Beaujolais Nouveau

I went through a floor of food shops in a department store. (We especially call this floor in department store "Depachika") There are a lot of people front of wine shop. Sale of Beaujolais Nouveau opened in November 20.

The word "Beaujolais Nouveau" have been heard in a decade and the day that Beaujolais Nouveau opens has been a big news recent years in Japan. And buying Beaujolais Nouveau is a trend. Anyway Japanese love new products and healthy foods.
Japanese media has been reported that wine was good for health. So drinking wine became very popular. We can buy wine of almost countries. France, Italy, Germany, Spain, USA, Australia, Chile, South Africa, etc. Yamanashi prefecture is very famous source in Japan.

I love drinking wine. Especially mature red wine. I like Italian foods. When I go to Italian restaurant with my friends, I usually drink wine. Wine can be foiled the taste of food and makes us happy. Also we can enjoy our conversation. Wine becomes a part of life for Japanese people now.

Japanese alcohol, "sake" is very delicious. I want to introduce how sake is excellent some day.

Rakugo

Laughing is very good for our health.
Now a lot of comedians (Owarai Geinin) are popular in Japan. Some comedy shows are on air. And they appears in quiz shows or variety shows. Manzai is one of style of comedy.
Almost comedians play Manzai or stand up comedy.

Rakugo is Japanese traditional entertainment like Kabuki. And it is not more popular than Manzai, however it is so classic but stylish. A person who play Rakugo,"Rakugo-ka". speaks wearing Kimono and sitting on Japanese cushion (Zabuton). He (majority of Rakugo-ka is male but a few female Rakugo-ka exist.) plays more than two people. And some props, folding fan (Sensu) and small cloth (Tenugui) are used in Rakugo. We can image different person by his speaking. We can see Rakugo at theater (Yose). Storytelling of Rakugo-ka is artistic.
Koten(Classical) Rakugo expresses life for people in Edo priod. I think that knowing old life is interesting enjoying the excellent storytelling. There are new stories of Rakugo.
I haven't seen Rakugo at theater. If I have a chance , I want to go to see it at theater.

Winner for Japanese Baseball League

Baseball is so popular sports in Japan (Since I'm not baseball fan, I don't know about baseball a lot.). Seibu Lions became winner of this year yesterday. Final in this year is Yomiuri Giants that is most popular baseball team in Japan VS Seibu Lions. The base for Seibu Lions is in Saitama prefecture. Saitama prefecture is next to Tokyo.

Baseball teams has a sponsor of company. The sponsor of Seibu Lions is Seibu group that is a huge in Japan and it runs a lot of companies, transportation, department store, hotel, real estate, or travel agent and so on. After Seibu Lions wins, big sale of the stores of Seibu group takes place and it is big event. A lot of people, especially women, wait for this event and go for a shopping.
Department store "Seibu" is located in Ikebukuro and Shibuya in Tokyo. I happened to go to Seibu in Ikebukuro today. As one expected, many people crowded into the store. I thought that women love sale.

After all baseball games finished, The atmosphere and illumination in town is for Xmas.

Konnyaku

Japanese food is healthy and it is remarkable food. Konnyaku is so healthy because calories are very light and Konnyaku includes a lot of dietary fiber. Since the color is gray, you might be confused whether it is possible to eat.
Konnyaku is like tough jelly and no taste. We eat it as ingredient of Oden or boil it and eat with miso sauce (Miso Dengaku). Also we call noodle of konnyaku "Ito Konnyaku" or "Shirataki". It is put in Sukiyaki.
There is a kind of snack that is made of Konnyaku powder. It is "Konnayku Jelly". "Konnyaku Jelly" is fruits flavor. It is just like jelly for dessert. Children like it.

Konnyaku is a food that I want to eat in cold season. I like especially Konnyaku of Oden. Autumn season changes to winter now in Japan.

Change

Two news were big topics in few days. One is a news that famous Japanese music director, Tetsuya Komuro, was arrested as suspicious for fraud. He is a talented producer who composed a lot of super hit songs in 1990. There are a lot of beautiful his songs. And I liked some his songs. He earned great amount of money and became super rich. But nowadays he gets into big mount of debt. His glory at that time might be actually too unnatural when I think the period now. Everyone was surprised and disappointed from hearing this news.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081105a1.html

Another is that new American president, Barack Obama, was elected yesterday. He is first African American president as you know. It got a historical day. The scene of his address in TV screen was like one scene in a Hollywood movie. His slogan for presidential election is “Change”

The period or our situation is always changing. It is inevitable that our situation changes more or less for everything and everyone.
There is a Japanese phrase,Eiko seisui, 栄枯盛衰. This means that the glory has not continued and it will fall into a decline someday. It’s like a tree or plant. And time goes by as the current of a river.

I think those news are symbolic of the word “change”.
Will our world change after new American president inaugurates? (although the change that he said was for American people)
I think that we have to accept the change, good and bad things.

Can you celebrate ? by Namie Amuro

This song is one of super hit songs of Tetsuya Komuro. I love it.

Ichi-go Ichi-e 一期一会

There are phrases that are composed by 4 Chinese characters in Japan. It is called "Yojijukugo". It is one of idioms. We sometimes use Yojijukugo in our conversation. It is very useful to express and explain situation or a precept easily. People who use Yojijukugo make an intellectual impression for other people.

I especially like Ichi-go Ichi-e in Yojijukugo. I looked over it in dictionary and I knew that the word is derived from Japanese tea ceremony, Sado. We meet a lot of people every day and experience various situations. However, the event might be one chance and we would not be able to meet them again. This means "Ichi-go Ichi-e" and we must appreciate the moment that we meet them any time.

Since there are a lot of Yojijukugo, it is hard to learn Yojijukugo and use them in an instant for even Japanese people. Japanese are very complex and it might be difficult to learn Japanese. However, it will be more interesting to know Yojijukugo for people who learn Japanese.

Japanese TV Drama

I like to watch Japanese TV drama series at night. TV drama is very popular in Japan. One season of each dramas is three month and one program is 1 hour. I don't know this period is short or long compared with other countries. However, three month is adequate period for me. We can watch these new dramas in January, April, July and October.
We can watch 5 commercial broadcasting. Each channels almost produces one drama in every night. So I think many dramas are made in Japan.

There are a lot of variations for contents, comedy, love story, mystery or family drama. Audience rating and theme songs for each drama is one of topics for people. As a trend of drama, young popular actors or actresses are lead parts. I watch three dramas in a week. One of member of popular super idol group, "ARASHI", Kazunari Ninomiya appears in a drama that I watch this season, "Ryusei no Kizuna". It becomes popular now. He appeared in Hollywood movie, Letters from Iwo Jima. The story is unique and very interesting. Theme song is "Beautiful days" that ARASHI sings. It will become hit song in near future. And I like a song "Orion" that are inserted in this drama.

Orion by Mika Nakashima

Mika Nakashima is very popular female singer and she appears in this drama as an actress.

In addition, I attached my favorite and recent hit song of ARASHI, "Kaze no Mukoe."

Japanese dramas are popular in Asian counties now. To watch Japanese drama or movies might be most useful way for knowing our lifestyle.