But 2011 hasn’t been kind to Japan.

Unless you’ve had your head buried deep inside one very big sandpit, you’d know all about the huge earthquake and follow-up tsunami on March 11, followed by worrying ripples in the economy and a continuing radioactive crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant 230km northeast of Tokyo.
We’ve had thousands of aftershocks and earthquakes across the country over the following four months, and one of these earthquakes – with a magnitude of 5.4 – rocked Nagano on Thursday June 30.

Aside from minor injuries to local residents – although I’m not sure if the people themselves would call broken bones trivial – the quake caused around ten large cracks in the inner walls of the main tower of Matsumoto Castle.

After 400 years successfully circumnavigating civil wars, neglect, deconstruction, renovation and tourism, let’s hope Karasu-Jo’s earthquake damage isn’t so serious and – like the rest of Japan – it makes a complete recovery.

(This is part of an article that appears on the Forces Of Geek site - you can read more of that yarn here.)

Qantas: the Fillet of Australia?

I hate to be somewhat moronic here and spin a droll comment on a corporate logo - that's done enough in this world on cantankerous blogs as much as in the 'professional' media.

It's also a bit passe. But I'm a little angry, and whether or not a concept is old hat or not doesn't really swing for me at the moment.

The thing is, if Qantas truly is the Spirit of Australia, then the email I just got from them is a sad state of affairs and makes me ponder swapping citizenship.

Regardless of whether or not you've read anything else in these pages, most people would know about the March 11 earthquake in the Tōhoku region of Japan, and the resultant aftershocks and problems with the Fukushima nuclear power plants.

Obviously these have been of a tiny bit of concern to even those of us here in Tokyo, though we're 230km away; the water supply was briefly (and marginally) effected by radiation, and while things now seem to be coming under control, for a few weeks there no one knew what to expect.

During that time my family and I discussed options, including the possible need to fly out of the country.

I've been a member of Qantas Frequent Flyers since the mid 1990s, and a Qantas aficionado since flying as a wee tacker with the old TAA domestic airline in the 1970s (it was incorporated into Qantas). In English lessons I teach, Qantas occasionally comes up and in those moments I've got all star-struck and proudly mentioned the airline's longevity (it's the third oldest in the world), good safety record and the origin of its acronym (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services).

So, being a bit of a fan and veteran frequent flyer, I decided to check how many points I had on my Qantas account - and discovered there were zero.

This was news to me. If they don't want to pay postage costs to Japan (and fair enough to), then the company could at least email me (free) to advise that they're deleting in excess of 10,000 frequent flyer points, with a reason as to why.

But I'd heard nothing.

Being a long-time customer, a fellow Aussie, and in a potentially diabolical situation, I wrote to Qantas early on in April as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is Andrew Bergen, an Australian based in Tokyo, Japan, for 10 years now. I hope you can help me to sort out a matter of surprise and relative discomfort.

I have been a long-time member your Qantas Frequent Flyer program, and while I may not fly so regularly now (I have a young family with a five-year-old daughter), we are preparing ourselves for the worst here in Japan, and looking at flying out if the situation with the nuclear reactors happens to worsen.

I was under the impression that I had 10,000+ points on in my Frequent Flyer account, but when I checked just now it appears that I now zero points - because 10,169 points were deducted from my account on 28 February 2010, but I was not warned about this in advance, or otherwise advised of the deduction, until I checked today.

Is there some time limit imposed on points? I wasn't aware of any expiration date on points.

And in the circumstances, would it be possible to waive such time limits? These points would certainly help us (in a small way) to pay for the three tickets we will need to leave Japan in an emergency.

I hope you can help us further,

All the best,
Andrew Bergen

Almost two weeks passed before I received the courtesy of a reply, so I'm grateful that the reactors up north have been as patient as we have.

Unfortunately it wasn't quite what I'd hope to hear. While I'm no stranger to bureaucratic corporate policy trumping basic human decency, it's still sad to see long-time loyalty to a huge, profitable company respected... with nothing at all except a notion of brushed-off indifference:

Dear Mr Bergen,

Thank you for contacting The Qantas Club and Frequent Flyer Service Centre.

I'm unable to reinstate your points that expired in February 2010.

Your points expired because there wasnt any activity on your account over a three-year period. We make every effort to let our members know the status of their points through their online Activity Statements.

If youd like to know more about the Frequent Flyer program, please visit qantas.com/frequentflyer where youll find full details of your membership benefits, along with our latest news and offers.


The Spirit Of Australia my arse - and for god's sake get a spell-checker next time you mail me.

Coincidentally, two days ago I lost a few cards while on my way to work in Kanagawa. One of those cards was my worn out old Qantas Frequent Flyer Card.

To whomsoever finds it: keep the thing. Souvenir it. I don't need the card now, and certainly won't be replacing it.

Japan Relief Compilations by Elektrax

One of my favourite labels in Australia over the past three years has been DJ Hi-Shock's Elektrax imprint, which includes side-labels Gynoid Audio, Android Muziq, Darknet and Hypnotic Room.

The people at Elektrax are doing a series of benefit compilations for the victims of the disasters over here in Japan, and I think they warrant full support. Besides, there're some way cool artists involved including many from Japan itself.

Think Satoshi Fumi, DJ Wada, Cut Bit Motorz, Jin Hiyama, Captain Funk and Takashi Watanabe.

International Artists across the three comps are a who's who of contemporary and veteran electronic and techno producers: Dan Curtin, Thomas P. Heckmann, Bas Mooy, Angel Alanis, Si Begg, DJ T-1000, Donor & Truss, Truncate, Steve Stoll, Damon Wild, Beroshima (Frank Mueller), Mijk van Dijk, Dave Tarrida, Ben Mill, Alkan, Martin Mueller, Claudio Masso, Peder, Mattias Fridell, Paul Mac, Octave and DJ Hi-Shock.

The label released this following press statement:

Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the people affected. The people of Japan need our help, and we hope that we can do our part through what we love most – the music – and we’ve decided to call this benefit compilation ‘Kibou’, the Japanese word for hope.

This is a combined project of many of the Elektrax Music artists and close friends of Elektrax, who have generously provided their tracks gratis, and it has been put together with the inspiring assistance of our label representative in Japan, Takashi Watanabe.

You can read more here at the Elektrax site.

Worthy stuff indeed - with all proceeds going to the Japanese Red Cross to help victims of the earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear reactor disasters - and Number Two in the trilogy came out yesterday.

It features Bas Mooy, Si Begg, Steve Stoll, Justin Robertson, Martin Mueller, Hi-Shock - plus one of my hack Little Nobody tracks.

Anyway, it's online as a digital release exclusive to Beatport, and show your support if you can.

Respect to the labels and all artists involved.

Hanami Hitch

It's now been over three weeks since the now so-called Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. That's what it's called on Wikipedia, and it's funny how they create media-friendly monikers for these things.

It's like the ironically named Great Kantō earthquake that hit Tokyo in 1923. It was only great in terms of the number of people it killed (over 100,000).

It's now spring in this city, and the cherry blossoms are beginning to unfurl. Usually at this time of year millions of people would start to unravel their mats in crammed public spaces for the hanami – literally “flower viewing”.

Japan's famous for it.

There’s an ethereal quality to the canopy of subtle pink plumage that surrounds you in leafy places in most parts of the country, and the petals drifting on the breeze is like something spun from the reel of a classic Japanese movie... which is, well, just what you’ve probably seen, in anything from the whimsical musical romp of Seijun Suzuki’s Princess Raccoon (2005) to the dramatic demise of Ken Watanabe’s character in The Last Samurai (2003). They're also stunningly used in Makoto Shinkai's anime 5 Centimetres Per Second (2007).

It’s a remarkable sight quite unlike anything you will have encountered anywhere else in the world. While there may be the odd cherry tree that sticks out like a sore thumb in front yards from Washington D.C. to Melbourne, here in Japan these woody perennials are cultivated, pruned and spaced to perfection.


What makes the seasonal phenomenon even more special is the fleeting nature of the blossoms themselves, prompting the Japanese to use them as a metaphor for life and its brevity.

Which brings us back full circle to the Tōhoku earthquake on March 11, and the continuing woes at the Fukushima nuclear reactors.

Around 25,000 people are assumed to have been killed across 18 prefectures to the north and north-east of Tokyo, while hundreds of thousands are homeless, without basic essentials like water and electricity.

TEPCO, the people who run the nuclear power plants, have put on a carefully orchestrated stage show of ineptitude, and according to some reports may be endangering the lives of their rank-and-file staff by sending them into the reactors to fix the job that management stuffed up in the first place.

Crocodile tears from TEPCO spokesman and head honchos on the TV just don't cut it. I think the entire board of directors should be rounded up and sent in to Fukushima to replace the workers, and try to fix the plants themselves.

Meanwhile we're collectively treading water, waiting to see what happens.

Of course we hope for the best, and in my case I occasionally pray to an empty mead hall of Norse gods that the nuclear crisis will soon be a thing of the past. But no one seems quite sure what will transpire.

Most people here are dealing with it regardless, and going on with their lives in the best way possible.

There have been exceptions - like one of the talented artists on my old record label, who seems to have embarked upon a sad descent into a petty, self-centred, money-grabbing kind of madness since the crisis began, and I've lost a mate as a result - but I guess people deal with the subliminal stress in different ways.


Me? I really miss my two girls, who have been down with the in-laws in Fukuoka for two-and-a-half weeks now, until this thing blows over (er... poor choice of words) or is resolved, and we know more about the radiation issue in Tokyo. Having a five-year-old daughter makes things a little more complicated as my wife and I are far more worried about her future health than our own.

Every day I wake up in an empty apartment and go through the somewhat surreal notions of going through life and working like nothing's changed, yet in a subtle sense everything has. As I say - surreal.

And now it's spring, the cherry blossoms are on their way, and I think everyone's wondering the same thing: Is it appropriate to just let our hair down and celebrate, with all that's happened recently and that which continues to unfold up north?

Why am I even bothering to write about this here? Isn't it so damned trivial in the grand scheme of things?

To be honest I haven't got the faintest idea, but I find myself beginning to believe that to celebrate would be some kind of collective catharsis. Perhaps not partying quite so hard - in normal circumstances hanami banquets often stretch from daytime into the night (when the name of the jaunt is changed to yozakura, or night sakura), and lanterns dangle all about for people to continue drinking and warble prolific - but all the same sitting with friends, having a drink or two, and just plain celebrating the here and now could be a godsend.

After all life, as it turns out, can be as fleeting and transient as the cherry blossoms themselves, which often bloom and fall in the same week.

Besides, I'm going to throw in my favourite (anonymous) haiku here. When it's hanami season you need sake, and the two combined are part of what makes Japan truly special - especially at times of adversity like these (currently) are:


酒なくて
何の己が
桜かな

Without sake
what is the use of
cherry blossoms?

More Ado About Japan

Mad.

Unless you’ve had your head buried deep inside some sandbox in a place a million miles from the nearest social network or wireless connection, you’d already know precisely what I’m leading into - or if you'd bothered to read the entry immediately beneath.

So let's get straight into it.

On Friday March 11th, at around 2:45pm local time, the east coast of Japan was hit by an earthquake that tipped the scale at around 8.9 – 9.0 on the Charles Richter magnitude charts.

I’ve since learned that we survived the fourth or fifth biggest earthquake in recorded history, and the worst ever in Japan – which is one of the world's most seismically active places.

But Tokyo was lucky compared with other places in this country just north of our city, like Miyagi Prefecture.

Straight after the earthquake there were tsunami waves of up to ten metres (33 feet) that struck the Pacific coast north of Tokyo, ploughing inland up to a dozen kilometres – sweeping away the towns and cities along the way.

The footage has been so surreal: That tsunami rapidly filling the streets of the city of Kesennuma as people watched (and filmed) from atop hills; cars and air-conditioning units bobbing and floating by, followed by houses that started moving and weaving between overturned boats; the aftermath with ships and trucks on top of highways and houses. It was like looking at The Day After Tomorrow rolled up into Dante's Inferno.

But the sad truth is that it isn’t surreal at all. This is no dream. It’s been neither fiction nor the unrealistic segment of a disaster movie – it's cold, hard reality.

Somewhere around 10,000 people have been killed, though no-one knows the true extent of the fatalities even now – at the time of writing this – seven days after that initial disaster. Our thoughts go out to all the people affected.

But I say “initial” disaster, because we’ve since suffered aftershocks numbering in the hundreds and varying in intensity depending on the area. The other night night in Shizuoka, near Mt. Fuji, there was another earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4.

I got woken up by an aftershock at 5:00am yesterday morning - rattling doors and shaking bed. When we went to the supermarket almost half the shelves were empty as people are stocking up in case of another emergency.

And yesterday my daughter and wife flew down south to join the in-laws in Fukuoka.

It makes me far happier to know they're safe(r) - especially since there are the melting-down nuclear reactors at Fukushima, 170 miles north of Tokyo.


These babies were initially damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, and are currently out-of-control, spewing forth radioactive particles that are being felt as far south as, well, here in Tokyo.

This past week has been a little too close to home, and I say that not just because I currently live in Tokyo. The quakes and shakes this time were real, not cheap FX on celluloid with high-definition surround sound.

It’s eerily like the plot in Sakyo Komatsu’s novel Nihon Chinbotsu (Japan Sinks) – I saw both the spin-off movies made in 1973 and 2006 – but defies the page or the artificial image of a viewfinder.

Real people have died, and thousands of other bona fide human beings have lost loved ones and friends. They’re destitute, lacking basic provisions, and braving up to zero-degree temperatures up north.

This is going to take a long time to clean up and forget.

And while the Japanese people here have been astoundingly resolute – not here the looting and general mayhem on the streets you see in other lesser disasters elsewhere in the world – it's a mind-numbing situation and an emotionally debilitating one to see this country and these people go through all of this.

In the meantime the best thing to do as hang onto the coattails of a sense of humour about it all – and gaze somewhat wistfully at the Japanese kanji "kibou", which means “hope”.

Which brings me full circle to some untimely, self-indulgent navel-gazing... but I guess that's what blogs are all about, especially ones like this which have only a couple of entries anyway.

Amidst all this madness I'm releasing my novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat, which is coming out through Another Sky Press in the U.S. on 31 March.

As previously mentioned here it's a sci-fi/noir tome that's set in Melbourne, Australia, but mostly rewritten here in Tokyo and heavily influenced by my 10 years in Japan.

I'm going to stop with the hype right now. It tastes wrong. If you're interested at all in checking out the novel, fantastic - thank you. If not, that's cool too - but please think in some way about how, in whatever small or seemingly inconsequential way, you can assist Japan. It all helps.

Rant out.

Japan Quakes

OK, so I've seen my fair share of Japanese disaster flicks; in fact I'm a fair bit of a fan.

I loved Godzilla movies when I was a kid - the way in which he walloped little balsa-wood versions of Tokyo and Osaka - and I still DJ out the awesome theme song to Mothra (モスラ, 1961), written by Yuji Koseki and sung by The Peanuts.

But yesterday was a little too close to home, and I say that not just because I currently live in Tokyo. The quakes and shakes this time were real, not cheap FX on celluloid with high-definition surround sound.

Just before 3:00pm yesterday I was with my five-year-old daughter at her music class, in a building several storeys high; that's when the first quake hit - and it was the worst tremor I've felt in the 10 years I've been living in Tokyo.

The place was literally bouncing and rocking like a small boat in a very big storm. Women were sheltering their kids and diving under tables, but the staff handled it all with aplomb, handing out blankets and helmets as we went through another couple of big aftershocks.

Thank god my wife was OK too and we all got home safely.

My mate Devin tells me we just survived the fifth biggest earthquake in recorded history. Zounds. This doesn't make any of the sights and signs on the news easier, however.

From the 24-hour televised images we're seeing of Miyagi, it's like The Day After Tomorrow rolled up in Dante's Inferno.

Awful stuff.

Smoking Out Old Tokyo

One of the things I can't help doing over here is seeking out the trace-elements of old Tokyo, hardly an elementary pastime since much of this has been removed by the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, the carpet bombings of the mid '40s, assorted fires, and the rapid pace of reconstruction and renewal that Tokyo willingly submits itself to every day.

Today I discovered these gems in Shintomi, not more than 100 metres from Ginza - one of the most luxurious shopping districts in the world and the most expensive real estate in Japan.

Old shanty houses round Okusawa

As a city, Tokyo isn't really known for its affection for old buildings.

Aside from the fact the historical structures in this metropolis were either (a) destroyed in the big 'quake of 1923 or (b) carpet bombed by the U.S. Army Air Forces in WW2, and the fact that there's an ongoing risk from further earthquakes, the residents themselves (generally) seem to see buildings 25 years or older as eyesores - in the way of modernization or funky new apartment blocks.


So, aside from areas where you can find lots of history, like in Yanesen, near Nippori, it sometimes feels that Melbourne, a 162-year-old city, has more preserved "real" history than Tokyo, a city that's in its 406th year as a capital - but was a village before that.

In Okusawa (in Setagaya-Ku), a fairly expensive residential area, there are some absolute gems of weatherboard houses tucked away around corners and down moldy alleys. For me, this reminds me that I'm in Japan, and not just another western city with McDonald's and 7-Eleven stores.

One of my faves was demolished a couple of years ago, however, and made into... a car park. The fate of the rest also doesn't look too promising; my theory is that once the elderly residents die out, their abodes will be razed and made into apartments.


Yesterday and today I set out to take some happy snaps for posterity, and here are just a few of these wunderbar places that give the local area... character.

Truth to tell, tho', I wouldn't choose to live in any of them in this 'quake-prone country and given the absolutely oppressive humidity in summer. Looking is another matter.