Christmas Shopping in Kyobashi...

Ekinishi

This post is the second of the VAoJ Hiroshima Research Trip Arc. In keeping with my recent and ongoing tachinomi project, I wanted to experience the social/drinking nightlife of Hiroshima. Rather than my usual haphazard exploration of good drinking establishments, I decided to check out a famous area supposedly full of good shops called Ekinishi, located very close to the Hiroshima train station. The websites I found made it look very attractive in terms of my shitamachi tastes.

Dive! Hiroshima Ekinishi: https://dive-hiroshima.com/en/feature/night-ekinishi/

pikabu 14 Recommended Restaurants in Hiroshima Ekinishi! Popular and affordable restaurants serving oysters, okonomiyaki, and more: https://www.bm-peekaboo.com/information/2-73/

But before the heavy fieldwork/photography/drinking, I wanted to experience the taste of Hiroshima, traditional Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. A friendly taxi driver dropped me off in front of the Ekinishi area and indicated that the shop a street over would be a good place to go.

It was still a little early in the evening so there were just a few customers. But the place looked legit. The master, quiet and stern, told me the shop was 35 years old. I told him the nature of my quest and he confirmed that my choice of the okonomiyaki special was a good one. He made the okonomiyaki with the help of one of his Vietnamese staff and soon it was ready.

Now I am no stranger to okonomiyaki, that is the original (bias alert) Osaka variety, but all I had was my enthusiasm and taste buds to judge. It tasted good! I liked the egg on the bottom and the noodles in the middle. I saw another customer add more sauce to his food, so I did as well, which added to the good taste. But my heart (and taste buds) belong to Osaka...

So now with a full stomach and a good start to my fieldwork, I checked out the vibe of Ekinishi.

At first, I liked it. There was a lot of potential for interesting photographs. I hoped that the drinking establishments would also be to my liking.

But in the end I was disappointed. Apparently many shops are closed on Monday evenings. And the shops that were open were small and crowded. I was denied entry to three shops. I was getting hotter, sweatier and tired wandering up and down the streets. I think a little melancholy of the trip to the Hiroshima Peace Park and Museum added to my growing foul mood. All I wanted was a cool place to sit down and have a nice drink. Kyoki-to-Ranbu was literally the last shop on the corner and appeared to be empty. It was one of those places where you have to order with your smart phone. And it was a little expensive. But the owner and staff were friendly enough. After a snack a a couple of drinks I started on my way to my hotel.

But I was not very pleased with the evening. As I got closer to the station, I found what some would call the enemy territory. This was an izakaya devouted to the Hiroshima Carp baseball team (who would be hosting the Hanshin Tigers the next evening). It was a newish, generic sports bar decked out with baseball paraphernalia and the Carp colors, red and white. The menu was standard izakaya fare, but large and reasonsble. Each dish was named after a Carp player who liked the particular dish. It was an interesting end to the evening and got me ready for the main event the next day.

The next post of the VAoJ Hiroshima Research Trip Arc will be on the Hiroshima Carp vs. Hanshin Tigers game at the Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium, along with the gourmet food offerings at the venue.

A call out to my friends and colleagues, visual and multimodal anthropologists, cultural anthropologists, photographers & sake and tachinomiya lovers in Tokyo and the surrounding area; VAoJ is making a rare appearance in Tokyo for a special lecture:「The Intersections of the Sensory, Multimodal and Ba: The Tachinomi Project」Please share and spread the word...

Check it out!

July 17, 2024, 18:00-19:30
Room 402, 4F, Building 2
Sophia University, Tokyo

Abstract:「The Tachinomi Project」is a visual ethnography based upon the con- vergence of social science research and contemporary art. The project began with long-term participant-observation and a photographic exhibition featuring a 40-year-old tachinomiya (standing drink bar) in Osaka called Tenbun. The study sought to explore photography in public spaces, privacy and image ethics while showcasing a “grimy” (Farrer 2019) and stimulating atmosphere with colorful characters including the shop owner, employees and regular customers. The interactions with Tenbun collaborators and gallery audience at the exhibition became the first of several post-fieldwork encounters, leading to the re-positioning of the research into wider social and academic contexts during and after the COVID 19 pandemic. This present account utilizes reflexivity, autoethnographic vignettes (Stevens 2013) and photography to explore the intersections of the sensory (Pink 2013 [2009], multimodal (Collins et al. 2017), and ba (Kajimaru et al. 2021) of Tenbun and other eating and drinking establishments.

Click here for some background on the project.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Standing Drink Bar「Tenbun」Old Boys Reunion 立ち呑みの居酒屋「天文」O.B. 会

We were on the bus, traveling through the borderlands between Osaka and Kyoto Prefectures when the imojōchū began to kick in.

We had just finished an hour-and-a-half of “all you can eat/all you can drink” at a traditional izakaya banquet. This kind of gluttonous binging and imbibing pushes participants, especially those on a pensioner’s budget with little left over after pachinko and horse race betting activities, to extremes, to make sure they get their money’s worth. Since the food turned out to be only standard fare, we concentrated on the drinking: beer, sake (nihonshu) and sweet potato distilled liquor (imojōchū; usually 25-35% alcohol).

A half hour in we were getting livelier and louder, and receiving dirty looks and disapproving frowns from the shop staff and other customers. Our severs were stingy, only allowing us to order a new drink after giving up the empty vessel from the previous beverage. Some of us countered this policy by pouring alcohol into PET bottles and plastic bags for secret take-out. We drank steadily until the last order. Somehow, we all were able to stand, pay our portions of the bill, use the toilet and stumble to the return bus without too much trouble.

What started out as a gathering of long-lost friends taking a short trip on a privately rented bus with quiet small talk of recent illnesses, hospitalizations and deceased drinking companions, was now a drunken cacophony of laughing, shouting, quiz games and attempts at singing enka. We exited the bus at the Keihan Kuzuha train station, took a memorial photo and made our way to the shopping arcade, formerly the aged, everyman Norengai (“Noren Street”), home to several traditional eating and drinking establishments. Recently this arcade was gentrified and renamed “El Kuzuha.” The older shops, many of which closed due to COVID-19, were conveniently replaced with fashionable chain restaurants. We wandered through the corridors until deciding on an acceptable pub for our continued revelry.

This post-fieldwork encounter chronicles a reunion of the owner and regular customers (the O.B.s or Old Boys) of a 40-year-old tachinomiya (“standing drink bar”) in Osaka called Tenbun, that closed in 2020.

Imojōchū has a strong taste and pungent smell, even when mixed with ice and water. For me, drinking it results in a contemplative body buzz; but when combined with beer and sake, the odoriferous contemplation turns into a gregarious stupidity. Nonetheless, this can be fun with the right people at the right time.

The Tenbun O.B. reunion was such a righteous group and occasion.

After all, we were trying to resurrect something. Not a specific time, place, feeling, memory or dream. Something more, perhaps a sort of fluid liminal communitas (and I do not use these terms lightly) that, in the past, we could enter at will, or at least between Tenbun’s usual business hours Monday through Saturday. The hour of day (or night), people, circumstances, jokes, arguments, daily specials and drinks always varied and at the same time enmeshed to create this familiar something. Looking back, I can see how we took it for granted, the longest-term customers for as long as 40 years. But now we missed it. And we wanted it back, even if only for this one day.

Of course, none of the O.B.s explained the reunion in these terms, except for the over-analyzing anthropologist with a camera, soaking in another post-fieldwork experience. Ba…

To be continued…

Announcement: VAoJ @Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture 上智大学比較文化研究所「The Tachinomi Project」July 17, 2024

Dowload flyer here: https://www.icc-sophia.com/_files/ugd/2edff9_6a975eb58ccc4236ad4014881870fc43.pdf

SOPHIA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF COMPARATIVE CULTURE: https://www.icc-sophia.com/

Sketch Art Exhibition::「立呑み絵日記」 (Standing Bar Diary) by Syuhei Shibukawa

Photo courtesy of Syuhei Shibukawa via his Facebook.

I learned of this exhibition through the 関西酒場研究会 (Kansai Bar Study Group) on Facebook. Syuhei Shibukawa likes to go to tachinomiya, drink sake, eat food and make sketches of the setting. Looks like a good example of visual anthropology to me. Many of the shops featured are close to Gallery Yongou (see the map sketch below).

Most of the visitors to the exibition were young women. There was sake at the exhibition as well. I got a set of 4 different kinds - they were all good!

Shibukawa-san was very generous with his work, allowing everyone to take photos of his sketches. Unfortunately, the exhibition is over. But you can check out his work on social media.

Syuhei Shibukawa on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/syuhei.shibukawa

Syuhei Shibukawa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syuheishibukawa/

Gallery Yongou on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yongou2019