First, a video of the moya moya モヤモヤ cloudy bits churning around in the soup:

The video above was posted by a physicist who said he was so fascinated to find an example of convection in his lunch that he forgot to eat his soup. Bundles of hot molecules (called “convection cells”) are rising out of the interior of the soup to let off heat at the surface, then fall back down into the soup to be reheated so they can rise again to release more heat. If the liquid was clear, you wouldn’t be able to see this movement, but the suspended solids make it possible to track the movement. In Japanese, “convection” is tairyū 対流.

Here’s another video of the same phenomenon:

Finally, in the course of my research, I came across another miso mystery that I couldn’t include in my article for lack of space. Watch this bowl of miso trying to escape across the table! (Warning: turn down your volume before you click — Japanese restaurants in the U.S. must be loud!)

Can you explain how this happened? It’s hard to tell in this image, but the bowls used for miso have an indentation under the bowl. Air trapped in this cavity is heated by the soup in the bowl above, and starts to expand, lifting the whole bowl upwards. The bottom of the bowl or the surface of the table must be wet, reducing the friction between the bowl and the table, allowing the bowl to slide as it’s elevated.

Half-height platform doors on Tokyo Metro's Yurakucho Line (photographed at Ikebukuro station)

Lord knows there’s plenty of official mollycoddling in Japan, from the “mind your step” announcements played in an endless loop at the bottom of escalators, to the men in hard hats who bow us around even minor construction. As my friend Fumiko fumes when handled in such a fashion, “What are we, idiot children?”

In that light, I thought it would be interesting to point out that it’s not just Japan that wants to keep people from falling onto the tracks: similar platform doors are in use in at least 44 cities, mostly in Asia and Europe. First, here’s a photo of the platform doors on the new Line 11 in Barcelona, Spain:

And a shot of the Blue Line in Bangkok:

And one more, from London:

A view of Westminster station on the Jubilee Line extension

Newly installed doors at Ebisu Station on the Yamanote Line in Tokyo

If you can get to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography by Sunday Jan. 29, I recommend dropping by the elan photographic exhibit to see a remarkable set of photo-collages by Nishino Sohei. That’s his re-piecing of Tokyo above but a small blog photo doesn’t do it justice, believe me. See it in person if at all possible. There are eight other “diorama maps” in the exhibit, of cities in Japan and around the world that he walked and photographed, including New York, London and Istanbul. For more information, please see the access the review I wrote earlier this month for Japan Times.

Instead of cooking up the usual porridge, I decided to tweak the custom and put the seven herbs in my daily vegetable juice instead. I raided the nanakusa basket I wrote about in a previous post, and added komatsuna greens, parsley, celery top, yellow bell pepper, a cherry tomato, and the juice of one fresh lemon. I finished it off with a teaspoon of first-press natane abura 菜種油 (rapeseed oil), which I got on my recent trip to Awajishima. This oil is particularly high in vitamin E, which aids absorbtion of the nutrients in the veggies. I also added a pinch of mojio 藻塩, a gourmet salt made from seaweed. It’s also from Awajishima. If you’re interested in trying it, you can buy it on Amazon Japan by clicking here. It’s a great salt.

Here’s the finished product! Yum! And spicy! À santé! To health!

• seri (芹) – water dropwort (Oenanthe javanica)
• gogyō (御形) – jersey cudweed (Gnaphalium affine D. Don)
• nazuna (薺) – shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)
• hakobe (繁縷) – common chickweed (Stellaria media)
• hotokenoza (仏の座) – nipplewort (lapsana communis). The Japanese name is literally “Buddha’s seat”.
• suzuna (菘) – turnip leaf.
• suzushiro (蘿蔔) – daikon leaf.

The tradition is to make a rice porridge using these greens on Jan. 7. But that’s tomorrow and I don’t think I can bear to break up my basket arrangement to harvest the greens at home. So I’ll probably go buy a nanakusa set, which are widely sold in supermarkets, green grocers and department store food sections during the first week of the New Year. Here’s a photo:

Interestingly, my research on Okuri Hyōshigi led me to this book by Asuka Akio which claims that Okuri Hyōshigi and other Japanese ghost stories originated not in Japan but in ancient Jewish tradition.
The title is “Yudaya kara kita Nihon no Yōkaitachi,” ユダヤから来た日本の妖怪たち　(“Japanese Ghosts That Came from Judea”). This was so intriguing that I had to get my hands on a copy. (If you’re interested, it’s available on Amazon Japan by clicking here). I’m still trying to make my way through his argument, which cites the New Testament and gets into Freemasonry and pyramids. I’ll let you know if I figure it all out.

Finally, as promised at the end of my column, here’s a video, with some English subtitles and narration, that shows a typical Tokyo neighborhood fire patrol shot in December a few years ago.

This is a rare opportunity to see the Awaji puppets away from their home base on Awajishima, the largest island in Japan’s Inland Sea. I was there last week, where I got my first look at Awaji Ningyo Joruri 淡路人形浄瑠璃. It’s a very old form of theater that combines puppets with dramatic recitation and shamisen accompaniment. I saw a scene from a play called the Keisei Awa Naruto 傾城阿波鳴門. The figures cloaked in black are the performers manipulating the puppets. Three for each puppet. You’re supposed to pretend you don’t see them.

This art form evolved from the religious and ritual use of puppets. Once upon a time, puppet artists from Awaji Island were known throughout the country with more than 1,000 performers in some 40 troupes performing on the island and throughout Japan. Uemera Burakuken, who founded the Bunraku Puppet Theater in Osaka in the 19th century, originally came from Awaji Island. I’d love to see Awaji puppetry as it was traditionally performed, outdoors and by candlelight.

The Awaji puppet troupe has performed in the United States, France and Spain, but they don’t come to Tokyo very often. Their last performance in the capital was several years ago, also at the National Theater. Here’s a snippet of video from their 2008 performance in New York.

The performance on Friday January 27, which begins at 6:30 pm, will feature the following works: three acts from the play Tamamono no mae Asahi no Tamoto 玉藻前曦袂 — Michiharu Yakata no Dan; 道春館の段; Shinzenen no Dan 神泉苑の段 and Kitsune Nanabake no Dan 狐七化けの段. The program for the Saturday performance, which begins at 1 pm, is Ebisu-mai(Dance of the Fisherman God)戎舞; Amagasaki no Dan 尼ヶ崎の段 from Ehondai Kouki 絵本太功記 and Kuramayama no Dan 鞍馬山の段 from Okushu Hidehira Uhatsu no Hanamuko 奥州秀衡有鬙壻.

Tickets are 3,600 yen for one performance, or 6,600 yen for both. Student tickets are 2,500 yen per performance. You can reserve seats by calling 0570-07-9900 or 03-3230-3000 between 10 and 5. It’s also possible to order tickets online; check out these instructions first. Please note that the performance is listed on the English website not as the Awaji Puppet Theater but as January Japanese Folk Performance.

You can also see Awaji puppet theater pretty much year round on Awaji Island at the Awaji Ningyoza theater. (No English on the website, unfortunately.)

I couldn’t imagine how these udderly weird fruits would work in floral arrangements, so I went looking for examples. As luck would have it, there’s an exhibition on through December 25 in Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture. I called and got some photos:

This arrangement would make one heck of a bridal bouquet:

Bambi in the woods!

Nipple fruit as the seasonal decoration in a covered shopping street. Much better than the usual plastic flowers.

Nipple fruit in a wreath:

And just in time for Christmas….

Finally, in the “Only in Japan” department, here’s Tsunonasu-kun! (“Mr. Nipple Fruit”)

Many thanks to the JA Bihoku agriculture cooperative for the photos above. I’ve got a few more examples found elsewhere: the arrangement on the left graced the reception desk at a dentist’s office.  On the right, nipple fruit paired with roses:

I close with this unusual horizontal arrangement (with persimmons) displayed at the Floral Museum in Chiba Prefecture:

I decided what that balcony needed was a Japanese garden. And what I needed was a Japanese gardener. Fortunately, I knew one because I’d interviewed him a few years ago for this column in The Japan Times. Shimizu Takayuki 清水隆行, a licensed landscape architect and gardener, came to look at my ugly balcony. He said he could help.

And here is the result, installed last week:

And a closer view:

Needless to say, I’m thrilled. This is yet another Adventure in Columning — when work on my column leads me in new and exciting directions. Shimizu-san’s company is called Midori no Machi Kōbō 緑のまち工房.

Sony was founded in 1946 by Ibuka Masaru and Morita Akio as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Co. The archive pays tribute to their visions and successes, but doesn’t shy away from a failure or two, including the prototype electric rice cooker in the photo above. When the war factories closed down, there was a temporary surplus of power in Japan. Ibuka tried to dream up appliances that could be powered by this electricity to make everyday life easier. He made this rice cooker by fixing a primitive heating element into the bottom of a wooden bucket, but fluctuations in the electricity made the cooking process unreliable. The rice came out overcooked, undercooked or generally nasty. Thank goodness they didn’t take that one to market.

I saw a lot of old friends among the Sony products from bygone years, including the stereo receiver my father had when I was in high school. I was tickled to see the ICC-500 Sobax “electronic abacus,” a desktop calculator launched in 1967. It’s the size of a portable typewriter and cost a whopping 260,000 yen (over $3,000 at today’s crazy exchange rate).

The Sony Archives is a 15 minute-walk from JR Shinagawa Station in Tokyo and is open 10 to 5 weekdays only. It’s free. Call ahead for a reservation — 03-5448-4455. Everything is in English as well as Japanese, and whoever wrote their English did a brilliant job. I’ve rarely seen such good, readable English in a Japanese museum. Geeks can pull out the drawers to get more detail on technology. Don’t miss the reel-to-reel tape recorders.