I’ve had a few stories in the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan magazine before now, but this is the first time on the cover.

A project close to my heart too. As I wrote in the text (see below) to go with these portraits, I have enormous respect for the people producing Japan’s fantastic food and drink. They live their work in a way that we Tokyo strap-hangers find hard to truly understand. And they face a very uncertain future.

I wonder what Sugiura-san will think about his family being on the cover of this magazine? I’m going to send him a copy.

Food for thought

The quickest way to a country’s heart, this journalist reckons, is through its stomach. The stories on Japanese food I’ve covered over the years have been a fabulous opportunity. I’ve visited parts of Japan I never knew existed and sampled some occasionally strange, often spellbinding, food.

I’ve met some remarkable people: a Shizuoka wasabi farmer (tough as a boot after years bent double in freezing mountain steams); a Tokyo fruit-vinegar ‘sommelier’ (dapper and fantastically camp); a Kobe-beef restaurateur (bull-necked and brash); a Tsukiji kamaboko fishcake factory owner (an extraordinary businessman; you’d have to be to think of selling the stuff); a Chiba sake brewer (who decided on a new sake range after seeing a UFO floating over the shrine behind his brewery) – to name just a few.

They all impressed me with their sincerity and dedication. The also granted me glimpses of the profound crisis facing the countryside and the awesome challenge Japan will have simply to sustain current food production, never mind modernize it.

The plight of the countryside is as desperate – and obdurately ignored – as any of the many facing Japan. As the head of the Keidanren told an FCCJ presser in January, well over half of Japan’s farmers are past retirement age. The average farm is tiny and hopelessly inefficient. Even if Japanese agriculture became profitable who would work the rice paddies? In a few years Japan may not have much agriculture at all.

My head tells me that Japan’s attempts to protect its rural economy are failing. I’ve seen the ghost towns and the fallow fields. I’ve spoken to the farmers who complain that almost every young person with any ability or ambition takes the first train to the city at the age of 20.

But my – by now almost Japanese – gut argues something different. Belatedly, I’ve come to understand the visceral importance of food here. Coming from England – a country with effectively no native high cuisine – it took me a while to comprehend how a people could actually define themselves by their food (and by extension the place where is made). I suspect that Japanese people will never swallow arguments of economic efficiency when food is involved.

The farmers themselves haven’t given up. I’ve met many second, third generation presidents of tiny food companies in far corners of Japan. They have told me about their involvement in “rural revitalization” projects (read, heroic struggles against the slow death of their hometowns). I’ve met few young ex-urbanites who swapped a life of convenience, if not always comfort, for exhausting farm-work for low pay in towns where the most significant social events are funerals.

But I still envy them for their lives and work. They don’t just make food, although they do that exceptionally well, many are the guardians of centuries old traditions. The fruit of their labours is appreciated all over Japan, and increasingly abroad. They are one of the few hopes for the Japanese countryside; they provide employment and encourage tourism; increasingly many spearhead local environmental efforts.

An aged Japan economy could well encounter an unpalatable future. But whatever happens, I’ve no doubt that Japanese people will keep eating the best food in the world. I’m privileged to have met and photographed some of the people producing it.

They say that the young should eat to live, the middle-aged eat and live, and the old live to eat. Perhaps that applies to nations too?

Tony McNicol is editor of EURObiZ Japan, the magazine of the European Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

 

I had a three page photo story in this month’s No. 1 Shimbun, the magazine of the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Tokyo. Here it is below.

A little while ago I had the privilege to meet and photograph Doreen Simmons, the incredible 78-year-old sumo expert and commentator on NHK. The job was for one of the columns in the magazine I edit, EURObiZ Japan.

The obvious thing to do was photograph her with sumo wrestlers, but the deal was that I had to sit through the practice first. Good job I did. These were all taken from my cushion at the edge of the room with a 70-200 lens.

(The pictures of Doreen are at the bottom of this post)

These are some other shots from the training session.

And a couple of shots Doreen Simmons. After the two hour practice I only got about five minutes for the portrait. Luckily, I knew pretty much exactly what I wanted.

The magazine I edit, EURObiZ Japan, has been running a monthly column on Europeans working in Tokyo, and I’ve been taking the photos. These are the first five portraits.

There’s a lady who sells foie gras, two architects, a pattisier, a man who imports Dutch goods and a scuba diving instructor. (Thanks to our designer Paddy for the terrific photo selection and layouts)

The challenge each time is to find way to show the job in a single frame. Not sure I succeeded every time – but I’m trying. I usually shoot by myself with one or two off camera strobes and an umbrella.

I’ll post the next five or six later this year!

Way back in March 2005 I had the very good fortune to interview a little-known Estonian sumo wrestler – Baruto.

After the recent Osaka basho Baruto looks certain to be promoted to Ozeki rank. So, in celebration, I’m reposting my Japan Times story.

Gochandesu.

Past the pain and language barriers. Estonian not thrown by new language, life and sport

Even for a sumo wrestler, Kaido Hoovelson looks big. The 20-year-old Estonian, who goes by the ring name of “Baruto,” stands 197-cm tall, making him one of sumo’s tallest wrestlers.

Last time he checked, he weighed a solid 162 kg — “166 after dinner.”

Behind the table of a pokey Ryogoku bar, he takes sips from an oddly small looking glass of beer and recounts the first bruising year of his sumo career.

Baruto’s Judo coach in Estonia encouraged him to come to Japan. “He told me it’s not very difficult . . . a lot of sleeping, a lot of eating, a little bit training. I said ‘why not?’ ” A little later Baruto entered his present sumo stable.

Unfortunately, it seems his coach’s description wasn’t totally accurate.

“At first it was a big shock,” says Baruto. In between training sessions, he was busy with chores like washing the older wrestlers’ clothes and sweeping out the dojo.

It was, he says, “a lot of cleaning, a lot of training, a little bit sleeping.”

At least his coach was right about the eating.

Nevertheless, Baruto has moved up the sumo ranks quickly. In the coming March tournament he will be ranked “makushita,” the third of six divisions. Not bad for someone who only started sumo three years ago.

But he has had to learn much more than grips and throws.

Becoming a novice sumo wrestler is signing up to a crash course in Japanese language.

He arrived with only an Estonian Japanese dictionary and two words of Japanese: “geisha” and “sayonara” — and no one in his stable knew more than a handful of English words.

But a year later his Japanese is fluent enough to follow training instructions and hang out with his stablemates.

Becoming a sumo wrestler is an exceptional form of total immersion language learning, says Satoshi Miyazaki, linguist and author of “Why do foreign sumo wrestlers speak fluent Japanese?”

Not only do foreign sumo wrestlers have to learn Japanese, they have to learn how “to become Japanese,” says Miyazaki.

That means picking up body language, etiquette and the minutiae of sumo culture too.

For instance, wrestlers will learn “keigo” — polite Japanese — very early on because they need it to talk to the senior stablemates and stable master.

Instead of poring over textbooks, Japanese is quite literally bashed into wrestlers; “The first Japanese language sumo wrestlers have to learn is ‘itai’ (ouch!)” Miyazaki explains. Once they know that, at least they can say if they get injured.”

Many foreign sumo wrestlers become very fluent, very quickly. There is plenty of language practice meeting sumo officials and guests to their stable, or even being interviewed in Japanese.

Baruto had only been in Japan for a few months when he was interviewed after his first tournament; “I just said ‘hai, hai’ and smiled.”

Still, foreign wrestlers often have a surprise when they first try out their Japanese outside the sumo stable.

“They gradually notice that their Japanese is sometimes very difficult for others to understand,” Miyazaki says.

Special sumo dialect like “gochan desu” for thank you could be a dead giveaway if wrestlers try to go out incognito.

Another potential linguistic pitfall is “chanko” — a word which wrestlers use for all kinds of food. (Chanko-nabe is the calorie-packed meat stew wrestlers use to bulk up).

On the whole, foreign wrestlers seem to have been pretty successful fitting in. Out of 708 wrestlers in Sumo’s six divisions, 59 were born outside of Japan. There have now been three foreign Yokozuna grand champions.

Hawaiian Akebono was the first in 1993, then his compatriot Musashimaru and now Mongolian Asashoryu.

The current crop of foreign wrestlers comes from across the globe, including Tonga, Brazil, Bulgaria, Russia, Mongolia — and Estonia. Their number is unlikely to increase much more, however.

Perhaps fearing a gradual foreign takeover of Japan’s ancient sport, in 2002 the Japan Sumo Association limited the 55 stables to one foreign sumo wrestler each (a few stables already had more than one foreign wrestler when the rule was introduced).

For the moment the Mongolians are cleaning up. Yokozuna Asashoryu heads a gang of seven countrymen in the top division. From the other end of the continent, European wrestlers like Russian Roho, Bulgarian Kokkai and Kotooshu from Georgia are also starting to push their weight around.

The old presumption that foreigners could only ever succeed by brute force has already proved wrong, says Mark Schreiber, veteran sumo watcher.

“All the Hawaiians had going for them was their bulk. When I look at the new crop, I see a slightly different style,” he says.

“Now you get people who are big, and who have technique. You certainly see that with the Mongolians.”

Wrestlers from overseas have also shown that they can put up with the rigors of training.

“Foreign wrestlers have the perseverance they need now,” says Schreiber. “To get good at sumo you have to endure the training, and hazing by your seniors. That’s why the Japanese thought foreigners could never succeed.”

On the contrary, he suggests, some foreign wrestlers, particularly the Mongolians, seem a little harder and hungrier than those raised in prosperous Japan.

Ex-nightclub bouncer Baruto is only expecting things to get tougher from here on. A fellow Estonian wrestler who arrived in Japan with him has already gone home.

Baruto’s target for this March’s tournament in Osaka is simply to win more bouts than he loses. He has gotten used to the sumo life a little, although he misses the parties in Estonia.

At least it is easy to save money. New sumo wrestlers don’t have many luxuries but they don’t have many outlays either. “No food, no rent, no clothes,” says Baruto with unshakable cheerfulness.

Then what’s so good about being a sumo wrestler?

“I don’t know,” he shrugs and grins. “I just like sumo, it’s my life.”

The Yoshinkan Aikido dojo in Takadanobaba, Tokyo.

This was the first time I’ve photographed, or even seen, Aikido and was for my new job.  I was very kindly invited by 7th Dan master Jacques Payet.

My first impression of Aikido training was that it looks like a mixture of effortless grace and intense pain — no doubt depending on which side of the attack you are.

The full story is on the EURObiZ Japan website.

One of the reasons I haven’t been posting much recently is that late last year I took a job as the editor of EURObiZ Japan, a new magazine for the members of the European Chamber of Commerce in Japan. I’ve enjoyed freelancing immensely, so it wasn’t an easy decision. But it was definitely time for a change and a good opportunity to see the other side of the editor’s desk.

I did, however, first produce this swansong to my five year long freelance career. I wrote a bit about what worked for me, and what I think correspondents will need to do faced with a moribund media and galloping technology.

The article was carried in Spotlight Japan. I’d be interested to hear what people think.

Foreign Correspondent 2.0

By Tony McNicol

For the Japan-based foreign journalist 2009 has been a tough year.  As we all know, media everywhere are in big trouble.  Once hallowed organizations are laying off staff in droves or even going out of business.  Here in Japan, foreign bureau were already reducing staff and upping sticks to Beijing even before the economic downturn.  There can hardly have been a worse time for the Japan correspondent.

Or perhaps it isn’t all that bad?  As full time correspondents find themselves grounded freelancers may get a chance to spread their wings: especially if they are ready to experiment with a plethora of new media; audio, video, blogs, social networking, to name just a few.  As they say in Japanese ‘pinch ni chance’ – opportunity in adversity.  As a Tokyo-based freelancer with five years experience writing and photographing Japan – here are some suggestions: mainly for myself, but also for other foreign writers in Japan.

1. Say bye bye to the bureaux

The roaming correspondent dispatched to far flung outposts across the world several years at a time has gone home and probably won’t be back.  In his place is the freelancer or stringer on a modest retainer.  While correspondents would have been given time and assistance to acclimatize and learn about their new postings, freelancers need to hit the ground running.  Journalists doing the work of correspondents will be the country long-term, if not actually Japanese nationals with English skills.

2. Learn the lingo

Few magazines and newspapers have the money to pay for interpreters and Japanese researchers any more.  If freelancers don’t speak Japanese, or don’t plan to learn, they will be in trouble.  Stories based on English wire stories and other English language media are not going to pay.  Monitoring the local media is a key skill.  All journalists will need enough Japanese to interview local sources with ease.

3. Use your legs

Media have responded to shrinking revenues by reducing their expense budgets and leaving less and less space for thoroughly researched foreign news.  Correspondents have been offering too many short undigested stories that barely scratch the surface of the complicated societies they cover.  No wonder they face harsh criticism and stiff competition from locally based bloggers and writers with ample knowledge and time.

So what can journalists do to compete with an army of amateur reporters?  Well the main thing is to leave their office, go places, talk to people, photograph them and video them.  They will have to BE THERE.  Luckily, new technology offers ample scope for doing just that (see below).

Will publications pay journalists for such in depth reports?  That remains to be seen.  But if they don’t, will those media won’t be around for much longer anyway?

4. Multimedia, multimedia, multimedia

The specialist writer or specialist photojournalist is increasingly a thing of the past.   Reporters are carrying cameras with their notepads, photojournalists are carrying video cameras with their SLRs, and cameramen are editing their own stories on their laptops and uploading the footage to the Internet.

This change is coming especially fast for Japan-based journalists as foreign correspondents were always expected to operate in the field with little back-up.  Today’s journalist needs to get there, collect information in a variety of media, process it quickly, and edit it to tell their story well.  Advanced computer and media skills are becoming as essential to the job as spelling and grammar.

5. Tell the story

The market for straight news, reporting events with little commentary or analysis, is disappearing fast.  In a change that is endangering the very existence of the world’s newspapers, readers are getting their news for the Internet, instantly and free.  The only way to compete is surely to go deeper.  That takes time – and money – but journalists without the determination to tell those stories will find themselves with little to do in the new media.

Meanwhile, speed is going to be of the utmost importance, hence mastery of the technical skills; not necessarily to scoop rivals – none of us can compete with the wires, never mind Twitter, on speed — but to process more material for less money.

6. Make friends with Google

Google is the freelancer’s best friend.  Once it was possible to sell a story to one, maybe two generously paying outlets.  With budgets shrinking across the board, journalists need to find ways to offer their work to multiple media.  That takes time, but journalists who know how to use Google will find that clients come to them.

Likewise, blogging has become an essential tool for freelancers.  By posting stories they can increase their search engine rankings, sell their work, and even build a readership amongst editors and other journalists.

7. Give your work away

To paraphrase Chris Anderson, the author of ‘Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price’, the problem that journalists face is not that people don’t pay for their work, but that people don’t know about it.

Many journalists wonder why they should be putting their work on the internet without payment, but in today’s media environment, anyone reading your work online effectively “is” payment.  Write a blog and maybe you’ll resell work, sell photo stock, attract new assignments, or just gradually raise your profile.

And the Future?

No one knows how the current media crisis will end, but one thing is clear: journalists face a time of huge change.  Can reporters still make a living from news?  Yes, but only if what they provide is new.  And that means utilizing new media as much as finding new stories.

Tony McNicol is a Tokyo-based freelance writer and photographer.  He has worked for many publications based in Japan and abroad and covered topics ranging from internet technology to food and drink to sumo.  Right now he carries a computer, Nikon SLR, electronic dictionary and IC recorder.  He is looking for space in his bag for a microphone and video-camera. His work can be seen at www.tonymcnicol.com.

My story on bug-eating was on the front page of the Japan Foreign Correspondent’s Club magazine this month. Hope it’s not on display in the restaurant.

The photos were picked up by the UK’s Telegraph newspaper too and run as a slideshow. (Many thanks to the Telegraph’s generous food critic Japan correspondent Julian Ryall for tipping me off to this story. It was one of the most fun, albeit stomach churning, stories I’ve done in a while.

If this has wet your appetite, I’ve pasted the text of the story below.

Shoichi Uchiyama first experienced the exquisite pleasures of entomophagy (insect-eating) in 1998. He and some friends had visited an exhibition on the subject. Inspired, on the way back they stopped near a river, caught some moth caterpillars, and  barbecued them for dinner. It was love at first bite – Uchiyama had caught the entomophagy bug.

A decade later Uchiyama is Japan’s leading insect-eating evangelist. He has a Japanese-language blog on the topic: http://musikui.exblog.jp/ that gets 400 visitors a day and is the author of a recent cookbook on bug cuisine, Tanoshii Konchu Ryori (Fun Insect Cooking).

At his suburban Tokyo home, Uchiyama offers me some Taiwanese tagame (a kind of giant water bug). I politely decline and tell him I’ve just had lunch. Uchiyama turns the freshly boiled insect upside down, cuts through its underbelly with a pair of kitchen scissors, then nibbles on the tender yellowy meat inside. “The flesh is quite fruity; it smells like bananas, but the taste is more like pears,” he says. I’m happy to take his word for it.

On his living room table sits a feast of creepy crawly cuisine. There is a plate of sushi with toppings of Japanese cicada, pregnant joro spider, sakura moth caterpillar and Madagascar cockroach. Uchiyama’s wife, Chisato, helped him prepare the praying mantis tofu and locusts on sticks. “Deep frying is the best way to cook insects,” says Mrs. Uchiyama, “like fish and chips.”

The Uchiyamas both hail from mountainous Nagano, where there is a long tradition of insect-eating due to the lack of easy access to protein in the form of seafood. Locals are particularly partial to locusts, stonefly larvae and silkworm cocoons cooked in sugar and soy sauce. The Uchiyamas say it was a relatively short step to sampling more unusual bugs. Uchiyama says that there are at least 10 kinds of tasty bugs to catch near his home. During the summer he collects his own cicadas (“they freeze well”). There are hundreds more edible insects worldwide, he notes.

Uchiyama also heads an insecteating club that meets once a month and holds events to catch and cook bugs. Spring is larvae time, cicadas are in season insummer, and autumn offers fine locusts. Surprisingly, poisonous bugs are rare, Uchiyama claims. “Insects are much safer than, say, mushrooms,” he says. Insects can also be eaten raw “as long as they are fresh.” Are there any bad-tasting bugs? Apparently stag beetles eat a lot of rotten vegetation, so are best avoided.

Uchiyama is a passionate entomophagy advocate. “Insects are very nutritious and they are all around us,” he enthuses, suggesting they could be a solution to food shortages and even food-safety worries. Insects are high in protein and low in fat, Uchiyama continues. The shells boast lots of calcium and provide plenty of roughage. “It would be great if elementary schools could teach insect-eating,” he muses. “Teachers could take the kids down to the local river to catch bugs, then cook them together.”

These days everyone wants to know about where their food comes from, so what better than rearing your own protein source? It’s impossible to keep a pig or cow in a Tokyo apartment, but a small tank of cockroaches would be very practical, he notes. In the end, I don’t try any of Uchiyama’s cuisine, using the excuse of being too busy taking photos. Or perhaps as an Englishman I’ve had plenty of opportunities tosample unpalatable-looking food.

“Insects aren’t dirty,” he stresses, as I wrinkle my nose at a toasted locust. “Humans were made to eat them and they are good for our bodies. Try them once and you will be hooked.”

insect sushi


eating insects

Here’s a link to the full gallery on my archive: insect eating in Japan

]]> http://tonymcnicol.com/2009/03/15/entomophagy-in-japan/feed/ 10 http://tonymcnicol.com/2009/03/11/koichi-wakatas-underpants/ http://tonymcnicol.com/2009/03/11/koichi-wakatas-underpants/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:17:29 +0000 tony http://tonymcnicol.com/?p=1623

A brief (ahem) story I did for National Geographic News. It’s on the experiments Japanese astronaunt Koichi Wakata will  perform on himself during his upcoming shuttle mission.

Koichi Wakata underpants

This nice lady at JAXA showed me the high-tech deoderant underwear that Wakata will trial. Apparently the shuttle is a pretty smelly place. There’s no way to wash clothes, so astronauts take all they need and try to change their togs as infrequently as possible. A week for a T-shirt I’m told.

Some space socks . . .

Koichi Wakata’s socks

This is JAXA. The Tsukuba complex is right out in the countryside, a good 90 minutes from Tokyo. Probably just as well with all that rocket fuel around.

Opening graph of my story:

As part of his mission, former airplane engineer Koichi Wakata, 45, has volunteered to be a human guinea pig—downing pills, wiring himself with sensors, and recording how smelly his underwear gets—all in the name of science.

Full story is here

I casually mentioned my trip a friend from Forbes and got scooped. (serves me right, I suppose)

]]> http://tonymcnicol.com/2009/03/11/koichi-wakatas-underpants/feed/ 7 http://tonymcnicol.com/2008/12/18/tokyo-commuter-hell/ http://tonymcnicol.com/2008/12/18/tokyo-commuter-hell/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:49:02 +0000 tony http://tonymcnicol.com/?p=1329

Tokyo commuters

My corner of photojournalism isn’t exactly front-line war reporting. But I think this story was about the closest I’ve come to being physically assaulted in Japan so far.

Two years ago I was writing about the Tokyo transport system (pdf) and went out to get some rush hour train photos. (Only just uploaded the pics to my archive – hence this post).

Conveniently, I live close by the most crowded rail route in Tokyo.

crowded commuter train

It was a miserable wet winter morning, which as well as making everyone really depressed, means the trains are noticeably busier. Considering how angry people look in the pics, I’m glad I took the photos during the morning rush hour when everyone was sober.

This guy wasn’t happy about me taking his photo . . .

commuter on a train

Nor were the people in this train. I was pinned against the far door and was holding the camera against the ceiling. I didn’t have the nerve to use flash (!) so there’s lots of digital noise.

packed commuter train

The Japanese transport companies calculate crowding as a % of the trains official maximum capacity, ie when all the seats and standing spaces are taken. The line I take into Tokyo has a rush hour crowding rate of 220% – which is why people can sleep standing up on the way to work.  It’s also why the line has the most chikan in Tokyo.

Things could be worse though – this is what I wrote in my story:

Though overcrowding is still a big problem, there is a surprising lack of protest from commuters, something perhaps explained by the history of the network. Imagining trains more packed than those of today might be difficult, but crowding actually used to be much, much worse. Pity the commuters of the ’50s and ’60s. Then, the average rush hour train was packed to over 300 percent capacity. “There were injuries when the carriage windows broke,” says Itoh.

Heres a link to all my Tokyo commuter photos

All the gory details are here (pdf)

]]> http://tonymcnicol.com/2008/12/18/tokyo-commuter-hell/feed/ 16 http://tonymcnicol.com/2008/10/31/creepy-crawly-cuisine/ http://tonymcnicol.com/2008/10/31/creepy-crawly-cuisine/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:49:19 +0000 tony http://tonymcnicol.com/?p=1076

Earlier this week I photographed probably the sweetest middle aged couple I have met in Japan. On a gorgeous Autumn morning I visited them at their cosy little detached Japanese house in a pretty part of Western Tokyo. As we talked they introduced me to their pets, told me about their hobbies and plied me with tea and treats.

Why did I visit them? Well, they eat insects.

The nice cup of English tea I got came with deep fried locusts, madagascar cockroach sushi, and preying mantis tofu.

Mr Uchiyama’s has a popular blog on insect cooking:”Let’s enjoy eating insects.”

Mmmmm insect sushi . . .

insect sushi

Your erstwhile correspondent about to explore the frontiers of Japanese cuisine . . .

Photos from the story I did for Rex Features . . . Deep fried. Mmmmmm!

deep fried insect

Where do you think the head went?

eating an insect

Here’s a link to Mr Uchiyama’s cookbook of insect recipes. He’s looking for a English publisher. I wonder if Martha Stewart has heard?

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