40-Minute Walk under Cloudy Sky in Sunday Afternoon
タグ: English
I went to Soto-sect Temple for Obon Pray on August 18
Though it was a thing one month ago, my mother and I went to a Buddhism Temple. There is a cemetery behind the temple, and my father’s grave is there. August 18 was a little late for “Visiting a Grave in Obon”, but I chose the date. I thought it was difficult for me to call a taxi because there are so many people coming back from Tokyo area to Niigata during Obon season. But August 18 was still a busy day for the taxi company. When I made a phone call in morning hours, the person of the company told me to call again in the afternoon.
The temple is located in the middle of vast area of Niigata Plain. It is surrounded by Rice fields, and I could see some orchards of grapes and peers through the taxi window. We didn’t get in the main hall this time, but I have got in the hall many times for memorial services for my deceased father. There are thick wooden columns in the hall. And the columns have color changes at lower position. The chief priest had once told me that those color changes are traces of flood in the old times. The temple is near to the Shinano River which is the longest river in Japan. Since the main hall was built 250 years ago, it must have been some occasions of flood.
My mother and I went to the cemetery behind, and I prepared for pray. I placed two chrysanthemum bouquets right and left on my father’s grave. And then I put a fire on a bundle of Incense sticks. But I could not put a fire on three candles because of winds. Since we were making the taxi wait for us, I gave up the candles. We prayed shortly and got back to the parking lot in front of the main hall. If we had left chrysanthemum bouquets on my father’s grave, we would have made the chief priest removed them afterwards. So, I took the bouquets, brought them in front of the main hall, and offered them to the big Kan’non Statue.
About a half an hour taxi ride took us home. That’s it for the grave visiting in Obon of this summer. By the way, I have a suggestion. It is to move the time of Obon season from August to September. It is too hot to go to a temple in the current Obon season. Thanks to the global warming, now the summer heat is more and more becoming dangerous to the old people like my mother. Japan’s Obon is held in accordance with the solar calendar. If we have Obon in the lunar calendar, we will be able to go to a temple when the temperature is more comfortable in September like Chuseok in Korea.
I made Three Bottles of Apple Jam using “Kougyoku” that I got in my Garden
An apple “Kougyoku” is a little sour. The apples are suitable to be processed with heat, rather than eating fresh. Since I had put three of them in refrigerator, I made jam in the early evening today.
There are many ways to make apple jam. Today I made it by grating the apples. Apple peels are rich in pectin, so, I wanted to use those peels in the jam.
Many cooking recipes on the web say that sugar must be 50 percent of weight. But I am not sure about this 50%; Is it 50% of weight of fruits, or 50% of the entire weight of jam? Anyway, I don’t have a cooking scale, so, I just put a lot of sugar in the pan by intuition. I think the sugar must be 50% of the weight of the jam in order to keep the jam longer.
Though I forgot to take a picture, I did “boiling disinfection”. I closed the lids of bottle loosely, put the bottles in a big pan, boiled water in the pan with gas fire, and then closed the lids tightly by my hands with gloves.
I got three bottles. I will use them for toast of my breakfast from tomorrow morning. It will save some cost of living.
Some have been harvested, some haven’t in the Rice Fields of Niigata, Northern part of JAPAN.
Today’s highest temperature was 31 Celsius degrees. It was still hot. But since tomorrow, the highest temperature will be below 30 Celsius, according to the weather forecast. Will it be the end of summer? I hope so. This summer was an extraordinary hot one. I have been feeling very bad through this summer because of the heat. I hope I will be able to be more active in this fall.
Nothing has to do with rice fields in Niigata, but I found a photo that I took just one year ago, on September 17, 2024. It’s “MOONCAKE”. I bought it in the supermarket in the campus.
Learning how to teach after quitting the job as a teacher
Today, in the morning, I worked in my field. When it comes to growing vegetables in this autumn season, there is not much thing remaining. But I still have one thing to do. That is to plant onion’s seedlings and garlic’s bulbs. In order to plant them, I need to make one more ridge in the field. It will be five meter long; three meters for onions and two meters for garlic. What is tough is to get rid of roots of weeds from the place for the ridge and furrow. Since the place had been untouched for two years, now weeds’ roots in the ground are like spaghetti.
I worked in the field from 8 to 9:30 am. and then I got shower. From 10, I was watching a DVD that is about teaching Japanese as a second language. Actually, I had brought those DVD with me to the campus during the years I was teaching in a university. Watching the DVD today, I regret that I should have watched while I was teaching in the university. There are a lot of tips for teachers to teach a foreign language. For example, there is a concept of MMC for beginner’s level; the first M is mechanical training, the second M stands for meaningful training, and C for communicative activities. Did I do that? Usually, I didn’t extend my teaching to communicative activities. And there was no clear distinction between mechanical and meaningful trainings in my teaching. I would like to improve my teaching skill, but I don’t see any chance to apply improvements to my teaching in the future. I have already retired from the job as a Japanese teacher.
I had planned to go shopping in the afternoon. But it was hot like 34 Celsius degrees. So, I didn’t go to a supermarket, but continued to watch the DVD about teaching Japanese in the afternoon. I practiced my piano from 4 to 5 pm, cooked a supper from 5, had the supper at 6:30, and then I went shopping. I got back home at 8 pm, and started writing this.
A Little Excursion to a Town of Next Railway Station
DIY store is called as “Home Center” in Japan. I just wanted to buy some items in a Home Center in the town next to my village. In this afternoon, I got on a local train.
I saw a lot of fruit trees were being sold in a store. Though I went to three stores in the town, I didn’t buy anything. I don’t know why. Something in my mind prevented me from buying commodities. I went back to the station, got on a train, and got to my home at around 3 pm.
I didn’t buy even one bottle of soft drink.
Sometimes I Receive a Message from my Students.
I bought a new smartphone last month. Before I went to the mobile phone store, I hadn’t known that a google account was necessary for android. So, I had to make another google account in the shop. If I had known this matter, I would have brought ID and password of existing google account of mine. In addition, I installed “LINE” for my mobile phone, which also increased number of Accounts. Now I have so many accounts for emails and SNS. I am not sure if I can handle all of them.
This morning, I found an email in one of my mail boxes. Actually, I haven’t noticed it for several days. I wrote a reply and sent it. If a message comes, I will write a reply. That is okay. But sometimes I also want to send a message from me to my students. In fact, I am not sure they are happy with my message. Some are happy and write a reply to me soon, but some students perhaps are unhappy, think it troublesome, and are reluctant to reply to me. They may feel it difficult to write a reply to a person who is thirty years older than they are. Basically, doing communication is good, but I have to be careful how I communicate with my students; who to send, how often, what to write, and so on.
Some day, most of my students will forget about me. It is okay for me. They will grow up as an adult, and devote to the day-to-day life in new circumstance. As for my side, too, it is impossible to remember all the students I taught. Time flies and memories will be gone. But for now, I think it is not so bad to send messages to my students, while I remember them well. Now I am thinking about writing one message to one student a day. I hope that my message would not be so troublesome for the student.
Rough calculation gives me the following; I taught students of seven grades (in six years). There were about 50 students in a grade. Therefore, approximately I taught 350 students.
I have Harvested Three Apples “Kougyoku” in my Garden
I am not sure, but according to a book, it says the apple Kougyoku is one of varieties which was obtained from the seeds of “Esopus Spitzenburg” of North America.
Today I got three from the tree in my garden. In total I have got four, and that is all for this year. Kougyoku apples are a little sour. So, it is better to cook with heat than to eat fresh one. Now they are in the refrigerator. I am thinking about making them jam.
Two Students sent me Messages on “Teacher’s Day”
I should say, I do not blame my students that only two students sent me messages on the so-called teacher’s day. I am always forgetting about the day until a student says “Today is the teacher’s day”. Anyway, I thank those two students who remember me.
(Let me say the following is not about “teacher’s day”, but about farewell at the end of the last semester. Actually, AI suggestion was confused by the change of the topics. Without mentioning this, a reader would also be confused)
Before I quit the job in July, I asked all the students not to give me any letters or present. It may sound like I was a cold-heart teacher, but the reason was simple. I didn’t have enough time to write a reply in the last days in the Campus. I am a person who always writes a reply to the letter I got. As for presents, it was hard for me to pack them into two suitcases.
But there was one male student who gave me a present that was a small-scale model of “Gandum”. I couldn’t put it into my suitcases. If I had thrown it, I would be really a cold-heart guy. I put it into a carton box with my books and asked another teacher (of that country) to send me from a post office.
Since this is the only “Figure” that I have, I don’t know how to display it. But it would be better to take it out from the case, to put them together, and to decorate it.
Strong Rain of Linear Precipitation Belt
I practice a piano from 4 to 5 pm these days. Today, too, and near the end of the practice, I was singing “Will you still love me tomorrow” with my piano accompanying. The song was composed by Carole King, and I was singing it in key-E with Roberta Flack’s version. I like the repeat of the (E) and (D on E) at the end of that version.
When I finished singing, I realized that it was getting dark outside, the sound of wind grew stronger, and it was like a storm’s coming. Looking through my window, I saw strong rain and trees were bent by the wind. I remembered that the window left open on the second floor. So, I went up the stairway and saw that a lot of rain drops were coming into my bedroom. I shut the window.
I feel that Climate change is real. We have had the hottest Summer these three years. I can’t go outside because of heat and strong sunshine for almost two months from the middle of July to the middle of September. Another change that I feel is how it rains. When it rains, it is not drizzle nor light rain. It’s terribly strong. I frequently hear a new word to describe a strong rain in weather forecast on TV. It is “Senjo-Kosuitai”, which is Linear Precipitation Belt. Probably, the strong rain of today also came from a Linear Precipitation Belt.
Now the climate is different from what I knew in my childhood and younger days. It seems that the change is not for good, I mean the hot summer and strong rains are both troublesome for us.
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