Mochi Tsuki 餅つき

餅つき (read: mochi tsuki) literally means mochi pounding, refering to the traditional Japanese festival where people pound the glutinous rice in a big wooden mortar with large wooden hammers/mallets. Last Tuesday, Japanese class ended 30 mins early especially for this school-organised mochitsuki event held at the beautiful Okuma Garden, and they even specially invited several sumo wrestlers down to perform the mochitsuki. 2 people pound the rice with a rhythmic step and shouts, and the rice soon becomes the sticky mass the eventually becomes mochi in various forms. Mochi is traditionally eaten in Japan all-year-round, but especially during New Year's.


(Rashaaa! Trying my hand out at pounding the glutinous rice into mochi!)


Besides allowing the students to try their hands at the pounding, they also gave out the freshly pounded mochi in a variety of ways - with red bean paste, with finely grounded peanut, with nori and shoyu or in soup. I loved the peanut and red bean one best! I ended up taking 3 plates' of these. =P

Mochi with (left) peanut, (right) nori seaweed and shoyu..

Mochi with (left) peanut, (right) red bean paste.

Waseda Sai 2009

Seems to be a tradition here for universities to have a University Festival (大学祭daigakusai) - nobody I've asked so far knows why though. So Waseda's was held on the past weekend (7th and 8th Nov) and we dropped by on Sunday since Saturday was spent at Hadano (one post before the previous). Met Chuan and his girlfriend Yihe at the festival too. Haven't seen him in so long - he said 10 years? Anyway they were really nice but the Festival was so crowded that it didn't really facilitate much interaction. So what was there at the school festival? Food stalls, game stalls and alot of performances, even concerts which had sold-out tickets. We barely stayed an hour before the boredom and the crowded-ness took its toll. Pictures below:



(Angklung Performance - they played Bengawan Solo.)

(Just a peak at how many people there were at the Festival, seeing how this was only one small (and filled with people) part of school. Some of the soldout concerts were held in that building behind - Auditorium.)


(Saris and Indian dances in Japan!).


(Abit of Uzbekisthan in Japan).

Shigenobu Okuma

In view that yesterday was a holiday - Founder's Day - hence this shall be a post on the founder of the School, Shigenobu Okuma, as well as a little bit on the School's history.

Shigenobu Okuma was a samurai scholar and twice former prime minister of Japan during the Meiji and early Taisho period. He was in charge of foreign affairs, then monetary reforms and finally made Minister of Finance in 1870. Some of his contributions include taxation and property reforms, unification of the nation's currency, creating the first national mint and setting up a separate Ministry of Industry. He was dismissed in 1881 due to inner conflicts with the Satsuma and Choshuu cliques. In 1882, he not only co-founded his political party, but also set up the Tokyo Senmon University (later renamed to Waseda University in 1902). He was again appointed to Ministry of Foreign affairs in 1888, particularly to deal with the problematic issue of "unequal treaties" with the West, and many people felt that the resulting revisions were too conciliatory. In 1889, a member of an ultranationalist group Genyosha attacked Okuma, and resulted in Okuma's right leg being blown off by a bomb. Okuma retired from politics then, but returned again for a year in 1897 as Foreign Minister & Minister of Commerce and Agriculture. 1898 saw him merging his political party with another, and was then appointed Prime Minister by the Emperor to set up Japan's first ever partisan cabinet. However, the new cabinet only lasted 4 months, before falling apart due to internal conflict. He remained the party leader until 1908.

1914 was the year of the Siemens Scandal and the Yamamoto Government was brought down as a result of the scandal. Okuma returned to politics, gathered a coalition party and won a majority victory. A few months later, Japan declared war on Germany and thus entered the WW1 on the Allied party side. Then Prime Minister Okuma was also involved in the drafting of Twenty One Demands. However, this administration also fell in 1915, with the exposure of the Oura scandal. Okuma finally permanently retired from politics in 1916.

A picture of Okuma Shigenobu statue at Waseda, facing the Okuma clocktower and Auditorium.

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History of Waseda University

Founded by Shigenobu Okuma in 1882, the University was initially Tokyo Senmon College but was often called by the locals as "Waseda Gakkou" (Gakkou = 学校=がっこう=school) or "Totsuka Gakkou" as Okuma's villa was in Waseda, whilst the school was located in Totsuka. In 1902, the college was awarded full university status and renamed Waseda University.

Some Titbits about Waseda
- It is apparently the only school in the world to have a square academic cap.
- It's alumni includes 6 Prime Ministers.
- The University Library and the Okuma Auditorium are designated as cultural assets in 2007.
- Haruki Murakami is from Waseda. As are a few other notable authors, sports athletes, CEOs (Uniqlo, Honda, Toshiba etc) and even founders of prominent companies (Samsung, Nintendo, Lotte Group etc).

Waseda- Rikkyo 2nd Leg - Autumn Match

Apparently the big 6 of Tokyo - Waseda, Todai, Hosei, Rikkyo, Meiji and Keio - hold a baseball league tournament every Autumn and Spring. So we (Rachel, Wanwei and I) caught the Waseda-Rikkyo match today at Jingu Baseball Stadium.

Waseda lost 0-4 but what an experience it was. The cheering (and all the accompanying hand actions) never stop; and I mean never. Everytime Waseda bats, the whole crowd of supporters stands up to cheer and sing. Everytime Waseda pitches, we get to sit, but the cheering goes on, mostly for the pitcher. They even have specific cheers for "strike", "3 strikes" (2 strikes), and "change" (2 outs, 2 strikes).

School song was sung twice - once midway and once at the end - and the "Deep Blue Sky" song was sung like 4 times at least. They're all very catchy though, so I just need to get down to learning the lyrics one day.

What an experience.