german

jan jelinek, from “loop finding jazz records”. i love this kind of quiet, dark microhouse music.

(originally posted to videosift by farhad, the leader of the obscure).

i started studying english when i was 12. on graduation day in elementary school, my homeroom teacher, mrs imayasu sensei said to us, “english is going to be very important. with good english skills, you’ll be able to broaden your world.” she was right. now i can talk to people pretty much anywhere in the world and i can read foreign books published in english.

i studied english in my spare time along with taking regular english classes at school. the classes were very strict. i had to memorize hundreds of new words, phrases and grammar for daily, weekly and monthly tests. i didn’t like those tests at the time, but now i look back and think it was one important step. since the classes were strict, i didn’t enjoy them very much. but on my spare time, i was having a ball (do you really use this phrase? it was in my text book).

i listened to NHK radio english lessons for 8 years. i also watched british and american movies and comedies in english on tv and videos. there weren’t any subtitles for those tv shows, so i had no clue what they were talking about. it was useful just to get used to the rhythm of spoken english. in high school, i started listening to foreign music. the beatles were my favorite. i wrote the english lyrics on the left side of a notebook, with the japanese translation on the other. i’d translate the japanese version back into english and compare with the original lyrics. i did this with other bands too - the byrds, the kinks, deelite, otis redding… and for some reason, hanoi rocks (no question allowed). i’m not sure if it was a good way of learning english, because i hardly ever hear people say ‘the groovy!!‘ or the gorgeous!!.

NHK is great. they show a lot of foreign dramas - “doogie howser, MD” (great), full house (terrible), alf (no comment), beverly hills, 90210 (skanky). the contents didn’t matter to me as long as they spoke english. i watched “knight rider” too. it was aired around 2 am. a perfect hour.

you might notice that i didn’t talk to any english speakers. i was just studying. i didn’t talk to foreigners until when i was 19. we had some american teachers from jet program in my high school. i never talked to them. we also had some exchange students from australia. i think i said hello once. i was (am) very shy.

to break this bad habit, i decided to go to an english-speaking country alone. i was 19. i chose singapore. high tech + english + asian + safe = manageable. my spoken english was not very good, but i wanted to see how i’d manage in english. it was difficult but i did pretty good. many people helped me. many people thought i was a thai. many beatiful places to remember. it was wonderful.

it’s ironic that i’m interested in language, because i’m not talkative. i studied a little bit of swedish, chinese and french too. i can’t speak any of the language. but i like finding the similarities and connections in languages. i also studied american sign language. when hands become emotional, they look as though they were individual creatures. language is beautiful.

i’ve come a long way. but i still have a lot to learn. so pardon me, if i don’t understand you. me no english.

“der koenig der kuchen” baumkuchen-the king of cakes! this german delicacy was introduced to japan in 1917, by karl juchheim. he was a german pastry chef working in chintao, china, who was brought as a prisoner to hiroshima by the japanese. after the war, he moved to yokohama to work for meiji-ya as the head pastry chef at their “european cafe”. when his contract expired, he invested all his money to open his first bakery store, “e-juchheim”, where he could sell baumkuchen. he taught his japanese apprentices how to measure ingredients scientifically. but he made all his store’s baumkuchen on his own — he wouldn’t let anyone else do it.

his business flourished until 1923, when his store was destroyed by the great kanto earthquake. juchheim, his wife, elise, and their daughter were left with only a single 5 yen bill.

but they didn’t give up even then. they moved to kobe and borrowed a tremendous amount of money to re-open their store in sannomiya (kobe’s shopping district), this time as “juchheim’s”. designed by a british architect, their store was the first european style building in kobe. juchheim’s became very popular as an authentic german delicacy store, again featuring baumkuchen made by juchheim himself.

the new store was very successful and they were able to build a clean new factory. soon after, juchheim’s baumkuchen was chosen to be one of the admirable gifts to celebrate the new showa emperor. this great honour ensured baumkuchen’s popularity in japan.

karl juchheim died on august 14th, 1945, one day before the end of the world war 2. his wife was forced to move back home to germany, but his apprentices soon re-opened “juchheim’s” across from kobe’s ikuta shrine. in 1953, they were able to welcome elise juchheim back to kobe after a 6 year absence.

…

when i was a girl, my grandparents lived in higashi-nada ward, kobe. when we visited them, my mom sometimes picked a box of baumkuchen for them from juchheim’s. the baumkuchen came as a small ring, with many many layers. the texture was soft, but not too sweet (like canadian donuts). i always wondered how they made it.

i found a recipe for baumkuchen at sunny’s laboratory. i changed it a bit, though, to make it easier. i didn’t use cocoa powder on alternating layers, and i also left off most of the icing. i don’t like icing — it’s just sweet, no extra flavour. i added vanilla essence to the cake mix.

of course, my baumkuchen was not as delicious as juchheim’s. but at least i didn’t have to fly to kobe to eat it.

i translated the recipe into english:

recipe

• butter 40g
• sugar 30g
• egg 1
• flour 30g
• corn starch 15g
• baking powder tsp1/4
• vanilla essence a dash

1. mix butter(at room temp.) and sugar well. add egg.
2. heat a thick frying pan and coat with oil lightly.
3. pour a spoonful of the batter onto the pan. cook at medium heat.
4. when it becomes golden brown, flip it and pour a spoonful of the batter onto the baked dough.
5. repeat the process until you run out of batter.
6. cool it on the rack and when it’s cool, slice it into cubes or any shape you like.

meshiagare.

(by the way, all the recipes at sunny’s laboratory are great, since they’re all designed to make small portions — just big enough for two people to share. that way, there’s not a lot of dessert left over. small dessert, small pleasure.)