Anna Matsushita

  Please forgive this old person for indulging in a little reminiscence. Long ago, when I was young, I joined a travel company in Tokyo, near a famous temple. The temple had several tombstones belonging to famous samurai from the 18th century. As new employees, we were told by our senior colleagues that the tombstones were well known, even among tourists from abroad. They told us the story of the samurai, and out of curiosity, we paid a visit to the tombstones to recall those very old days when samurai were still part of Japan's history. The temple became our sanctuary during our lunch breaks. With the office almost refrigerated by air conditioning from early summer onwards, we escaped from the office and had lunch under a large tree in the temple grounds. The shade was wonderfully comfortable, and with the occasional breeze, we thawed ourselves out after being frozen in the office and enjoyed a leisurely lunch there. The temple was, indeed, a popular place for visitors from ...

  Please forgive this old person for indulging in a little reminiscence. It was more than twenty years ago.   For several years, due to ill health, there was a period when I was unable to work outside the home. Then, fortunately, I happened to find a good doctor, and I finally began to feel that I might be able to return to work.   If I were going to work again, I thought, it might be useful if I could speak at least a little English.   But in those days, there were no video-sharing sites, no social media, and not even internet radio. The only thing I could listen to, more or less, was what was then known as FEN, the radio service for American military personnel stationed in Japan. There were very few opportunities to come into contact with English at home.   So I started looking for somewhere near my home where I could practise speaking English. And that was when I found a teacher offering what was advertised as ‘500-yen English conversati...

  A few years ago, in a certain part of Tokyo, we found ourselves engrossed in gathering information about Cyprus as the night drew on. At the time, we were working for a small travel agency, and a client had approached us with the idea of creating a tour to Cyprus. We worked closely with our local partners on the island, while also gathering as much information as we could in Japan, all in an effort to craft a truly remarkable tour.   Cyprus, an island nation in the Mediterranean, lies just off the coast of Turkey. It is easily accessible, with airlines offering connecting flights from Japan. The island has long been home to many Greek settlers, and historically, it has fallen under the rule of several great empires: the Hittites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Roman Empire, Frankish Kingdom, Venice, the Ottoman Empire, and Britain. Like many Mediterranean islands, it is a crossroads of civilisation, where cultures have blended and shaped the land over millennia.   Cyprus boasts ...

    Nothing reveals cultural differences quite as clearly as food. Something considered a delicacy in one country can be described as “disgusting” in another. Forty years ago in London, I experienced both sides of this cultural divide. One day at school, a Swiss friend asked me, “Japanese eat raw fish, don’t they?” I said yes, and he replied, “Ugh.” How awful. How could anyone call something as delicious as sashimi “disgusting”? “Raw fish” does mean fish that has not been cooked. But the expression can also conjure up an image of someone taking a fish straight from a tank, a river or the sea and biting into it whole, head and all. I tried to explain by using Italian carpaccio as an example. I told him that Japanese people ate fresh fish cut into thin slices — sliced fresh fish — rather than simply eating a whole fish raw. I explained that fish carpaccio might be served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, whereas Japanese people dipped theirs in soy sauce. He seemed to get...

 In my early years, I resided in the Tohoku region of Japan. Near the housing complex nestled in the mountains, there was a forest where various fruits grew.   Among them, the mountain grapes held a special fascination for my young heart. Simply put, they looked delicious. Despite being warned by adults never to eat them, they seemed even more tempting.   During that time, I heard a folktale called "Saru-zake" (Monkey's Wine). It narrated a story of a monkey living in the mountains who hid the mountain grapes he had gathered in a tree hollow. Over time, it miraculously turned into wine. A woodcutter who discovered it tasted the wine, found it incredibly delicious, drank too much, and ended up drunk—such was the essence of the story, if I recall correctly.   This wine made from mountain grapes (Vitis coignetiae) is considered one of Japan's oldest alcoholic beverages archaeologically. Its origins can be traced back to the Jomon period, approximately 10,000...

 In 1990, I came back to Japan from the UK in an attempt to enter a university in Tokyo. Back in those days, high school qualifications from schools abroad were not readily accepted by Japanese universities. Even if you had completed A-levels or taken the SAT, you still had to sit a university entrance examination. Only a limited number of universities had special admission schemes for students who had studied abroad, so we were left with very few choices. I failed my first university entrance examination. I had not used Japanese for a while, and I was not familiar with writing essays in Japanese. It was quite stressful to write all those kanji characters by hand, hoping that I would not make too many mistakes—which, probably, I did. I took a summer course for students who had graduated from high schools abroad. It was designed to brush up our English and Japanese, as well as our essay-writing skills. After two months of intensive study, I became much more confident about writing i...

 It must have been about twenty-five years ago. Our colleagues and I had just graduated from university that year and landed jobs at a small travel agency. Specializing in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, the company thoroughly immersed us in the geography, history, tourist attractions, and various local cuisines of Europe through our work.   Among our colleagues were those who, during their student days, embarked on budget travels abroad, boldly exploring various countries. We exchanged experiences, learning from each other, and absorbed knowledge like sponges from our seniors, as we navigated through our daily routines.   At that time, my role involved researching travel ideas for sales outside by obtaining information from overseas branches. Information available domestically required my personal research, compilation, and storage. Despite the bursting of the economic bubble about five to six years earlier, Japan still had a thriving population eager for informatio...

Taste of forbidden drink Long time ago when I was living in the UK, I realized that cider (hard cider, or cidre) was available at pubs. However, when I go to the pubs with my English friends, they always tried to stop me drinking cider, saying “It’s not for young people” “Japanese won’t like it” “The Japanese people are weak on alcohol. Cider is too strong for the Japanese”. Those were their opinion, but I was baffled with their strong rejections. These English friends called themselves connoisseur of Japan, as all of them have lived in Japan for a bout year. They all rejected cider that it dose not match Japanese’ taste.  Looking back now, they probably experienced something uncomfortable when suggesting cider to the Japanese people. Possibly they did not want to let me down.  After long years passed from the incident, I finally found a chance to try British cider. A pub in Tokyo was displaying their drink menu on their website, and there were eight choices of cider. Recallin...

During the COVID-19 restrictions, I started another project: writing essays about drinks, mainly from Europe, Japan and the Caucasus. As someone who had worked in the travel industry, I had written many materials for my job introducing European drinks, including wines, beers, whiskies and liqueurs. The work involved a great deal of research on the internet, as well as actually trying the drinks myself. I felt it was important to experience the drinks firsthand, because I was introducing them to potential Japanese travellers who might encounter them abroad. I did not want to sound as though I was writing about something I knew nothing about. This time, I was able to spend more time researching the background of each drink. I found it fascinating to learn about the history of each one, the passion of the people who first created it, and the stories behind the businesses that developed around them. The main reason I chose this subject was that I wanted to continue researching food and dri...

 When I was young, I came across with a picture of two entertainers in Medieval Japan, called Kusemai dancer, and Shrabyoshi.   They were one of the prominent street performers in Medieval Japan, and they were mentioned in a book called “Seventy One Songs on Craftsmen", illustrating various craftsmen which was established at the end of 1500’s   Here is the link to the original painting of Kusemai dancer and Shirbyoshi. (On the bottle left) 狂言・能楽の歴史｜文化デジタルライブラリー (jac.go.jp)   (Kusemai dancer on the left, Shirabyoshi on the right )   能・世阿弥｜文化デジタルライブラリー (jac.go.jp) So, what are Kusemai dancer and Shirabyoshi ? Kusemai, also known as Mai-Mai (Roughly translated as "dance, dance") is a male street dancer, usually paired up with a singer, and dance while holding a folding fan. Shirabyoshi is a female dancer dressed in men’s clothe and sing song while dancing. Kusemai | the-Noh.com | Noh Terminology Shirabyōshi - Wikipedia   In a boo...