As Charlie Brown would say, another Christmas and New Years holiday has come and gone. This was a busy one! As you can see from the recent blog posts, I didn’t post for all of December and have only one post for January so far, not counting this one. As busy as I was with the kids when they were younger, that doesn’t seem to compare to how busy I am with them now, in their pre-teen years. But don’t let that sound like a complaint—I am enjoying every moment I get with them.
At any rate, over the next few weeks I’ll be trying to ease back into the more or less regular schedule of posting 2-3 times per week with a mix of original haiku and haiku translations along with some link posts to various Japan related things on the net. I didn’t have a chance to do it last year, but making some design improvements to this site is also on my mind. We’ll see what comes.
Anyway, Happy New Year 2025 to all of you! This is the year of the snake, by the way. I may do a post about this later, so stay tuned. But for the moment, just Happy New Year! Hope you had a good one and hope this year will be a great one!
This New Year’s holiday, I pulled out an old classic to play with my kids. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, aka Punch-Out.
This was one of the best games for the NES back in the day and is still considered one of the greatest games even made. It was made as Punch-Out, but then shortly after the initial Japan release, Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa went to see a Mike Tyson match and was so amazed that he decided they had to get Tyson for the game. Nintendo reportedly immediately paid Tyson $50,000 for a three-year deal and quickly programmed him in as the final boss, renaming the game Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. This new version was then released in Japan a month later.
This was the version I grew up with. At my elementary school, everyone was obsessed with the game. We would trade tips at recess, exchange codes, brag, and then go to each other’s houses after school and show off—or attempt to show off, only to be destroyed. I still have the code for Tyson burned into my memory: 007–373–5963. Along with Jenny’s number,[1] these might be two numbers I’ll never forget.
It was a hard game. It is divided into three circuits. The first circuit is basically training for the game. New players quickly master it and move on. The middle circuit is more challenging. No longer can you just attack, but now you are forced to learn the enemy boxer patterns, learn to dodge their attacks, and counter attack. The final circuit is tough. The enemy boxer patterns become more complex and your timing has to be near perfect.
One of the most memorable features of the game is that every boxer is a bit of a caricature of a country. We have Glass Joe, a weak Frenchman, Von Kaiser, a German boxer sporting a Wilhelm moustache, Piston Honda, a Japanese boxer who exclaims random Japanese words when made angry, Soda Popkinski, a Russian boxer who drinks too much,[2] and so on.
When I was a kid I could easily get to the second to final boss: Super Macho-Man. Only occasionally could I beat him to get to Mike Tyson, and I never beat Tyson.
As incredibly popular as it was in the US, I don’t know how popular it was in Japan. It was released in Japan first as a gold cart simply titled Punch-out (パンチアウト!!) and then rereleased as Mike Tyson’s Punch Out (マイクタイソン・パンチアウト!!). None of my Japanese friends have memories of playing it when they were kids so I have the impression that it wasn’t very popular.
Later after the 3-year deal expired, Nintendo decided not to renew it and released a new version of the game, replacing Tyson with Mr Dream, a character who was based on Rocky Marciano. Well, the image and record were from Marciano anyway, but the actual boxer was just a recolored Tyson.
Anyway, I don’t know what sparked it, but my kids asked to play the game the other day. The oldest has the sans Tyson version on his 3DS. I let them both take it out and share. I watched and gave tips. We had fun for an hour or so. It was a good time.
It’s fun watching my kids enjoy the same games that I enjoyed so much when I was a kid. At the time I never would have thought these games would still be around and popular 40 years later. But here we are, Nintendo just keeps re-releasing these games, and kids keep playing and loving them.
I’m not sure how well it works, but if you want to play it online, do so here.
The other day I was working and took some time to relax. This haiku soon followed.
I lean back
close my eyes
and listen to the ringing
Sleeping Woman – By Kajita Hanko
Another revision I wrote down was:
I close my eyes
and listen to
the ringing
That might be a bit stronger—I don’t know. I kind of like the image of “leaning back”. That gives me a mental picture of a 1930s PI leaning back in his chair, feet on desk, hands behind his head. I wasn’t doing that—my desk is a low Japanese style desk and I sit on the floor, for starters—but that was kind of the image in my head that popped in with the haiku.
I have long suffered from tinnitus, that is, ringing in the ears. I’ve had it all my life. I don’t know what caused it. I do have a distinct memory of asking my dad if I could wear his ear buds when I was six or seven—this is back in the day when ear buds were quite large and not entirely comfortable, when the cheap walkman style headphones were the typical ones. He warned me not to play them too loud, or I might damage my hearing. I don’t remember suffering any pain, but I do remember that when he took them away from me some hour later, my ears were ringing quite a lot, with that after-noise that you hear when a concert finishes. That might have been the start of it. If it was, then I obviously didn’t heed my dad’s warnings. I think of this memory sometimes when I warn my son not to do something that could be dangerous for him.
But whatever the cause, I have had it as long as I can remember. When I was younger, it bothered me, but I long ago made peace with it. Maybe that is one advantage of growing up with tinnitus: you get used to it. Sometimes I even use the ringing as a meditation aid when I otherwise can’t keep my mind from being distracted.
Anyway, the other day while I was working I paused at once point and enjoyed the silence, which to me always features the ringing in my ears. Then I started to listen specifically to the ringing and the haiku soon came to mind.
It may be winter or close to it, but sometimes we see blossoms around this time, strangely enough.
春の夜の夢見て咲や帰花 haru no yo no yume mite saku ya kaeribana[1]
do they bloom
dreaming of spring nights?
the returning blossoms
—Chiyo-ni[2]
Spring Moon at Ninomiya Beach by Kawase Hasui
Sometimes we get a short warm spell during the early winter of a few days or a week and this can cause flowering trees, like cherry blossoms, to become confused and partially bloom. In haiku, we call these winter bloomings kaeribana, “returning blossoms”. The unexpected appearance of these beautiful flowers in the otherwise harsh winter landscape can bring a little bit of joy as well as make us think longingly of the spring, still a few months away. kaeribana is a kigo (season word) for early winter.
In her musing about how the returning blossoms might see things, Chiyo-ni is making a pretty clear allusion to Heike Monogatari, an epic tale from the 13th century that tells the true story of the rise and fall of the Heike—the Taira clan.
The story opens with the following poem:
The ring of the bells at Gion temple
echoes the impermanence of all things.
The color of the sala flowers
reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall.
The proud do not endure long
like a passing dream on a spring night.
The mighty fall at last,
like dust in the wind
The poem sums up the story, telling us that as soon as one gains power, the end of that power is already present, that the duration of that power is as a dream on a spring night. This echos the Buddhist idea of impermanence (無常, mujō), a very common idea in Japanese literature and culture.
This would not have been lost on her audience who would have been very familiar with classical Japanese literature. In making this allusion, Chiyo-ni is suggesting that even the small act of flowers blooming out of season mirrors the impermanence and unpredictability of life, adding a sense of wistfulness and reflection to the haiku. Applying these ideas to the returning blossoms, which we are both happy to see, but sad at the idea that their fleeting beauty will soon be gone, we get a strong feeling of mono no aware, “the pathos of things”.
Born in 1703 in Kaga Province as the daughter of a picture framer, Chiyo-ni showed an early talent for poetry. She studied haikai under Kagami Shikō, a leading disciple of Bashō, and later Rōgenbō. Renowned for her graceful and contemplative verses, she became one of the most celebrated haikai poets of her era. At age 52, she took Buddhist vows, deepening the spiritual resonance of her work while continuing to write until her death in 1775.
I just came across this the other day. This has to be one of the best single write-ups about nomikai culture that I’ve ever see. I knew much about all this, but far from all. Even if you’ve been living in Japan for years, there will probably be something in here that you don’t know.
