Ekiben : The Ultimate Japanese Travel Food by Aki Tomura (IBC Publishing)

I am an army brat. My father was in the army. My mother is Japanese. I spent most of my elementary years living on a base in Tokyo, Japan in the early '70s. We lived on a base called Grant Heights which was located in Itabashi Ward, near Narimasu station. Every summer, my brother and I would look forward to going to my grandmother's house in Maizuru, a small coastal town on the Sea of Japan that was located in Kyoto Prefecture. ot get there, we would take the “bullet” train, commonly known as the shinkansen, where we would look forward to sitting in the dining car and having a bowl of curry rice.

I moved back to Tokyo, Japan as an adult in 1995. After settling into my new job and surroundings, and saving a bit of money, I was able to visit my grandmother's home in Maizuru again. This meant I would be taking the shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto. I was so looking forward to sitting in the dining car and having a bowl of curry rice again. It was over twenty years since my first shinkansen experience--imagine my shock when I found there was no longer a dining car on the route from Tokyo to Kyoto. It had been replaced by a moving cart, similar to what’s found on the airlines, except you had to pay for your own drinks, snacks, and food. But then, I discovered something else. I discovered the world of the ekiben. (Eki is the Japanese word for “station”. Ben is a shortened form of bento, the ready-made box lunch.) 

This book, Ekiben, has a  subtitle that’s direct and to the point, The box lunch you buy at the station and eat on the train. The book also provides a short history of the ekiben which I wasn't familiar with. When the railroads were being built during the Meiji era (1868-1912), bentos were made available at every station. They are still available but they have evolved quite a bit. The ekibens are usually eaten on a long train journey and there is an incredible variety of the types of ekibens you can buy.

This book provides you with just the tip of the iceberg concerning ekibens. It can be used as a guide to show you at which station the ekibens are available, providing a full color picture of the package and its contents.

The book is divided into seven regions, starting with Hokkaido and the Tohoku area (which includes Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Yamagata, and Akita Prefectures), the Kanto region (which includes Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa Prefectures and the Tokyo metropolis), the Hokuriki region (which includes Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui Prefectures), the Chubu region (which includes Aichi, Gifu, Nagano, Shizuoka, Yamanashi, and Mie Prefectures), the Kinki region (which includes Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Nara, Wakayama, and Shiga Prefectures), the Chugoku region (which includes Shimane, Okayama, Yamaguchi, and Hiroshima Prefectures), and ending with the Shikoku and Kyushu regions (which includes Kagawa, Tokushima, Ehime, Kochi Prefectures in Shikoku and Fukuoka, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Saga, and Okinawa Prefectures in Kyushu).

For every ekiben, each page will show you the name of the bento, the type of bento it is (there are about nine different types introduced), the name of the railway, the name of the station where its available, the package appearance, an image of the box, an image of the contents, and at the bottom of the page, a description of the bento.

These days, you don't even have to go to a particular station. There is an ekiben specialty store inside Tokyo station, where you can buy ekibens from all over Japan. Many department stores have ekiben campaigns from time to time as well.

Although I miss eating curry rice in the dining car on the shinkansen,  I still look forward to long train journeys which gives me a chance to try the different types of ekiben. When visiting Japan, eating an ekiben should definitely be on your list of things to do!~Ernie Hoyt

So Sad to Fall in Battle by Kumiko Kakehashi (IBC Publishing)

I was very impressed when director Clint Eastwood made his two movies about the Battle of Iwo Jima. One was seen through the eyes of the American soldiers, based on the book Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley. However, I was even more impressed with Eastwood's portrayal of the Japanese soldiers as seen through their eyes for his film Letters from Iwo Jima. In the movie, it shows that a lot of letters were found on the island after the war. However, before the American invasion, the Japanese soldiers had sent many letters home. Author Kumiko Kakehashi wrote this book based on survivors’ testimonies, families of the survivors, and also on the letters that the families gave the author access to.

Most Americans will be familiar with the iconic photograph of the six Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi which also won the Pulitzer Prize. What most Americans probably don't know is that the U.S. Military thought the capturing of the island would only take no more than five days. But it was not as easy as they first thought.

Much of the book centers around the letters written by the commander of the Japanese forces, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi. Unlike other commanders, he did not believe in the Japanese strategy of a beach landing assault, as he had already seen the results in Guam and Saipan and other places and knew it would be futile. In fact, in his letters, he was already resigned to losing the island, but not after putting up a fight until the death of every soldier.

What makes this different about other books about the Battle of Iwo Jima, is how human the general and his men were when sending letters home to their families. Kuribayashi, as a general, managed to write a few lines criticizing the war and his superiors which went against the grain of the times and even managed to pass some of the Japanese censors.

When reading the letters from the General to his wife and children, it's almost hard to picture this nice family man commanding over 20,000 soldiers to defend a small island in the Pacific from a nation with a far superior force. He writes to his wife about the smallest details: how she should not send him anything, or how to fix a draft on the floorboard of their home, complete with pictures on how to do so.

We learn how Kuribayashi motivated his soldiers to defend the island at any costs. We know this from the letters that were found or shared by survivors and the survivors’ families. We know they defended the island to the best of their ability, hoping to delay or to try to change the mind of the American army in invading their homeland. Another truth we learn about Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi is that he was a great strategist and a thorn in the American force’s side. What was to be a five day mission lasted for more than thirty, and came with the high cost of casualties. For American and Japanese soldiers alike, the Battle of Iwo Jima can really be considered a living hell. For those of us who don't know war, this can be an eye-opener that war should never  be glamorized.~Ernie Hoyt

おもしろい！ 進化のふしぎ 「ざんねんないきもの辞典」 今泉忠明 （監修者） Encyclopedia of the World's Most Unfortunate Animals edited by Tadaaki Imaizumi (Takahashi Shoten)

Sometimes I love to challenge myself to read a book in the language of my adopted country – Japanese. Although it takes me a while to finish, I find that it helps me improve my vocabulary and my comprehension. Recently I picked up a book titled Zannen na Ikimono Jiten. Zannen can be translated as “too bad”, or “unfortunate”. Ikimono directly translates to “things that are alive”, thus “animals” and jiten translates to “encyclopedia”. The English title would be The Encyclopedia of the World's Most Unfortunate Animals.

My wife, who is not an avid reader, was also interested in reading this book. Upon its release, it shot up the Japanese bestseller lists in a very short amount of time and is enjoyed by both children and adults. The writing is easy to understand,  incorporating a lot of humor, and the book is filled with cute illustrations.

The book is separated into four parts. The first part gives a little history about evolution, how animals have evolved or changed to survive as a species. One of the examples given is the giraffe.

One of their ancestors was born with long legs which helped them run away from predators. But the giraffe with long legs had a hard time drinking water and once again became easy prey for the carnivores. Then, another one of their ancestors was born with an extremely long neck. This made drinking water easier and the species survived.

The second part talks about how many of the animals have evolved. There were many that evolved in a most unfortunate way or at least, we as humans, may find strange. Did you ever wonder why hippos spend most of their time in the water? As large as they are, the skin of the hippo is quite sensitive, even more so than a human baby. They can get sunburnt just by standing out under the sun. Or did you know that the brain of an ostrich is smaller than its eyeballs? Or the tuatara (a type of lizard), which has a third eye on its forehead, but can not see out of it clearly – most unfortunate!

Part Three explains how some unfortunate animals evolved to stay alive. For example, the stinkier a skunk is, the higher its probability of finding a mate. Or how about the sea cucumber that spits out its intestines to protect itself from being eaten by larger fish? The sea cucumber has the ability to regenerate its innards – a most unfortunate way of staying alive.

And finally we have a section about the unfortunate abilities of various animals. For example, consider the stink bug whose own smell can be so overpowering, that it will faint from its own odor. Or a flea which has the ability to jump very high, however cannot stand on its own feet – most unfortunate.

There are so many tidbits of interesting animal information which not only makes for great reading but can be used as great conversation starters! You can tell your friends or people you just met, “Hey, do you know why koalas spend most of their time sleeping? Because they eat eucalyptus leaves which contains a lot of toxins. But toxins are toxins and the eucalyptus leaves have almost no nutritional value so they need to store up energy. They do that by sleeping all day.” Even if you are not an animal lover, you will love reading about the “unfortunate” evolutions of many of these living things!~Ernie Hoyt