Sashimi of yellowtail

We Japanese people love to eat Sashimi, it’s raw fish. “Sashimi” means raw fish in Japanese. This word doesn’t mean a special kind of fish and means every cut of raw fish. This picture is one which captured Sashimi of yellowtail. Originally yellowtail was a very expensive fish in Japan, but recently this fish is getting cheaper. Because it is caught a lot around Japan islands because of global warming. And, as for me, I’m sometimes told by foreign friends, “Japan takes the best tuna away around the sea near my country”. “Sorry”, I often said. Yeah, because we love to eat tuna very much. If the Japanese fishing ships catch a lot of tuna around your country, please forgive me! See you.

Yellow world

Here in Japan now, it’s a yellow world. I mean, ginkgo trees changed very yellow. In a park near my house, you can see yellow fallen leaves from ginkgo trees. We call it “イチョウ” in japanese and ginkgo fruits have strong smell. It’s not a good smell but ginkgo fruits are used in Japanese cuisines. And I can say that ginkgo fruit matches Japanese wine (Sake) very much. If you come to Japan in autumn, please try to eat ginkgo fruits with Japanese Sake. When it comes to December, maple leaves will be red in this park. So, mountain trees will be very colorful with autumn leaves.

Cluster amaryllis called 曼殊沙華

When it comes to autumn, the flowers called cluster amaryllis are in bloom suddenly. In Japan this year, this flower started to bloom at the end of September. Compared to usual years, it was delayed. That's because this summer was super hot. Maybe it is influenced by global warming.

We call this flower “曼殊沙華/Manjyusyage” in Japanese. This word is from Buddhism. And this word is also pronounced Manjyusaka too. The meaning of this word is the flower blooming in heaven.

And this word is often used in Haiku. For example this Haiku, I want to introduce you.

西国の畔曼殊沙華曼殊沙華　（森澄雄）

A very famous poet called Mori Sumio wrote this Haiku. The meaning of this Haiku is this. 西国/Saigoku means the west region of Japan. I mean, the region is more western than Kyoto. 畔/Aze means the besides of rice fields. This poet wanted to describe the landscape where many cluster amaryllis are blooming beside rice fields in the western Japan. When he sang this Haiku, he must have been traveling in the region.

I don’t know why cluster amaryllis bloom a lot beside rice fields in Japan. Or, we often see the landscape where this flower is blooming beside rivers. And, as you call it “cluster”, this flower is necessarily in bloom as a cluster. It’s interesting.

There are also yellow flowers in this plant. In my garden, yellow cluster amaryllis is in bloom now.