Ku-ri-su-ma-su

There are some lovely things about Christmas in Japan – the dramas on tv that tell romantic stories of couples who may not have known how deep their love was until Christmas night when they find themselves realizing what the true meaning of Christmas is – it’s all about dating a cute girl in a fluffy outfit who is standing outside at night in a brightly lit Christmas scene with perfect makeup as snow begins to fall gently.   It is, as the Japanese say, ro-man-ti-ku.

In Japan, people also like a good Christmas Cake  -  these are usually wonderful concoctions of whip cream and strawberry goodness.   Sounds like a better option over sticky lumpy fruitcake.

Then there’s the KFC tradition of ordering a fast food chicken dinner with all the fixings to devour with your family on Christmas night.   Mmmmm….  I don’t know when this started but it’s not a bad idea!  Sounds pretty good about now as I think about the many hours of cooking I have ahead of me when my family comes over on Christmas.

Why is Christmas so popular in Japan?  Not sure, maybe because Santa’s outfit has the same colors as the Japanese flag?  In fact, KFC, Santa, Strawberries & Cream and the Japanese flag… Wait a second, what do these all have in common?  The color scheme!  Wow.  I can’t believe I just figured it out.  Now on to global warming!

But before I solve that, I also have a theory about why Christmas is a romantic holiday in Japan – because everywhere you go, you can’t get away from Mariah Carey singing, “All I Want For Christmas” and George Michael singing “Last Christmas.”  These might be the official Christmas songs in Japan, not “White Christmas” or “Jingle Bells.”  You’d be hard pressed to find a Japanese person under 40 who didn’t know either of these Christmas pop songs.

The holiday season is fun wherever you go.  It’s the end of the year so people all around the world feel a little nostalgic, a little rejuvenated and maybe a little stressed out.  For us, it’s the busiest time of year as we try to supply all our customers with all the sushi sets they need to make their holiday season successful.  With just a couple of more shopping days to go, it’s always nuts but we are thankful that we are busy.

Happy Holidays everyone!  Enjoy your Christmas turkey, ham, roast or fast food chicken!  And may all your holidays be bright!

The Making of a Kokeshi Doll

A couple of years ago, Bob, our fearless leader, went to visit a Kokeshi doll factory and was given permission to take pictures and video tape some of the steps to make a doll.

I had these videos on our old blog but since that old blog died accidentally, I thought I would dig them up again to show how much work goes into making a Kokeshi Doll.  But while Blogspot will let you upload for free, they won’t let you recover a blog you accidentally deleted (oops).   And WordPress, while pretty in its templates, will not let you upload videos without paying.  So you see, I am at an impasse.  I will have to add the video upgrade fee to our marketing budget for 2012 and see what happens.   But in the meantime, if you would like to check out the videos, please visit our YouTube Channel.

I’ll add some still images here just to show you how much of an art form this really is.  And when you see the work and craftsmanship that goes into one, you will want to start your collection immediately!

First the trees are cut and the bark is removed.  The types of wood used are Japanese dogwood, cherry tree and chestnut.  They can’t just begin cutting it up.  It has to dry in the sun for 6 months to a year before they can do anything with it.  Then the wood is cut into thick slices.  The wood is then compressed and excess pieces are removed.

Then it is put on a lathe where the master craftsman uses a special tool to shape the head.  I would totally mess this up.

After each piece is prepared like this, they go through 3 rounds of sandpapering.

Some of the pieces also go through multiple rounds of painting as well.  The details are handpainted on each doll.

Engravings or carvings are also done by hand.  Then it’s off to be finished with two coats of a glaze to seal everything in.  They are then put on these poles that move around the room to dry.

Then the pieces are assembled and voila!  A perfect Kokeshi doll.

The factory also has a collection of many of their products throughout the years.  This company is in its 3rd generation (like us!) and the business along with the master craftsmanship have been carefully handed down.

Some of these older pieces seen here are amazing.  Unfortunately, the original owner of the factory used to make these and after he passed, they have not been able to find someone with his skill level to make these same shapes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some others from their collection on display only:

These last two still have their original branches intact!

A beautiful art form!  And that concludes Art Appreciation Thursday.

Chopstick Etiquette

As one of our gift ideas, I wrote that our bowl sets with chopstick notches are great for those friends you may have who insist that you do not stick your chopsticks in your food when taking a break from eating.  You have a predetermined notch on which you can rest your chopsticks.  So I thought it would be a good idea to explain why sticking your chopsticks in your food is considered rude.

Bowl & Chopstick Set of 2 - complete with notches to hold your chopsticks! Fashion or Function? Why, YES!

Did you know there is an etiquette to using chopsticks?  And it’s different in each culture where one uses chopsticks so there’s a lot of thinking involved….  There are little ones I have heard of, such as not crossing the chopsticks, not sticking them in your food, not tapping them like drumsticks.  Please don’t tap them like drumsticks.  Unless you are Roger Taylor (I think I just gave away my age).

So I’ve researched a few and I have some links if you’d like to see some good ones but I’m going to copy the Wikipedia etiquette list since it is the most concise and I thought it would be interesting to throw in the Korean and Chinese etiquette when it comes to chopsticks too.  I’ve literally copied and pasted it so take it up with Wikipedia if you don’t agree with these!

Japanese etiquette

• Food should not be transferred from one’s own chopsticks to someone else’s chopsticks. Japanese people will always offer their plate to transfer it directly, or pass a person’s plate along if the distance is great. Transferring directly with chopsticks is how bones are passed as part of Japanese funeral rites.
• The pointed ends of the chopsticks should be placed on a chopstick rest when the chopsticks are not being used. However, when a chopstick rest is not available as it is often the case in restaurants using waribashi (disposable chopsticks), a person may make a chopstick rest by folding the paper case that contained the chopsticks.
• Reversing chopsticks to use the opposite clean end is commonly used to move food from a communal plate, although it is not considered to be proper manners.Rather, the group should ask for extra chopsticks to transfer food from a communal plate.
• Chopsticks should not be crossed on a table, as this symbolizes death, or vertically stuck in the rice, which is done during a funeral.
• It is rude to rub wooden chopsticks together after breaking them apart, as this communicates to the host that the user thinks the chopsticks are cheap.
• Chopsticks should be placed right-left direction; the tips should be on the left. Placing diagonal, vertical and crossing each stick are not acceptable both in home and restaurant manners.
• In formal use, disposable chopsticks (waribashi) should be replaced into the wrapper at the end of a meal.

Chinese etiquette

• In Chinese culture, it is normal to hold the rice bowl—rice in China is rarely served on a plate—up to one’s mouth and use chopsticks to push rice directly into the mouth.
• It is acceptable to transfer food to closely related people (e.g. grandparents, parents, spouse, children, or significant others) if they are having difficulty picking up the food. Also it is a sign of respect to pass food to the elderly first before the dinner starts.
• It is poor etiquette to tap chopsticks on the edge of one’s bowl, as beggars are believed to make this noise to attract attention.
• It is impolite to spear food with a chopstick, unless the food is difficult to handle, such as fishballs.
• It is considered poor etiquette to point rested chopsticks towards others seated at the table.
• Chopsticks should not be left vertically stuck into a bowl of rice because it resembles the ritual of incense-burning that symbolizes “feeding” the dead and death in general.
• Holding chopsticks incorrectly will reflect badly on a child’s parents, who have the responsibility of teaching their children.
• Serving chopsticks (公筷, “community-use chopsticks”) are used to take food from serving dishes. These chopsticks are to be returned to the dishes after one has served oneself, and are often a different colour from individuals’ chopsticks.

Korean etiquette

In Korea, chopsticks are paired with a spoon, and there are conventions for how these are used together.

• The elders pick up the utensils first, then the younger ones do.
• It is considered uncultured and rude to pick up a dish or a bowl to bring it closer to one’s mouth, and eat its content with chopsticks (except certain noodle dishes like naengmyeon). Dishes are to be left on the table at all times, and a spoon is used alongside chopsticks, if the food lifted “drips”. This is in stark contrast to Chinese and Japanese convention, which lifts up the rice bowl, often to the mouth.
• When laying chopsticks down on the table next to a spoon, one must never put the chopsticks to the left of the spoon. Chopsticks are only laid to the left during the food preparation for the funeral or the memorial service for the deceased family members, known as jesa.
• It is rude to use the same hand to hold both chopsticks and a spoon at the same time and laying the spoon down on the table while one uses chopsticks.
• Use a spoon to eat soup, stew and liquid side dishes, and chopsticks for solid side dishes. Either may be used for eating rice.

Here are some links to fun sites that elaborate on Chopstick Etiquette:

Just Hungry where it really needed to be said:  don’t stick your chopsticks up your nose.  very gauche.

All About Teaching English in Japan has a succinct list that includes a very important one – there is no 2 second rule when it comes to dropping your chopsticks on the floor.  Please, people, that’s gross.

What Japan Thinks – that features a fun poll about chopstick etiquette.

So, now you know.  And knowing is half the battle.

How to Care for Your Donabe

Many a cold winter’s night has been survived in Japan with a nice hot pot of something good cooked in a donabe.  I’ll add some recipes later but the most important thing about a donabe is to learn to care for it.

The donabe is a clay pot.  It can be used right on an open flame but you have to make sure the exterior of the pot is completely dry before it gets heated.  Otherwise, the material may expand and crack the pot.  Yikes.

The interior is usually coated so one can put liquids in there but please make sure that you do not start cooking anything on here with a very high flame.  This pot is not for flash cooking!  It’s for slow cooking stews and soups.

And please make sure there is some liquid in there when you have it on the flame.  You don’t want to heat it up empty.

When you first get a donabe, some places will tell you to boil water in it for a long time and let it dry completely before using it for the first time.  I’ve seen other places where they tell you to actually cook some leftover rice in it with water, making a porridge.  After an hour, let it cool, throw out the rice and rinse the donabe out.  Dry with cloth and let it air dry completely before using it the first time.   Other manufacturers suggest simply let some water sit in it overnight before using it.  And if you haven’t used it in a while, it may be a good idea to retreat this way.

But the reward for all this care in handling your donabe?  Good home cooked comfort food!

All our donabe can be used on an open flame or even in the oven.  Except for our white Kannyu Crackle donabe.  For this series, the cover should not be put in the oven.

Thanksgiving Contest!

Please send us a picture of our products in action from your Thanksgiving Feast!

Please post a picture on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/miyacompanyinc)  or email it to info@miyacompany.com. Put your cranberry sauce in one of our bowls, put your string beans on a Miya platter or have your pumpkin pie on one of our dishes! You can use one of our smaller plates to hold your pillar candles as part of your centerpiece!

Or if you don’t have any of our products at home (why would this be??!!) you can still participate! Just incorporate some Japanese food into your Thanksgiving spread and send us that picture! Why not? Miso soup can be good with turkey! Kabocha is a pumpkin too! You can still win!

The prize? This cute rice bowl and soup bowl set pictured here. It’s one of our most popular items and you can have it for free! (A $40 value)

We will be posting all the pictures online here and on Facebook. Good luck! We will pick a winner on Tuesday, November 28th so get your pictures in before then! Spread the word and don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page!

Iroha

One of our favorite sake sets is the “Hiragana” set.  The lettering on the set reminds us of the Iroha poem written back possibly when they only needed 3 digits to refer to the year.  This poem is especially unique because it uses each of the letters of the Japanese alphabet exactly once.  That’s called a panagram folks!  A panagram in English would be, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” which, with the exception of using the word “the” twice, uses each of the 26 letters of the alphabet just once.   Yes, that’s right, I remember something from school!  Go NYC Public Education!  The things I don’t remember are filled in by Wikipedia.

Anyway, the Iroha poem, because it is a panagram, was also used as an ordering system of the Japanese alphabet.   One can still find this ordering system in theaters where the seats are “numbered” in this way and musical notes are referred to as, I-Ro-Ha-Ni-Ho-He-To as opposed to A, B, C, D, E, F, G in English.  (straight from Wikipedia.)

So, I hope we all learned something today.  The least of which is that not only are our products beautiful to look at and practical to use, they also often have cultural value (that can be confirmed on Wikipedia….)

Why?

I just want to know why….
WHY?!! and WHO??!!

Talk about Curry in a Hurry!

I love Japanese curry.  Almost as much as my brother who devours it.  We used to call him Goldfish because of his curry addiction.  We heard somewhere that goldfish will eat and eat if there is food in front of them until they die because they don’t have any reflexes to tell them they are full.  Not sure if this is true or not, never researched it but it just makes us laugh.

Anyway, I love curry as much as the next guy but I look at this picture of perfectly good curry put in a dish that is shaped like a squat toilet and I can’t imagine ever craving curry again.  This image may stop actual goldfish from eating their own food.  I’m definitely showing my brother.

Japan is fun and a little kooky.

Kosui Series

Choosing a favorite design from our collection is like choosing a favorite child.  You can’t do it (well, you can, but you can’t really tell other people or they will think you are a terrible parent).

But one of our most popular series is the Kosui Series.  It’s been part of our product line for many many years but still manages to find their way into the hearts of new buyers everywhere.

The series is named for its color.  “Ko” is lake in Japanese.  You’ll find that names of lakes in Japan end in “-ko.”  For example, Lake Nojiri in Nagano Prefecture is called “Nojiri-ko.”  “Sui” means water.   The inspiration for the color of the series came from the color of a lake in the mountains.  Ko-sui = Lake Water.

 

The artisan behind this series is named Katsuro Takai.  He began the company which is now headed by his son, Hidenobu Takai.  Another family business!

 

The bisque is first made in a mold which is covered with a thin brown glaze.  Then the artisan sprays the green color glaze in the center and then edges the plate with another dark brown glaze.   The plate then goes into the kiln at about 1200 degrees celcius.  The result is a serene gorgeous piece that provides a nice backdrop to your favorite food.

 

Perfect to use for votive candles in your bathroom. The larger plate acts as a tray for the smaller square dishes that hold the votive candles.

The color of this series, as well as the Cobalt Blue made by the same company, has also captured the imagination of our bath accessories customers.  Many of the shapes and sizes are perfect for candles and soaps and blend nicely with bathroom designs.  I’ve even heard that they inspired the types of tiles chosen in bathroom renovations!

 

Enjoy the Takai family’s Kosui Collection!  Let us know how you like to use it!

Miya Logo

We’re trying to come up with a new logo that really suits us.  I googled the kanji for miya and came across this cool site.  It features municipal flags from cities around Japan.  This flag for Fujinomiya in Shizuoka below incorporates a cool graphic version of the kanji for miya which is normally this:

and they turned it into this:

Fujinomiya (Shizuoka): the kanji miya inside a cherry blossom with Mt Fuji petals

 

very cool.  Check out the other flags at pinktentacle.

Happy Birthday Dad!

This past weekend, we celebrated Bob & June’s dad’s 80th birthday!

Haru-san and his wife, Masako, are officially retired from Miya but the joke is on them because now we make them watch all our kids!  Retirement is not as easy as it looks!  For those of you who are long time customers, you may remember speaking with Masako on the phone.  We still get calls from customers asking, “Where’s Masako?” She has quite a following.  Well, folks, she’s currently putting my youngest down for a nap.  I hope.

Aren’t they a nice looking couple?  And yes, that is Haru-san’s real hair and he does not dye it.  Bob hopes he will benefit from the youthful follicle gene.   Must be the clean living!  and pink coconut snow balls.  He used to love those.

And we can’t have a party without Veniero’s tirimisu cake from NYC.  We love Veniero’s!  We should make a special Veniero’s edition Miya platter just to hold the tirimisu cake.  I mean, look at this – we have a warehouse full of tableware and the cake is on a box!  Did we run out of plates, people??

Happy Birthday Haru-san!