I was going to write another
post altogether, but then a tiny orange flower interfered, and I was off on a
fascinating journey into the sense of smell.
The little flower is
called kinmokusei (金木犀) or Osmanthus fragrans. It
grows on a nondescript boring tree that nobody pays any attention to. Then
October arrives, and the tree produces orange flowers that have the sweetest
fragrance ever. It's a flirt. It teases and seduces, dances in the air, beckons
you to pursue it down narrow alleys.
 |
| Kinmokusei (金木犀) or Osmanthus fragrans |
Kinmokusei was introduced from China in the
Edo period, and although it's used as food in China (tea, jam, soup,
dumplings), in Japan it's mostly associated with fragrance and with … toilets. That's because the flower is a standard ingredient in many air-freshening
sprays for toilets, both private and public. I don't immediately think of a toilet when
I smell kinmokusei. I think, "Autumn! Yay!"
 |
| A kinmokusei tree in Sendagi |
Kinmokusei got me
thinking. What does Japan smell like? So here’s my list of ten odours that I
associate with Japan, in no particular order. I'm into lists of ten these days,
huh?
1. Tokyo's
own fragrance
I haven't come across
it anywhere else. It consists of soy sauce, exhaust fumes, whiff of sea breeze,
sewers (especially when it's raining), incense, tatami, charcoal. Eau de Tokyo
is all of that, intertwined, heady, home.
Incidentally, the internationally
famous designer
Kenzo Takada (高田賢三)
created a man's fragrance called "Tokyo" a few years ago. Its fragrance
notes are a combination of (yellow) ginger, lemon, grapefuit; (red) pink pepper, bitter
orange; (green) shiso, maté absolute, green tea; and (darkness) oil of guaiac, cedar, clove and nutmeg. I don't know what it smells like, and as far
as I can figure out, it's not for sale anymore.
2. Incense
This is the real deal:
all-pervasive yet elusive, spicy, tangy, sweet. My favourite is sandalwood (白檀, byakudan) and anything made by Shoyeidō (松榮堂) or Kyūkyodō (鳩居堂), both in Kyoto.
3. Yakitori
There are so many
characteristic food smells in Japan, but this is my choice. Perhaps
it's because I often walk through Ameyoko, where there are dozens of yakitori
bars. Another typical food smell is …
4. Tsuyu
Not rainy season, but dipping
sauce for soba. It's made of dark soy sauce, mirin (sweetened sake) and dashi
stock. Dashi (fish stock) itself is another typical smell of Japan.
5. Stuffy
early-morning train
Let me start off by
saying that if I
have to be crammed into an overcrowded train, I'd rather be in an overcrowded train in Japan than in
any other country. Despite my constant kutuk-ing* about Tokyo's commuters, it
remains a miracle that so many people can travel together so often without murder
and mayhem. (* Kutuk is a Malaysian word that means to diss someone. Thanks,
Lina!)
Having said that,
morning trains have a smell of their own, and although it never smells awful,
it can get very stuffy if you're travelling with older male commuters.
I was raised in a
culture that has a shower in the morning. You wouldn't even think of starting a
new day without water. Japan, on the other hand, believes in a bath at night.
No problem with that, except that morning commuters don't always smell fresh.
If it's a man who sweated and omitted various other bodily fluids throughout
the night, ate natto for breakfast, had vending machine coffee and smoked a couple
of cigarettes, then … oh dear.
However, I'm not
complaining too loudly. Have you ever used public transport in Africa? No? Be
grateful.
PS: Me? I have a
shower in the morning, since it's in my DNA, but I usually have a hot bath at
night as well. What can I say? I like water.
6. Ponging
late-night train
Sweat, alcohol,
cigarettes, BO, bad breath, exhaustion. Depending on the station, add vomit,
piss and an acrid post-sex odour.
Interestingly enough I
can cope with late-night train smells better than early-morning ones, probably
because I'm ever so slightly worse for wear myself after hammering English into
students' heads all day.
7. Yuzu
bath salts
Japan has superb bath
salts, the one better than the next, but I'm particularly fond of yuzu
fragrance.
Yuzu is a citrus fruit that originated in East Asia. I associate it
not only with Japan, but with the onset of winter; as a matter of fact, it's an
old custom to have a yuzu bath on the winter solstice (
冬至,
tōji).
8. Tatami
Fresh, earthy,
natural, cheerful and tranquil at the same time. I love it.
9. Snow
This might be an odd
one to include, since it's neither a fragrance nor unique to Japan, but I never
experienced it in Africa, so I associate it with Japan. It's more a sensation
than a fragrance, but that dry, ice-cold, cut-like-glass air that pours through
your nose into your lungs … that's the smell of snow.
10. Cigarettes
Ugh. Everywhere. I'm not
an anti-smoking Nazi, promise, but Japan is incredibly lax when it comes to
anti-smoking rules. Smokers may be the minority (36,6%
of Japanese men and 12,1% of Japanese women according
to 2010 statistics), but all of us are forced to smoke with them in restaurants
where there are no proper divisions between smoking and non-smoking, and on
streets where it's common to smoke despite rules that forbid it.
It's your choice to
smoke. If I give you my permission, you're welcome to smoke in my presence, but
don't force me to smoke with you whether I want to or not.
Oh. That makes 11, if
I add kinmokusei. Oy, I teach English, not maths. Now you expect me to be able
to count? May I add two more?
11 or 12.
Sulphur
Many onsen have a
sulphur smell, ranging from faint to vrot (see sidebar) eggs.
12 or 13. Chlorine
Initially I thought it
was my imagination, but no, Tokyo tap water does have a very strong chlorine
smell. You can also smell it at sento (public baths) and onsen. Read more about
it
here and
here.
More random fragrant observations
1. Kinmokusei is one of three famous fragrant
flowers in Japan. The other two are Daphne odora (沈丁花, jinchōge) and gardenia
(梔子,
kuchinashi).
2. When Westerners
first arrived in Japan, the Japanese were justifiably shocked by the hairy
barbarians' lack of bathing and hence vile body odour. Even when properly
cleansed, Westerners had a very different body odour thanks to their milk-heavy
diet. The Japanese referred to Americans as bata-kusai (バタ臭い) or
butter stink.
3. Here's an interesting excerpt from
Wikipedia:
Kōdō (香道, the way of fragrance) is the Japanese art
of appreciating fragrance, and involves using incense within a structure of
codified conduct. Though it is counted as one of the three classical arts of
refinement*, it is relatively unknown amongst modern Japanese people. Kōdō
includes all aspects of the incense process - from the tools, which, much like
tools of the tea ceremony, are valued as high art, to activities such the
incense-comparing games kumikō (組香) and genjikō (源氏香).
*
The other two are kadō (華道, the way of flowers or flower arranging) and chadō (茶道,
the way of tea or the tea ceremony).
4. Richard Axel is a neuroscientist
whose work on the olfactory system won him a Nobel Prize in Medicine in
2004. He calls smell "the primary sense, the central sensual modality"
that helps most animals, and that includes humans, to identify food, danger and
mates. You can listen to him yourself:
5. While I was
Googling for Tokyo smells, I stumbled across a blog called
Everyday Life in Uptown Tokyo. He included a lovely Japanese song that refers to smells. Here's the
video. If you want to read an English translation of the lyrics, you'll find it
on his blog in
this post.
PS: That other post that I meant to write was about a shōtengai or shopping street in Mukōjima. I'll get there. Eventually.
