-Shop cute Japanese products and cool products from Japan. This cute blog is about Japanese kawaii, kawaii Japan, kawaii fashion, Japanese pop culture and more. It's a kawaii blog from Japan, Japan blog in English by a Japanese girl.

I’m not supposed to wear an everyday’s kimono in New Year since it’s considered a festive period, but the thing is I didn’t bring back any kimono from my grandmother’s place and the one in the video and the picture is the only thing I have at a moment in my house. It’s not easy to take care of kimono. In my small apartment, there’s no room to place a chest of drawers made of paulownia wood that is especially designed to store kimono. I will eventually ask my father to keep this kimono at his place. (This problem will not be solved unless I move to a bigger house or end up with polyester kimono, forgetting about all the silk ones my father and my grandmother keep. )

Let me tell you more. ^_^ Pi-chan (right bottom of the picture) seemed to be scared of the live koto sound. She started to make some noise and apparently she looked uncomfortable with my play. lol

It’s how I placed my koto in a small living room. ^ ^;; The toys and futon on the floor belong to Pi-chan.

BTW, this is the music note. It’s written in kanji, from top to bottom, right to left. I can’t read the one in western way.

Koto and Shamisen are the only musical instruments I can play because I started to learn how to play koto at 5 and shamisen at 13. I don’t know how to play any other musical instruments. I feel koto is much more familiar to me than shamisen, because I quit both at 13 or 14. My mother was very serious as she wanted me to be a professional koto or shamisen player to make “her dream” come true.

I totally lost my childhood for practicing koto everyday. I didn’t play with friends a lot then because I had to practice it more than anything. My day ended with koto and homework. I didn’t like that. That’s the reason I completely stopped it before I turned 14. Since then, I didn’t even want to touch my koto and shamisen, until I made this video.

Then what happened? That koto video I made for the first time was so casual, I didn’t practice it well before I made it. It was kind of a “give it a try” video. Much to my surprise, that video has been viewed most frequently next to my Decotti video, and when it comes to the number of comments, it’s got way more comments than any other videos that I’ve made so far. (0w0)!!

Unfortunately koto has never been popular in Japan since I was a kid. My friends from elementary school always asked me why I was learning such a “out-of-date” musical instrument when most of all the other girls were learning how to play piano. It’s always only a few days in New Year when we hear koto music on at stores in Japan. It’s a Japanese traditional musical instrument but is disappearing from our spirit. Our life style has been so much westernized. (I like that way though. I cannot wear a kimono everyday and I prefer western inspired food to Japanese food.)

It might be my Youtube viewers that made me realize that it’s nice that I can play koto. But it took me a while until I truly feel like playing it again with pleasure from the bottom of my heart. My memory with koto has not been so nice, because it’s linked to my bitter days of practice, after practice, sacrificing my childhood, freedom, all the other kind of possibilities, and etc.

Nowadays koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi shops in Japan are decreasing. I luckily found one in Yokohama. I’ve renewed my Tsume (pick) and bought some tools at this store.

It’s quite interesting I finally truly feel like playing koto again. It must be one of the most wonderful gifts I get from TKE, besides all the wonderful friends I made through it. Thank you for reading TKE and keeping in touch with me. I hope you still enjoy TKE blog!

news and informations automotive,business,crime,health,life,politics,science,technology,travelautomotive,business,crime,health,life,politics,science,technology,travel

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

Year after year, New Year has become nothing particular. In my childhood, there was a mood that all the stores except convenience stores in my neighbor were going to be closed after Christmas (from around 28th) till 5, 6 or 7th of January. But as I grew up and frequent big cities such as Tokyo, Kawasaki or Yokohama, they are totally open almost all during this period, and even including the New Year’s Day at some places.

I think most of us who do not spend too much time at the relative’s or the parents’ or at travel destinations are rather bored in New Year if stores are all closed. (Air tickets and hotels can be double priced in this season and Golden Week in May, so they are the last period that I love to travel.) Also it’s a big chance for the shopping malls to increase sales in this period. Supply and demand matches. ^ ^ In fact, some of the shopping malls open even earlier than normal schedule (usually they open from 11am). It’s a New Year’s sale and Fukubukuro, or lucky grab bags are available only this New Year period in the year.

As for myself, I loved to go to New Year’s sale a few years ago. But for a moment I don’t desperately need more clothes or shoes or bag. I have so many other things that I want to do at home. Some books to read, house cleaning (I’m supposed to finish it before New Year’s Day, according to our custom, though :p), A friend to invite to our house, playing Koto (Japanese musical instrument), and etc. I hope that I can make a better Koto playing video in this coming New Year and share it with you in the next post.

Oh, as for myself, I don’t really like New Year’s cuisine and so I don’t pay much attention to each dish’s meaning such as longevity or whatever. I don’t like Nengajo (New Year’s greeting cards) either, because I’m not interested in superficial friendship that is only maintained through exchanging this thing only once a year. If it’s a true friendship, why can’t she email me, or skype with me more often throughout the year instead of sending a card automatically with a simple message “Wish to see you this year!” every single year without even trying to contact me if we can see each other? I once emailed immediately to ask such people, “so when can we see then?” and the answer was quite vague or somewhat they cannot go out because their kids are too small, or whatsoever. I don’t want such friendship. I’ve ignored many Nengajo like this. I don’t care about diplomatic friendship, that’s just nothing to me. I’m telling my friends not to send me a card but to contact me more often throughout the year, and gradually I receive only a few of them today. I may be very different from most of other Japanese people, because usually people love to exchange Nengajo a lot. lol

Anyhow, it’s the last day of 2011.
I wish you all a happy, prosperous new year and I hope to keep interacting with you in TKE blog or by exchanging emails, and etc.
Thank you for reading TKE and your friendship with me.

news and informations automotive,business,crime,health,life,politics,science,technology,travelautomotive,business,crime,health,life,politics,science,technology,travel

I often hear English speakers speak Japanese with strong accent or intonation but I think I can understand their problem. It’s just reverse way of my difficulties when I learned how to speak English. We (the Japanese) will suffer from English accent and intonation. English speakers would suffer from the flatness of our language. (I don’t know how to explain this linguistically but I believe you know what I mean after you watch my video.) ^_^;;;

As a native Japanese speaker, I would love to make videos with natural Japanese pronunciation and intonation for those who are now studying Japanese so you can avoid copying unnecessary accent or intonation. One of my European friends once told me he picked up how McDonald’s was to be pronounced in Japanese (with Kansai dialect) from how American guy who was calling it in a video or somewhere. But unfortunately it was not correct. At first I didn’t get what he was trying to tell me at all. After I told him the true one, he was so much surprised how different the one he heard in the video was, and of course he was able to pronounce it perfectly.

Now you know the problem. If you ever have to communicate in English in Japan, and when people do not seem to understand it very well, please slow down. Please use a simple and short sentence. You could even write down on a paper. If you speak too fast and words are sounding to be connected each other, that’s what most of us don’t understand! If you speak like I did in the video (how I spoke in early days in the U.S) that would be so kind to us. (lol) Just kidding, never mind that. :p

What kind of hardships or difficulties did you go through (are you going through) when you learn Japanese? What kind of Japanese videos would you like me to make for you? As a native speaker, I sometimes don’t really have an idea what you want to know about our language. :p

news and informations automotive,business,crime,health,life,politics,science,technology,travelautomotive,business,crime,health,life,politics,science,technology,travel