Mochitsuki

Hi everyone,

This past weekend, I went to a Mochitsuki event at Takada Elementary. For those who don't know, Mochitsuki is "mochi making", and mochi is a chewy rice ball made from pounded sticky rice. The traditional way to make mochi is to pound the sticky rice with a large wooden mallet while another person flips the sticky blob around in the giant mortar. Here's me taking my turn on the mallet:

The mallet itself weighs somewhere between 5 and 10 kg, so it's not an easy task. The flipper has no walk-in-the-park either, as they need to grab the freshly cooked and scalding hot rice with their bare hands. They're also constantly scared that an inexperienced pounder (like me) might smash them over the head with a wooden sledgehammer. You can see the woman in the video flinch a few times...

After the rice has been pounded into a sticky white blob, the mass is transferred to a table where people break it apart and roll smaller mochi balls in rice flour. We got to try our hand at it, and my jacket ended up covered in stubborn rice flour.

Preparing mochi with the moms

At the end, we finally got to devour our creations. It was an all-you-can eat mochi extravaganza! The main course was mochi in a vegetable and chicken soup, which I believe is called "zouni" （雑煮）. After a few bowls of that, we headed to desert, which was mochi covered in a sweet soybean powder called "kinako" (黄粉).

Mochi soup - zouni

Mochi in kinako

In the end, we were stuffed to the brim with amazingly delicious hand-made mochi and had fun playing with the elementary school kids in the beautiful weather. Thanks a bunch, 高田小!!

Until next time...

Happy Halloween!

Hey everyone! Happy Halloween!

Although not nearly as popular as in America, Halloween is celebrated here in Japan. It was a nice excuse to make a costume and wear it to my classes. I decided to be Hanakappa, a children's morning TV cartoon character on NHK.

Hanakappa

My costume: aluminum wire frame & felt fabric skin

He's very popular among the elementary school kids, and he's well known among my middle schoolers, too. Only about half of my teachers (basically all the ones with kids) knew the character. I also decided to give the children an opportunity to wear the costume and perform the "hanasaki" dance in exchange for the chance to trick-or-treat and get candy. A lot of the elementary school kids participated and had fun with that one. I would love to show you all the pictures I took of kids wearing the flower and mask, but unfortunately I can't.

I also attended a JET Halloween party dressed the same way. As expected, basically none of the other foreigners knew who Hanakappa was, and only a few of the Japanese people there knew him. That's probably because they were mostly in their 20+ years and didn't have kids. However, I managed to get some attention in the streets walking over to the nearby convenience store. Smashed salarymen hobbling along the sidewalk pointed and smacked the person holding them up, saying, "Hey! It's Hanakappa!! Look!" Some of the older women just pointed and giggled. While in the convenience store, a younger couple walked in, and the woman walked straight up to me, pointed, and laughed her ass off. As they left, the woman gave me another giggle and a thumbs up.

On the night of Halloween, something really surprised me. My neighbor's kid came over and rang my doorbell. I cautiously answered my door, and the kid was standing there with his mom wearing a giant paper pumpkin. He yelled, "Trick or treat!" and I was so taken aback I nearly fell back into my apartment. I then told him to wait while I went back in and snagged a couple chocolates for him. In return, he said "Happy Halloween" and gave me a packet of rice crackers! Yay! Who would've thought that the first time I get trick-or-treated would be in Japan?

In any case, this is the first time I've dressed up for Halloween in many years, and it was fun to do it Japanese style! How was your Halloween?