I came back from Kyoto the day before yesterday. Yesterday I was amazed to make it to evening without sleeping, and went to bed at a good and reasonable time congratulating myself on somehow having escaped jet-lag, or perhaps just never having adapted properly in the short time I was away. But no, I was glad too soon. Here I am at two in the morning, having for the moment given up on the night. I have my alarm set for 5:30 in the morning, to go for a hike - but I don't think that's going to happen after all.
Kyoto: I only had five full days there. The conference started with registration and a welcome party on the afternoon and evening of the second day, then papers for the next two and a half days, and a group outing and sayonara party on the afternoon of the third day. I left again at lunchtime on the day following that.
The picture above was taken during the outing, in a brief ten minute bid for freedom. That is, after spending nine hours a day for two days sitting in a large and hot conference room battling my sleepiness and understanding scarcely anything, I was happy on the outing just to find a brief space when no-one would notice if I walked off on my own. We were at Arashiyama, with a few minutes free before dinner. As everyone stood on the bridge, I walked under the trees down the side of the river, and just at the point that the path ran out, I found this night heron. They're not an uncommon bird in Japan - there are so many water courses even in the middle of the city that you can see lots of herons, night herons, and egrets. The night before, in fact, I'd taken a short walk down by the river in the centre of town between Shijo and Sanjo. It's a stretch with lots of little restaurants overlooking it, romantic, lantern-lit, and popular with couples (and schoolgroups too, at this time of year). Between two sets of couples sitting on the bank, I saw a tall heron standing with a large fish dangling from its mouth. It's not usual to see them quite so close to people - evidently the herons of Kyoto are more sociable than most. It's the night herons like the one in the picture that I love, though. Such a nice shape.
The conference was interesting, in that I met for the first time a large group of people who share an interest in the author I've worked on. However, I was the only one of twenty-two or so presenters (and yes, we almost all sat through every paper - this wasn't the standard pick-and-choose kind of conference where you can slip out for a few hours and do something more fun) who elected to do it in English. I'd sat down to try and work on it in Japanese, but translating from the English of my thesis is a task well beyond my capabilities, and writing it all over again from scratch was more than I could face in the time I had available. Anyway, once there I was also reminded forcibly that my listening skills are also not up to scratch. I can concentrate on spoken Japanese for about half an hour a day, it turns out, before I have to spend the rest of the day just sitting gazing blankly at the speakers and schooling myself in patience. To be honest, I'm pretty terrible at concentrating on these things in English, too, but at least with English I can drift in and out now and then and pick up the main points.
It wasn't all bad, though. There was a handful of us who had come in from other countries, all staying in the Kyoto Royal Hotel. I didn't spend as much time with them as I would have liked - in the evenings they went out, but I was felled early each night by the jet-lag. I was with them enough, though, to be able to say that they were the nicest group of people I've ever met at a conference.
The outing and sayonara parties were also good in many ways, even if I was feeling so worn out that I didn't appreciate them as much as I could have done. I was just getting back into speaking in Japanese by that time, though, and so breaking through the feelings of hopeless inadequacy that I'd been beset by in the conference room, into the more optimistic frame of mind that sees a point in keeping working at this. My language skills do get rusty very quickly, even if I think I'm maintaining them through teaching and reading for classes. I actually need to sit down and learn and relearn vocabulary, and to make a habit of watching some Japanese TV programs or news streaming.
We went to a temple in the Western hills, Yoshimine-dera, that I'd never heard of. It's a very large complex on the side of a hill, with a path to climb up past all the main sites and then back down again.
It was all densely green, of course, something quite remarkable after Colorado. It's quite different to Scottish greenery too, which is much more about grassy hills. Japanese greenery is luxuriant in a way that is almost threatening - turn your back for a moment, and it'll take over entirely. The mountains are covered in impenetrable woods, all types of trees vying together.
Yoshimine-dera also had a display of ajisai - hydrangeas - on a little hillside of their own that you could climb up and down. They were quite gaudy and unreal looking, but what could be better in a Buddhist temple than something that looks like a representation of the illusion of life?
It had the obligatory fish-pond with ugly koi, too.
Kyoto: I only had five full days there. The conference started with registration and a welcome party on the afternoon and evening of the second day, then papers for the next two and a half days, and a group outing and sayonara party on the afternoon of the third day. I left again at lunchtime on the day following that.
The picture above was taken during the outing, in a brief ten minute bid for freedom. That is, after spending nine hours a day for two days sitting in a large and hot conference room battling my sleepiness and understanding scarcely anything, I was happy on the outing just to find a brief space when no-one would notice if I walked off on my own. We were at Arashiyama, with a few minutes free before dinner. As everyone stood on the bridge, I walked under the trees down the side of the river, and just at the point that the path ran out, I found this night heron. They're not an uncommon bird in Japan - there are so many water courses even in the middle of the city that you can see lots of herons, night herons, and egrets. The night before, in fact, I'd taken a short walk down by the river in the centre of town between Shijo and Sanjo. It's a stretch with lots of little restaurants overlooking it, romantic, lantern-lit, and popular with couples (and schoolgroups too, at this time of year). Between two sets of couples sitting on the bank, I saw a tall heron standing with a large fish dangling from its mouth. It's not usual to see them quite so close to people - evidently the herons of Kyoto are more sociable than most. It's the night herons like the one in the picture that I love, though. Such a nice shape.
The conference was interesting, in that I met for the first time a large group of people who share an interest in the author I've worked on. However, I was the only one of twenty-two or so presenters (and yes, we almost all sat through every paper - this wasn't the standard pick-and-choose kind of conference where you can slip out for a few hours and do something more fun) who elected to do it in English. I'd sat down to try and work on it in Japanese, but translating from the English of my thesis is a task well beyond my capabilities, and writing it all over again from scratch was more than I could face in the time I had available. Anyway, once there I was also reminded forcibly that my listening skills are also not up to scratch. I can concentrate on spoken Japanese for about half an hour a day, it turns out, before I have to spend the rest of the day just sitting gazing blankly at the speakers and schooling myself in patience. To be honest, I'm pretty terrible at concentrating on these things in English, too, but at least with English I can drift in and out now and then and pick up the main points.
It wasn't all bad, though. There was a handful of us who had come in from other countries, all staying in the Kyoto Royal Hotel. I didn't spend as much time with them as I would have liked - in the evenings they went out, but I was felled early each night by the jet-lag. I was with them enough, though, to be able to say that they were the nicest group of people I've ever met at a conference.
The outing and sayonara parties were also good in many ways, even if I was feeling so worn out that I didn't appreciate them as much as I could have done. I was just getting back into speaking in Japanese by that time, though, and so breaking through the feelings of hopeless inadequacy that I'd been beset by in the conference room, into the more optimistic frame of mind that sees a point in keeping working at this. My language skills do get rusty very quickly, even if I think I'm maintaining them through teaching and reading for classes. I actually need to sit down and learn and relearn vocabulary, and to make a habit of watching some Japanese TV programs or news streaming.
We went to a temple in the Western hills, Yoshimine-dera, that I'd never heard of. It's a very large complex on the side of a hill, with a path to climb up past all the main sites and then back down again.
It was all densely green, of course, something quite remarkable after Colorado. It's quite different to Scottish greenery too, which is much more about grassy hills. Japanese greenery is luxuriant in a way that is almost threatening - turn your back for a moment, and it'll take over entirely. The mountains are covered in impenetrable woods, all types of trees vying together.
Yoshimine-dera also had a display of ajisai - hydrangeas - on a little hillside of their own that you could climb up and down. They were quite gaudy and unreal looking, but what could be better in a Buddhist temple than something that looks like a representation of the illusion of life?
It had the obligatory fish-pond with ugly koi, too.
Afterwards we went to a quiet little temple, Jizō-in, where we sat for a while and looked over the shady garden and fed some mosquitoes. Then to the sayonara dinner. This was in traditional Japanese style - a large tatami room with two rows of little tables on the floor, distantly facing each other, so that I felt as if I was in the funeral scene of the film Ikiru, and also as if I was viewing a representation of the Last Supper on the other side of the room. Women in light green kimonos came in and out, kneeling in front of us to give us a series of small dishes, and to keep the beer flowing. I gave up on vegetarianism for the few days I was there and ate fish, for the sake of ease - and lucky I did, because it was of course central to this meal. Good, too. Whenever I do eat fish, I wish it wasn't so good.
One thing I'd like to have had more time to do is to take photos of signs - street signs, shop signs, those little instructions on trains to tell you not to stick your fingers in the electric doors, those kinds of things. When I'm teaching, I often want to show students how you encounter words in Japan - what makes Japan Japan, for me, in fact, is always this visual aspect, all the words around me, along with the particular ways of expressing things (like the men who stand in the street at roadworks and wave flags all day to warn and direct the traffic - now they actually have electronic screens with representations of men standing and waving flags, and bowing their apologies). I took a few such pictures while we were on the outing, but I need to go back soon and make a project of it.
2 comments:
Glad to hear you left Kyoto feeling optimistic about your Japanese! I would have felt doomed after such a conference. Twenty-two papers?? I can't take more than 3 in a whole day.
Love your photos, esp. the night heron. What are they called in Japanese again?
To my shame, I didn't know the answer (must have done once, surely?). It appears to be goi-sagi (五位鷺). There's a story on the Japanese Wikipedia, from the Ookagami, saying that it got the name from a rank awarded to it by the Emperor Daigo for (from my quick reading) coming subserviently to him when his retinue had failed to capture it.
Post a Comment