「文化人形」 Bunka Doll - sweet memories from Taishô

Ever heard about a Bunka Doll (bunka ningyô, 文化人形)?

Bunka Dolls were famous between Taishô (1912-1926) and early Shôwa Period (1927-1937). The doll's body and clothes are completely made from fabrics. Japanese fabrics (chirimen, 縮緬）are used for the clothes, but they are Western style clothes. Sometimes, traditional Japanese clothes are combined with Western elements and so on. During Meiji (1868-1912) and Taishô (1912-1926) Period, a lot of Western style dolls came to Japan. According to this influence, the Western elements in the dolls' clothes are mainly bonnets and other headpieces.

Recently, Bunka Dolls became famous again. You can find several homepages with nice pictures of Bunka Dolls, or instructions for making them by yourself.

 
Left & above: 3 cute Bunka Dolls from Chizuru no ningyô no heya 


Underneath: 3 other cute Bunka Dolls from Bunka Ningyô - Natsukashii Araka

Here you can find a Japanese "do it yourself" tutorial for Bunka Dolls with pictures: Bunka ningyô no tsukurikata

You fell in love with that cute Japanese Bunka Dolls?
On Yahoo!Auction, you can find some by  Bunka Ningyô - Natsukashii Araka -->Just follow this link! The auction starts at 3,000 Yen.
If you insert "文化人形" at the Yahoo!Auctions page, you can find a lot! Not only the dolls itself, but also the fabrics for the clothes are found there.

But there are also some online shops, which sell Bunka Dolls！

AKA HIME - Bunka Dolls, dresses, accessoires and other stuff for Bunka Dolls. A doll costs about 12,000 Yen (!)
Yokohama Doll Shop - Online shop for dolls, also sells Bunka Dolls, mainly in red dresses. Price about 4,000 Yen
Heart's Shop - Retro shop for Bunka dolls. Sells dolls in different sizes, prices are about 2,000 Yen

All pictures taken from  Chizuru no ningyô no heya and Bunka Ningyô - Natsukashii Araka

「花見」 Watch the cherry blossoms blooming

Hanami (花見, lit. "watching flowers") is a very known tradition in Japan.

In the end of March and the beginning of April, Japans cherry trees (sakura, 桜) begin to bloom and visitors - Japanese and Non-Japanese - will make a picknick unter the beautiful pink and white blossoms with their co-workers, friends or families and beloved ones.

This 'picknick under cherry blossoms' is very famous and recently the term Hanami is also know outside of Japan.

How to do a Hanami? This is quite simple!

Usually Japanese go for a Hanami on a Sunday, because most of them have their day off. The most favourite location for Hanami is a public Park, like Yoyogi Park or Ueno Park in Tôkyô. Ueno Park is really popular and you hardly find free seats under the cherry trees. Yoyogi Park is very popular among young people, because the park is located next to the fashion-district Harajuku and on the bridge Meiji jingu-mae cosplayers and otaku from Japan and all over the world come together.

Very typical for a Japanese Hanami are the blue sheets (available in different sizes at any 100-Yen Shop). Groups of five to ten people or more sit on them under the pink or white cherry blossoms and enjoy a picknick together. Mostly with a lot (and I really mean a lot!) of alcohol, like (Japanese) beer or sake (Japanese rice wine, お酒).

「抹茶」 Japanese Green Tea

Ever tried Japanese Green Tea - matcha 抹茶?

Matcha is powdered Green Tea and can be used in various delicious ways. Originally, Matcha is used for the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, the tea's colour is an intensive green and Matcha has a slightly bitter taste. Within the Japanese tea ceremony, Matcha is served together with typical Japanese sweets (和菓子, wagashi).

However, the Japanese food industry invented also other products with Matcha, like Matcha chocolate, cakes, cookies or even drinks. 

A 'Matcha Frappuchino' is available at Japanese Starbucks stores, and also other coffee shops in Japan offer drinks like  'Matcha Latte' (frozen, iced or hot). 

A note on: The costumes of Eiko Ishioka

Eiko Ishioka

Eiko Ishioka is a Japanese costume designer, born on July 12 1939 in Tôkyô. 

She is very famous for her designs and in 1992 Ishioka won an Academy Award for her costume design in Bram Stoker's Dracula. (Indeed, Mina's red dress is very famous)

(Some of) her designs for movies:

Mishima: A life in four chapters (1985)

Closet Land (1991)

Dracula (1992)

The Cell (2000)

The Fall (2006)

Teresa, el cuerpo de Cristo (2007)

Stage costumes:

Madamma Butterfly (1988)

The Ring of the Nibelung (1997)

Cirque du Solei: Varekai (2002)

and more...

Here are some selected pictures of her designs and you can easily find them on google ;P 

The Cell

Mina's dress in 'Dracula'

There are also different photobooks of Eiko Ishioka's designs, but they are quite expensive. You can search for them on Amazon. (Prices around $180 and $235+..)

I personally like Ishioka's work, because it has something of a 'gothic touch' and is really interesting. ;P I like the combination of Western dress (especially Victorian and Gothic style) and Japanese/Asian dress. Ishioka seems to like the colour red and uses it quite a lot. I think red x white or red x black is great for the eye. 

However, Ishioka isn't alone, other Japanese fashion and costume designers seem to have an interest in old western clothes and gothic style... For instance, Yohji Yamamoto, who loves the colour black, or Issey Miyake, Hanae Mori ... ;P

I just named the most famous Japanese designer, but there are lot more of great fashion designers in the land of the rising sun. Maybe next I'm, I'll give a note on the other designers, too. ;P

Going to the cinema in Japan: Ticket

Some (hopefully) useful tips how you can enjoy a great afternoon or evening at a Japanese cinema ;P

Going to the cinema in Japan: Getting the ticket

Of Course the first thing you need is the ticket. The cinema ticket in Japan is quite expensive, about 1,800 Yen per Person. Normally there are no discounts for university or high school students in Japan, but some cinemas do offer university students discounts! ^^ The most inexpensive ticket is about 1,000 Yen - for ladies only available at the so called 'ladies day'. In the majority of Japanese cinemas, wednesday is 'ladies day'. Depending on the cinema, 'ladies day' could be at another day.

I want to intodruce the ticket shop Daikokuya and two big cinemas in Tôkyô, Shinjuku (Piccadilly and Wald9). 

「HACHI 約束の犬」 Hachiko: A dog's story

During my exchange year in Tôkyô, I heard that Richard Gere is a fan of the dog Hachikô and plans to make a movie about the dog's story. In August 2009, I could watch his new movie 'Hachiko: A dog's story' (Japanese title: HACHI 約束の犬) in Japan. So I'd like to intodruce that movie...

「HACHI 約束の犬」 Hachiko: A dog's story

Directed by: Lasse Hallström

Produced by: Richard Gere, Bill Johnson, Vicki Shigekuni Wong

Starring: Richard Gere, Joan Allen, Sarah Roemer, Eric Avari, Jason Alexander

Country: United States

Language: English

Release (Japan): 8th August 2009

Release (US): 18th December 2009 


Japanese Homepage 

「外人だから」 Being a foreigner in your own country...

This time, I won't write about youth and subculture in the classic sense, but about another cultural phenomenom which appears among (young) Japanese people. Even non-Japanese speakers know the word 'gaijin' (外人), short for gaikokujin (外国人) and it's very often used with a 'slightly' negative connotation. 

As Japanese are so used to that word and the majority of non-Japanese speaking foreigners in Japan always uses that word to describe themselves, most people ignore the negative meaning of 'gaijin'. I personally, do dislike the word 'gaijin' and always use 'gaikokujin' instead. It is much more polite. 

Another version of the 'g-word' is 'gaijin-san', with the word 'san' for mister/miss. Miss Gaijin isn't much more polite than gaijin alone, but many young Japanese don't get it.