Kurashi - News From Japan

Akira Miyawaki says: "Everyone in the world can be a major player in reforestation efforts to protect our own lives. (Under the Chinese kanji character system), if you plant two trees, you have created a hayashi or grove. Three trees make a mori or forest. Plant five trees and you have a shinrin or woodland. What if 6.5 billion people on Earth each planted 10 saplings? That could make a big difference. I'll continue to plant trees for at least the next 30 years until I'm 107." Miyawaki, winner of the 2006 Blue Planet Prize, has thought a lot about the state of Japan's forests, and developed methods to help restore forests both in Japan and abroad. "No matter how rich you are, you can't live without forests," he says. Kids help ecologist renew Japan's real forests

Tai-no-shio-yaki (grilled sea bream) is a special Japanese food for the New Year celebrations. The word "Omede-tai" (congratulations) is supposedly connected to this dish. I don't usually do food blogging, but the party last night was great, with lovely vegetarian dishes such as gomadofu (tofu paste made from sesame seeds). We also had French wine that Takahashi-san selected. Thanks Nora-san for showing your special collection of oil paintings and sculptures.

This will be a slightly unusual post, in the holiday spirit and whatnot. I get most of my visitors via strange google searches (my post about Tegomass has been a big source of hits recetly). I check it once in a while, so I noted that I had a visitor who came via a Belgian blogger, Vincent (cheers!) and I had a look at his site. Nice photos, and lots of intelligent ramblings in Dutch that I can just barely make sense of. He linked to Richard E Blauvelt 's site, where I found a fascinating reference to a diary called An American visitor to Japan 1923 . That sort of stuff really amuses me, so I had a click. Turned out the Blauvelt family history stems back all the way to the 1600s, when Sweden (unsuccessfully) tried to establish a colony in Delaware, aka the Americas: Gerrit, son of Hendrick, arrived at "The Rocks" at Swede's Landing, DE in March 1638 aboard the Kalmar Nyckel . He then traveled up the Hudson River to Rensselaerwyck. On 7 May 1646 he married Marretje L...

George Martin has made new versions of old Beatles' tunes on the album called (appropriately) Love . Here is a great track...

In Sweden, Christmas is celebrated today, December 24, not on the 25th. I called my parents earlier tonight, and my mother said she was hoping for a spiritual Christmas, ("andlig jul") which I thought was very nice. Since the introduction of television, life on Earth (hrm) changed almost as much as with the introduction with the Internet. Yes, 50 years later we are seeing a similar revolution, this time known as "Web 2.0". Heck, Time Magazine even put You on its cover this year, as a tribute to all the people with their own blog, who watches YouTube, sends digital photos and or "raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing". Good. In 1959, Swedish TV was very much a government affair, with a lot of political controls. A novel idea that particular Christmas was to broadcast "The Walt Disney Christmas Show". It had been produced in the US eight years earlier, a time gap that today seems totally insane. As Swedish TV viewers had been deprived of ...

The Ecologist has some good advice for anyone trying to have a green holiday, including a Seasonal Survival Guide . They also have a seasonally-adjusted contemporary Pantomime, by Paul Kingsnorth, a fun take on Jack and the Beanstalk . What I liked best was the recipe for Mulled wine, a drink we Swedes call Glögg - impossible to spell or pronounce in Japanese! What you need: 1 bottle red wine 60g/2oz demerara sugar 1 orange, halved 1 dried bay leaf 1 cinnamon stick grated nutmeg 60ml/2fl oz sloe or damson gin (optional) How to make: 1. Put the wine in a saucepan with the sugar, orange, bay leaf and spices. 2. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Add sugar to taste. 3. Take off heat and stir in the sloe or damson gin if you are using it. 4. Strain into heatproof glasses and serve immediately. In Sweden we also add raisins and blanched almonds, and some people like it with slices of (organic) oranges too. Och för alla mina svenska läsare runt om i världen kan jag inte låta bli att ...

I would like to direct any reader who might be so inclined to read a long interview about how the awareness about environmental protection gaining momentum in China. The rich consume and the poor suffer the pollution . Pan Yue, deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), also writes: In China, environmental protection is an increasingly pressing issue. Not only are pollution and ecological degradation becoming ever more serious, but also people are more and more unsatisfied about the situation. The speed with which we are polluting the environment far outstrips our efforts to clean it up. Why is this? China has a large population but few resources, and our production and consumption methods are too out of date. But at the root of the problem lies a more significant cause -- the lack of public participation in China. The initial motivation for the world environmental protection movement came from the public, without their participation it would n...