There are lots of famous supernatural creatures in Japan, but my favourite (but only just ahead of Tofu Kozo, Adzuki Arai and the nightmare-giving Nue) has to be the Kappa. They live in water, like frogs, but they look more liked a turtle crossed with a man who looks a bit like a duck. They love to play pranks - some harmless, others much, much less so. Children are warned, when they're small, not to go near water (which has to be fun for swimming teachers all over Japan...)
People make extremely funny, slightly rude musical films about kappa: Underwater Love (onna no kappa) is one of them:
My friend claimed to have won the lottery because of the cute kappa charm we bought her from Kyoto in January, which looked something like this
Kappa even have a 'maki' sushi named after them
And here's where we get to the heart of the matter. I love kappa because they love CUCUMBERS almost as much as I do. This pic from Boing Boing would be food porn to us:
There are five cucumbers in the fridge right now. This time tomorrow, who can say how many will be left? Seventh heaven in Setagaya. Mmm.
No comments:
Post a Comment