Hiroko's Hitokoto

So many continuously hot days in Tokyo make me feel like eating shaved ice. It just so happens that July 25th is Shaved Ice Day. Inaugurated in commeration of the hottest summer's day in Japan, July 25th, 1933, Yamagata City in Tohoku sweltered in 40.8C heat. Back in the old days when people didn't have freezers or ice machines, ice was a precious luxury allowed only to the imperial family and aristocracy. In the Edo era, a system of ice storage started, with local governments transporting huge ice blocks to the Emperor and Shogunate on June 1st. Special efforts were made to get these monstrous ice cubes to Tokyo in record time -- getting here as quickly as 5 days, when usually it took 10 days or more to make the trip by horse. I'm planning to go to our local store to have shaved ice this weekend...

The Japan Institute of Immunology has set up a new venture company, which will develop technology to regenerate human hair. The company will make practical use of a technology that a Hiroshima University professor discovered -- which lets clinicians implant cells into the skin and thereby stimulate the regeneration of a patient's hair. Sumitomo Electronics also looking at becoming the retailer for such a chemical stimulation procedure. It seems that humans can regenerate a lot more physical parts of the body these days. Cloning of humans is banned more than 40 nations, but there's a big argument going on at the US Capitol Hill right now over this very subject. I personally find it hard to accept the idea of cloning, though it's possible and some academics are pursuing this line of research. In my opinion, cloning will open a Pandora's box of problems. The end result will be that someday we will be able to engineer human body cells so that they just keeps on growing back

Rainy season continues, sort of, but I think we are having less rain than normal. I remember when I was a kid that we used to make "Teru Teru Bozu" (literally: Sunny Sunny Monk) to bring good luck and make the next day a sunny day. This custom came from China about 1,200 years ago. Originally the doll was of a woman made of red and green cloth and carrying a broom to wipe the clouds away and make a sunny day. Over time the doll changed to a "Teri Teri Hoshi" or "Tere Tere Bozu" (Sunny Sunny Monk/Minstrel) by the 19th century. In days of yore, people hung the doll under the eaves, and if the weather became sunny, they drew eyes/nose/mouth. According to a folklore, monks with hair (usually they shaved off their hair to show obeisance to Buddha) and who were married were engaged in agriculture when they weren't conducting a weather ceremony was called the "Hairy Monk" (sounds like a dance!). The ceremony, "Hijiri" eventually made peopl