Old Japan slides - Part VII

Temple bell & sakura お寺の鐘や桜













Tour buses on Noto Hanto - 能登半島のtourバス

These buses were mere inches apart from each other as they inched through a small village. I clearly remember this time. We watched from our bicycles as the bus drivers negotiated the passage. There was no way to get around the buses, so we just enjoyed the show.


















Woman riding through Daitokuji
大徳寺で自転車に乗っている女の人

The temple known as 大徳寺 (Daitokuji) was a few blocks from where I lived in Kyoto. Everyday on my way to the subway and train to teach English in Osaka, I rode through Daitokuji on this very path.












Woman unloading a truck


















Nicole looking at the ocean on Noto Hanto
ニコルが能登半島で海を見ている


















Painters at a botanical garden

In Kyoto? Kanazawa? Not sure. I hung out at both beautiful gardens.


















Man repairing wall at the Gosho - 御所で壁を直す

From summer of '86 until Feb. '88 I walked or rode through the grounds of the "Gosho" (御所) -- the old Imperial Palace in Kyoto -- on my way to my Japanese language and calligraphy classes.


















School boy　中学生の男の人

Junior high school students in school uniform on a school outing. I can't tell where in Japan this was taken. Junior high school students go on school excursions to famous historic places, just like school kids in many cities around the world. This was sometime in 1985, 1986, 1987, or 1988.













Temple grounds at Kiyomizudera 清水寺

Kiyomizudera in Kyoto. Probably April since I see cherry blossoms in bloom.


















Alpine map - Japan - 山の地図

Rest stop, Japan Alps.


















baby 赤ちゃん


















Kojiki - a beggar - 乞食

Somewhere in Japan. Don't recall where. I remember asking Igarashi-sensei (五十嵐先生), one of my Japanese teachers in Kyoto, about the 乞食 (kojiki) I saw. I was surprised that kojiki existed in Japan. Her answer was that many kojiki choose the lifestyle and that some are quite well-educated, even graduates of the prestigious Tokyo University. In Juso Itami's movie, タンポポ (Tampopo), there is a wonderful scene showing the deep way of life shared by a band of kojiki and their teacher. While the movie is a satiric look at modern Japan, there is much truth to that scene -- and in the movie as a whole.













Logging

I think this logging region was on a river in the Japan Alps area.













Me & my "housewives" 私の主婦の英語のクラス

At the movies in Kyoto, Japan, with my English class (from left to right: Mieko, Yoko, me, Emiko, and Sayuri).

I called them my "housewives", but actually, Mieko was divorced, all four were taking classes in Women's Studies with a feminist scholar and historian at a local college, and Yoko worked with a women's cooperative in Kyoto that runs an organic macrobiotic restaurant (Biotei びお亭, still in existence today). Here, I asked them to pose in front of the movie theatre in which we went to see "Out of Africa" in Kyoto with Japanese subtitles. The movie had just come out recently (1985). The class stayed together for over one year. Here's a different view of my class.