Owara Kaze no Bon

Consider the mountain village of Yatsuo (kanji thusly, or so I hope: 八尾) or Yatsuo-machi (verily do I grawr at you, un-standardized transliterations and variants that I am forced to collect from my sources). This village is part of Toyama city (which is probably spelled like this: 富山市) which itself is part of Toyama Prefecture (which is spelled like this: 富山県 and is on the left side of Honshū under the sticky uppy peninsula). They have something that draws people to them. It is this.

The people in this village have this religious event/festival thing that's 300 years old plus. It's called Owara Kaze no Bon (Owara is the district. I believe). It's supposed to be an interesting sight because it's melancholy and eerie and surreal and stuff.  

Kay, that was my intro, feel free to start the next paragraph. (What are you still doing up here?  Go down already! You' won't find anything else up here, I can tell you that! ;) ) 

Why

This festival/event is supposed to have two points: to ask for a good harvest and to keep the wind from attacking. (Keep reading, the second point makes more sense with the first point later on.) 

History-ish 

There's a theory about where this tradition came from. It's pretty simple: Bon and a harvest request event got mixed together. Apparently, these days, the event is supposed to have had a large increase in people who like to see things coming to watch them.

What

People of Owara traditionally stop working to come together and dance for the night. They light paper lamp stands (that's paper lamps, part of stands), which makes sense if you're going to be dancing at night. They dance to a song of the village's that they sing, the (plus-ish) Ecchu (bless you! Sorry, I couldn't resist) Owara Bushi or just Ecchu Owara. The kana for it are thus: 越中おわら節(Ecchu may sometimes be spelled etchu, just an fyi. And an argh, but that's not an acronym). However. This doesn't seem to entirely hold true today...

From the looks of it, there are official dancers. There are costumes, one for the women (yukata) one for the men (happi coats and pants) -- and both wear large straw hats, at least some of them. (Take a circle, like the cardboard one you get in a frozen pizza, bend it mostly in half and that's the basic shape right there). Instruments accompany -- kyokū (Chinese fiddle), taiko and the shamisen. Somehow, younger dancers seem to be able to join in at some point... dunno. There seems to be an official singer/official singers. Anyways, dancers dance through-ish the village (which I've also seen called a town...). Apparently, it's all supposed to average 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, at the village's elementary school (Yatsuo Elementary School -- hey, cool, that spells YES!), there's a stage at the playground. Here, preservation societies from the Owara district dance their dances. Not clear what exactly this means... but it looks like it costs 20 dollars for unreserved seats (Saw some footage of dancing in a shrine or a temple though... And there's something about different stages? Hmms. I could go into a long, and probably not a little disgruntled, quasi-expository rant, but I think I'll just let you all discuss it among yourselves.) 

But wait, there's more confusion! (At least, I was confused). Here, so you don't have to read my awkward paraphrase (which would really just be yet another quasi-expository rant) it's from the Japan National Tourism Organization: 

"The dance is performed in an area extending some 3 kilometers from north to south, and the 11 Owara district sub-branches, each forming a unit, dance on designated stages as they travel around the area." There. All done. (Kinda makes it sound like a relay/marathon, dunnit. Like, it's a 3k dance, or something. ;) )

For lyrics to Ecchu Owara (Bushi), go here, I think.

When (and some more Why)

Vaguely September 1 through September 3. (Apparently, it can change, so watch out.)  It's supposed to be the 210th day after the first day of spring. Sounds oddly specific, right? Apparently, in Japan's traditional calendar, the 210th day after the first day of spring is supposed to be a very bad day to be a farmer, as you are likely to get hit by a typhoon. (Hence the dangerous wind prevention/placation aspect of the dance).

Videos

Here's this one, it's kinda nice, it's got a choreographed human experience, slice of life type realism-y-ness of people passing through the festival and visiting. The music is like "relaxing" spa ad-spot guitar but maybe with a touch of Iberian tourism guitar mixed in. Definitely seems to be going for a sort of subdued tone. Anyhow, 'nuf of my highly articulate Ebert/Maltin-ing, if you want to see the dance, start at 2:28-ish (also make sure to watch for a dog in one of those bent round hats and a sort of meta moment where a cameraman/woman films a cameraman filming people):

I have no idea what they're singing at the very end, but it sounds fun.

And here's a longer video of the festival/event. (I mean, it's not as long as if you tried to watch all of the 1987 version of Little Dorrit in one sitting. But depending on how slice-of-life you feel, and depending on how much you like this kind of music, it could feel like it.) If you're like me and you have a bit of trouble appreciating the more intensely stylized vibrato the singer/singers uses in places in these videos, you might try speeding up the video a bit. (I know, I'm such a culture-less American.)

Then here's this short version of a lady just singing the Ecchu Owara (Bushi). At least I hope she is, because if she isn't that'd be a little embarrassing. Anyhow, I found it to be a bit easier on my Western ears than the others:

And there's all kind of videos out there, so if these still leave you curious, don't worry there's more!

References:

Below are the places, free to all who search, that have, in these frenzied afternoon (and evening) hours of the last day of July, guided these fingers to type the facts they have found therein. Enjoy!

Toyama Sightseeing Guide: Owara Kaze no Bon Festival

Toyama Convention Bureau Foundation: Traditional Performance Arts

This source o' mine here has costs and times and such like, for the abroad minded: 

Tourism Information in Toyama: Etchu Owara Kaze-no-Bon

Japan National Tourism Organization: Owara Kaze-no-Bon Festival

Once again, impressively short, if I do say so.

Mokugyo

June, hm, June, June, what to do for June. Aha, I know! Mokugyo or 木魚. That is to say, the wood fish drum/slit gong/bell/idiophone-struck-slit-drum  -- used across Asia in both Buddhist and Taoist rituals, (but, of course, imma talk about what *I think* is Japan's take on it).  Why? Well cuz, um, the 6th lunar month was Minazuki/Waterless month, and, uh... because  water equals fish which equals tuna, the Friday specialty meat at Subway? I dunno, just picked it really. And I mean, it is the last day of the month, so I just need to finish something, right? ;)

Appearance
Apparently, during the time of Dōgen (who lived from 1200 to 1253 and introduced Zen to Japan), the wood fish drum called mokugyo was a  flat one that was part of 'the meal ritual' -- it was in the 'outer hall'. People hit it with a long pole during the ritual. They looked like this 'un (from the Met's Collection), 'less I be mistaken:

Then there's the type of drum that the people of today call mokugyo, which looks like a sleigh bell with a "handle" of two dragon-head fish, both biting a ball (or jewel, I've seen it called a jewel). The ball is a symbol of earth -- our plane of existence, I guess? This type seems to be the one that most people talk about, so that's the one I (hope) I am focusing on. (Of course the Met just said that both are called mokugyo...Anyway, insert rant and (yet another) minor nervous breakdown here, and let's continue.)

They're made by hollowing out a piece of wood. Camphor wood's the top choice, but you can get ones in mulberry wood or rosewood. (Unless it's that my source is mistaken... Really, some days I think that's this blog's unofficial tagline.)

The big ones are usually 2 or 3 feet tall -- but you can find bigger (see the video below) a piece. I got most of that basically from one book, which also says that they're painted -- red or "plainer" colors.

How do people play mokugyo? They use a padded drum stick. Big ones are put on a cushion before they're used. (Dunno how 'big' one has to be before it needs a cushion...) Here's a short video of a big mokugyo -- looks like a three-footer, easy:

From what I can figure, the mokugyo is kept in the hondo of Ryutokuji (龍徳寺) in Otaru (小樽), Hokkaido (北海道).

Use
What I've found says mokugyo have two purposes: one is to help keep time during sutra chants, and and the other to call monks together for a Buddhist service. This probably varies from monastery to monastery, not to mention sect to sect. Speaking of which,  two sects I've read that use mokugyo are Zen (or禅) and Jōdō aka Pure Land (or 浄土宗.) (So if you ever find yourself on the lookout for spotting one, you know where to start now.)

On a related note, fish symbolism says that because fish don't blink, fish are like a metaphor for vigilance. Guess that makes sense -- mokugyo are meant to keep you on track, like. (And now I know not to start a staring contest with a fish.)

History
One version has it like this: mokugyo is supposed to have been the creation of one Chih-ling, a Chinese priest who lived during the Sui dynasty (Don't know when that was? I didn't either. It was 581-617 AD. There. Now we both know). Inspiration for it, goes a recounting, came from the Subha Sastra, a sutra.

Or was it?

Here's another history. A Chinese monk called Yinyuan Longqi brought it over in the 1600s. (Yinyuan, according to this same account, started the Ōbaku sub-sect of Zen. His personal dates are thus: 1592-1673.)

Grawr.

Myth/Legend/Origin Stuff
Here's a version of the mokugyo's origins: a priest in India got reborn as a fish, because he didn't live like he should've done. His new fish body had a tree growing out of it (whoa). Not only that, whenever this way out of left-field appendage got buffeted by anything, the fish/ex-priest got hurt.

Instead of being honest with himself about why he was now a fish with a tree growing out of his back, he blamed his superior/ex-superior and wanted to exact some good, old-fashioned revenge. One day, this same superior/ex-superior needed to cross the river the fish/ex-priest lived in, and verily did the fish/ex-priest go and take him some revenge (the narrative I came across didn't say what exactly that was, but apparently it counted as revenge).

The superior asked the fish what was going on, and the fish spake his delusion, to which the superior responded with flat denial, telling the fish that You Get What You Deserve. The scales fell from the fish's eyes. The fish asked the superior to make something out of his back-tree that people would use in Buddhism. This would get the fish closer to Nirvana. The superior obliged: he made a fish-shaped drum out of it. When the drum was used, the fish was able to go to Nirvana.

Now for a different origin story that completely (well sorta) flips the dynamic. It talks about a priest (I think) crossing a river and being saved by a fish. He made the fish a promise that he then forgot about... When it came about that the priest had to cross the river a second time (for some reason), the fish gave him a near death experience in retaliation for the slight. In response to this, the priest made an effigy of the fish -- a fish-shaped drum -- so he could beat the tar out of something without officially breaking his vow of non-violence. (I'm not quite sure he'd quite got the whole concept of non-violence.).

That one seems like a different moral story, perhaps on the importance of Keeping Your Promises.... or maybe perhaps Going To Bed On Time And Eating Your Vegetables (Because River Fish With Supernatural Powers Are Touchy And Have No Sympathy For People With Bad Memory).


Science
To round out this post, here's a little science. Poking around for mokugyo info turned up a study on them. Scientists looked at both the drum's hertz (it usually makes two 'peaks') as well as what people liked best about the sounds. I don't understand all of it so... link!

References:
Well, here we are again! Hope you had fun. ;) (Oh, and it's pretty  easy to find mokugyo for sale online. Just thought I'd put it in for the curious. )

"Culture in Action: Playing the Spoons and Other Curious Instruments"; Liz Miles; 2011

"A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism"; Christmas Humphreys; 1984

"We Japanese: The Customs, Manners, Ceremonies, Festivals, Arts and Crafts of Japan"; Frederic de Garis, Atsuharu Sakai; 2002

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Mokugyo

"Dōgen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community: A Translation of Eihei Shingi"; Taigen Daniel Leighton, Shohaku Okumura (translators); 1996 

"A Japanese-English Dictionary of Culture, Tourism and History of Japan"; 山口百々男, Steven Bates (translator?); 2010

Encyclopedia Britannica: Dōgen

Wakasa Agate Carving

Impressive but hard to look at, right? Many, many,many, 
thanks to the Met's art gallery for the originals I used in this composite. 
And the inventor of MS Paint. (None of the above artifacts are Japanese, by the way.)

In the dynamic, image above, note the two kanji. These make up the word menō, the Japanese word for agate. For those who can't make heads or tails of them and/or don't want to be bothered heading to a translating site to get a copy, here they are in print: 瑪瑙. 

From sight, I'd say the first one means "king trying to catch his horse", and the second one means "king waiting to flip three burgers on the grill". As I am such a kanji expert, I feel fully justified putting this interpretation forward for further review. ;)

And now a transition paragraph into the subject proper:

In spite of the fact that it doesn't get anywhere near as much publicity as, say, Sri Lanka or Brazil's gem industries, Japan does, in fact, have a toe/foot in the gem world: agates.

Sort of a surprise, right? You never hear about Japan being a source of luxury grade rocks. But yeah, in Fukui Prefecture (or Fukui-ken, kanji like so:  福井県) they've been mining agate and crafting things from the stuff for like two-ish centuries. (The origins may or may not be somewhere in the first 50 years of the 1700s). It's even got official 'traditional craft' status, as of 1976 (or Shōwa 51, for the era inclined.) So you know it's worth reading about, right? ;)

For those who missed this map in my
last post I used in it (whichever 
one it was...) -- voila! Map.

The official name for the ages old tradition of agate carving, unless I've grossly missed the mark, is 若狭めのう細工 -- all that is pronounced "wakasa menō zaiku". (Yeah, the site where I found this phrase used hiragana for menō... I've read that kanji can seem a bit 'heavy', like academic, so my guess is they wanted to look a little more visually accessible. Either that or it's just the normal way to spell it.) It means Wakasa agate work/workmanship. Why not "Fukui-ken menō zaiku"? 

Well, I found that Wakasa is the name for a coastal type province that today is but a part of southern Fukui Prefecture. For a while, it was an international trade stop, and whose importance wasn't to be sneezed at. It  was a source of seafood for the imperial court -- it came to be referred to as miketsukuni (or a miketsukuni province, not entirely sure which), whose kanji, I think, are this: 御食国. The first kanji, I wanna say, is an honorific one, the second one's "food" and third one's "country". Nowadays, this ex-province is called (the) Wakasa region. Um, so, I guess since the industry started in the province, that's what they went with...

But this isn't exactly the end of the agate nomenclature confusion. (At least, I've been confused.) We've got some more specificity to get through. See, there're websites -- including Japan's official tourist site -- that make a point of emphasizing a certain city's connection to this great agate tradition above all others in the region. Can you guess which city? (A hint: politics.)

This city, which was located 'round abouts smack dab-ish in the middle of the Wakasa region, holds the name of the seemingly improbable name of Obama. (Didja get it?) Nothing to do with our previous head of state, the kanji are: 小浜, which mean "small" and "shore".  (You might also see the kanji for "city" added to the end. I've seen this with other cities. Dunno what the nuance/nuances is/are.) 

Now about the agate itself. One source described the deposit(s?) most common color as red. In the pictures I've seen so far, you get a lot of intense red-orange and orange coloration, plus a range of paler versions. And of course, because it's agate, these colors can come in layers of stripes, sometimes in rectangle-y shapes. A few pieces I saw had definitely got some translucency going on. Sort of like the picture below with all the circles that look like a pudgy bee, but not, as this one's Minoan. (Again many thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Seriously, if you want awesome -- and public domain photos, at that -- check out their site.) But I also saw at least one giant chunk of agate in process that was more gray than anything else. But I know the secret behind this discrepancy! 

They get agates all nice and vivid by heat treating them (this is also traditional, by the way). Which, if you're looking for the purity of rocks that were just shined up a bit, might feel like a bit of a let down, but still, you gotta admit, they're pretty eye-catching afterwards. 

Anyways, to get 'em all shaped, one tool I saw used in more than one video is the sand and water slurry and a grinding wheel. Beyond that, the secrets of the agate masters carving techniques remains a mystery to me -- for now.

Here, look at this video, which, for all I know, explains things better than I do (It's a little muffled, you might have to turn the volume up):

 Then there's this one video where I saw this one guy use a grinding wheel to polish a magatama he was making, though he wasn't in Wakasa. (A magatama is a bead with all kinds of cultural context. Some are basically like one half a yin-yang symbol. Others are like a cross between that and a macaroni noodle.) See, I'll put it here:

Speaking of videos, there're also a few that show kids doing stuff to agates, one had them etching with razors, while another had them rubbing agates with sand paper. (Shaping them? Polishing them?). Both were at the Miketsukuni Wakasa Obama Food Culture Museum (kanji (and hiragana) thusly: 御食国若狭おばま食文化館. Not entirely sure how to pronounce all of it, and I'm not even gonna try.) It's right across from Obama castle (no presidents involved there either) -- and a tax collector's, and a courthouse for family cases. Hm... Is that terrible or brilliant planning?

References:

Agate -- it's not just a type-o! (See cuz, agate/a gate... Look, I knew what I meant!)

Kawagoe City: Obama City, Fukui Prefecture

Fukui Prefecture: 福井県観光地等の多言語表記ガイドライン（対訳表）

Wakasa Obama Tourism Association Site: Wakasa Agate

伝統工芸 青山スクエア: 若狭めのう細工

OBAMA City Website | English Page: Our town Obama

Kyoto National Museum: Past Exhibitions Illustrated Handscrolls and Wakasa Province September 13, 2016 - October 2, 2016

Japan Heritage: Wakasa Province: A Cultural Heritage Linking the Seat to the ancient Capital: Miketsukuni and Saba-kaido Road: Cultural heritages linking the Japan Sea to Nara and Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan

As my lazy Japanese skills don't allow me to read things that are more complicated than "Kenji is seven years old. He likes cake." I don't know how much information I'm leaving out. This really applies to a significant portion of these references, but here's two I thought I'd point out, to those learning the language. So, yeah. Cheers!


Number one:

若狭工房： 小浜の伝統工芸: 若狭塗－国指定伝統的工芸品（昭和５３年指定）－

And number two:
御食国若狭おばま食文化館: ご利用案内

Oh, and here's where I got the Shōwa date. (He's got era names and dates too, and the transliterations and the kanji. And it's an ac.jp site, which means it's academic and therefore official. Which makes this author happy.) 

Michael Geoffrey Watson マイケル・ジェフリー・ワトソン: Meiji -- Taisho -- Showa -- Heisei

Hagi no Tsuki

Hey, I'm super early this time... So without further ado, the article.

On the left, a cross section, on the right, a hagi no tsuki in its unaltered wholeness.
(I sincerely hope that this (and the post for that matter)
doesn't get me sued. (Don't worry, I'l explain).

To the untrained ear, hagi no tsuki may sound like a person with a mouthful of saltwater taffy trying to express that they are in possession of a pig that refuses to come when called. (Some imagination and/or sleep deprivation may be required for full comprehension).** In truth though, it involves neither pigs nor nutrition-less nuggets of (delicious) varieties of sugar and (a surprising number of) chemicals.

Though my eye-catching picture above (and my current trend in posts) is undoubtedly a big tip off, I'm still gonna try and create build up in explaining this mysterious object known as hagi no tsuki is. (Whoo, word count of thirty-six! Yeah! Ahem.)

First try looking at the name, which may provide you with a very vague nudge in the right direction. (It didn't for me, though it probably should have). Hagi no tsuki is "bush clover moon". The kanji (plus one hirigana) are thus: 萩の月. Japanese learners among us many notice the kanji for bushclover/hagi is the kanji for autumn/fall with a little fence up top. (This little fence, from what I understand -- don't ask me where I read this, cuz I don't remember -- tells you that you're dealing with a plant. Neat, huh?) So we've got bush clover (Lespedeza bicolor -- L. bicolor for us lazy types), a symbol of autumn in both name and tradition. And we have the moon. Got your answer? Okay, here we go!

Took me forever to find a moon
pic for this post, and I'm not exactly
sure what the ax-wielding man is doing. Ringing its
doorbell? I dunno.
But hey, the moon looks like hagi no
tsuki, right? So mission successful!

It's a cake!  And not just any cake -- it looks like it's the specific product of a Sendai-based company called Kasho Sanzen. (Hence the caption in my lovely MS Paint work at the top here.) See, they tend to be pale yellow, slightly flattened domes of castella (or カステラ -- it's a type of sponge cake with apparently something of a steamed texture) filled with incredibly solid-looking custard cream filling of a darker yellow. (You know, like my incredibly life-like MS Paint masterpiece above). So hagi no tsuki are cakes shaped like the harvest moon. (To those who were already thinking harvest moon, I give you props!)

Whether naturally or through the dedicated efforts of various tourist boards, hagi no tsuki is a product connected with the Tōhoku region (aka just Tōhoku or 東北 aka the northern area of Honshū or 本州). Specifically and famously, with Miyagi Prefecture 宮城県. Is there any causal relationship that would help define a logical follow through to this seeming discontinuity? Well, Miyagi Prefecture's official flower is the bush clover's flower so, it makes sense.

The darker green area is Tōhoku. Yep.

(Here's a little side trip into a moment that kinda surprised me, even though I guess it probably shouldn't have, come to think of it. (Still, it was a sudden turn after only getting pages about the cake's description.) One source I found is in the Japanese government's Public Relations Office's website. It talked about the March 11, 2011 disaster and the Japanese economy, and what people where doing to be proactive. Included in this article were hagi no tsuki. (See what I mean about sudden turns?)

Specifically, it talked about the fact that Kasho Sanzen's production was totally destroyed, and they started selling their inventory a few days after the disaster happened. 

The article also mentioned that one time, huge department store, Shinjuku Takashimaya, once had a five day fair that went from April 20th to the 25th, selling Miyagi Prefecture goods -- including hagi no tsuki. 

Sometimes you never know what you're gonna find. Okay, side trip finished.)

It must be said though, while like 99 percent of the (small number) of pictures I've found of this cake have the what looks like some variant of vanilla pudding -- meanwhile in this post from the blog Sweet Travel, it's chocolate... and the cake type itself looks darker and heavier. Can't complain, mind, 'cause if there's anything I like it's a dessert with chocolate in it. (The same post also said that hagi no tsuki are made with Twinkie technology. It must be said that at least in terms of appearance, Twinkies and hagi no tsuki do look sorta like they're first cousins or something).

As for size, here's a v-log review by a food vlogger I only discovered when doing research for this post. (She's apparently quite popular: when I came across her hagi no tsuki video she had 2,878,049 followers). As per usual, I can't tell a lot of what she's saying but you'll get a good look at a hagi no tsuki:

References:
**Hoggy no suey. Oh, and if you're ever in the Sendai airport, they sell hagi no tsuki there, from what I (hope I) understand. Costs 1200 yen, but I dunno how many you get.

The Free Dictionary: Bush Clover

Government of Japan Public Relations Office: Highlighting Japan: COVER STORY: The Road to Recovery

Miyagi Touring Navigation: Shopping

Sendai International Airport: General Store Hagi (Confectionary Specialty Department)

University of Wisconsin Oshkosh: David Barnhill: Major Nature Images in Basho's Hokku

"Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era"; Donald Keene; 1999

The Free Dictionary: Encyclopedia: Bush Clover

University of Virginia Library Etext Center: Japanese Text Initiative: Japanese Haiku: Brief Entries: aki, Autumn

Image Reference:
Picture of the awestruck lumberjack provided by Yale University Art Gallery:

Yale University Art Gallery: Cassia tree moon - Wu Gang : # 26 of One Hundred Aspects of the Moon

Hakutō Zerī and White Peaches

And the Japanese word for peach is -- momo! And I make tolerably
good-looking stylized peaches, if I do say so myself. 

Tadaaaa! I'm early this time! I'm even sort of seasonal again! How's this? Well, March is a month associated with peach blossoms -- and therefore the topics of this post is a good, seasonally relevant one to talk about!

So, as you know, people put peaches/peach flavoring  in practically every type of dessert or drink known to man, from pie, yogurt, ice cream, candy, sweet tea, soda pop, juice drinks, scones and cakes/quick breads to more healthy options such as fruit salads (probably, though I've never seen it myself) and smoothies. (Congratulations, you made it to the end of the list!) They even put it in salsa, which is more or less where I draw the peach appreciation line, myself.

Meanwhile in Japan (muwahahaha! ahem), among the various varieties and options of peach themed comestibles, there's also a summer dessert called 白桃ゼリー or hakutō zerī. Which in English means (so far as I understand it) "white peach jelly".

The Background: White Peaches

Peaches: also in white. 

You, like me, probably don't connect peaches with Japan. At all. In fact, if you've been looking around at Japan, one of those things you probably have heard (or will hear soon enough) about Japan is that fresh fruit costs. And that, in fact, having fresh fruit requires a certain level of income to acquire regularly, perhaps about what a well-cornered stock market would get you.

The truth of the matter is, it's not just Hokkaido that's known for its produce! There are whole prefectures known for growing produce. One such prefecture is Okayama Prefecture (kanji as so: 岡山県), the "Land of Sunshine" which is known for peaches and grapes -- it's the prefecture where half of Japan's peaches are grown. (Kinda seems like a cross between Georgia and Florida).

Brought to you by countless dedicated cartographers
and Wikipedia (checked with Google Maps).
Label, arrow and background art by me and MS Paint.

In particular, to sorta kinda be precise, Okayama Prefecture is known for the hakutō or white peach (They're not white really, from the pics I've seen -- they're more a pale yellow, with some red blush). From what it looks like, hakutō is a term for any type of Japanese white peach grown in Okayama (though I bet people use it in general too.)

The very first type of hakutō came from Chinese immigrant peaches, brought over during the Meiji period -- apparently, the Chinese cling (or Shanhai Suimitsu). Some of the different types I've come across in my internet agricultural travels include the shimizu hakutō, Okayama yume hakutō (hmm, the "Okayama dream white peach"),the sakigake hakutō. The shimisu hakuō is the most well-known.

...And, uh, well that's all I have to say about that for now. ;)

Hakutō Zerī
But it's not just the various races of peach that we're talkin' 'bout t'day. (Apostrophes -- now for all your phonetically expressed dialectical inflection needs!) No, today the ultimate point of the article is this: hakutō jelly -- aka white peach jello. To introduce you to how a commercial hakutō zerī looks, here's an ad spot/micro tour for a company that makes hakutō zerī with the shimizu hakutō:

This URL has a recipe in Japanese for ... pickled(?)  hakutō zerī. With the mixed blessing that is Google Translate as my aid (again), it looks like the directions say to make a syrup with chopped white peaches, water and sugar (plus some lemon). After that there's some directions involving something that seems kinda like gelatin, but isn't quite : ゼリーの素 -- I think it might be jello mix. (If it is jello mix, it seems a bit of a cheat, but I suppose it adds flavor, like adding onion powder to chili with onions already in it). I assume some kind of acid is involved to to the fact "pickled" aspect of it...

Anyway, the uploader in the videos below (don't worry, they're super short) uses this method:

And part two:

Looks like he could have benefited from a pinch of agar or the like, but I bet it tasted pretty good all the same.

Meanwhile, this book has a recipe in English what seems like it's pretty much hakutō zerī, and it's similar to the above recipe, though it uses certain other ingredients, and doesn't use prepackaged jello. (If you can't find it in the preview (Google Books is like that sometimes), try a different browser, that works for me.)

Much as I'd like to have been able to write about the history and cultural use of this dessert, it just sort of seems to... be. I haven't found anything about it's origin or rise in popularity 'n all that... Ah well, here's to diversity!

An Extraneous Video I Looked At
A lot of videos that came up on YouTube for hakutō zerī  were unboxing/tasting type videos. The video you're gonna come across in a few sentences is one of 'em.  It's a bit slow paced/quiet (it's like he's doing an ASMR video or something), here's this un-boxing of an undeniably very fancily wrapped hakutō (Like the last video, don't know what all he's sayin', so just an fyi to all you speakers and learners of the language):

So anyway, all in all, white peach jelly probably isn't really considered particularly that different and/or special from yellow peach jelly. Um, well, to wrap things up I guess I'll finish with one last fact on peaches which says that for a while white peaches were the peach of choice in Japan, not yellow, but that's been changing. (I have no official time line of this, you'll just have to trust my vague assertations). See y'all later!


References:
"The peach and the poet know/Under the chill the glow,/And the token of golden days!" -- Bayard Taylor from Peach Blossom (Hooray for search engines!)

Okayama Prefecture Web Site: モモの新品種 ‘さきがけはくとう’ 日原 誠介・藤井 雄一郎・笹邊 幸男* A New Peach Cultivar ʻSakigake hakutoʼ Seisuke Hihara, Yuichiro Fujii and Yukio Sasabe

J-Stage: "White Peach in Okayama prefecture, Distinctive development and the endeavors for the best quality"; Yuichiro Fuji

"Shunju: New Japanese Cuisine;" Takashi Sugimoto, Marcia Iwatate; 2002

"The Peach: Botany, Production and Uses": Desmone R. Layne, Daniele Bassi (editors); 2008

Okayama University: Okayama Travelogue: Okayama Hakuto-the sweet and fragrant peach grown in ‘Land of Sunshine’

Yubeshi

A famous food in Ishikawa Prefecture's Noto Peninsula as well as the Tōhoku region, and looking like trail food,  here's today's topic: yubeshi or 柚餅子 --  that's "yuzu", "mochi" and "child", respectively. Two of -- well I guess all three really, though the third's a bit of a stretch -- these kanji give massive hints about what yubeshi is. 

For geographical-ness though here's some pictures of Ishikawa Prefecture and the Tōhoku region.

The dark part's the Tōhoku
region. From Wikimedia (again, checked
by the internet).

Looks kinda like a sock puppet dunnit?
At least part of the stick-y out-y
bit's the Noto Peninsula.
(From Wikimedia, checked by the internet).

So anyways, when you see a picture of yubeshi served up, your first impression may very well be that it began life as a (hopeful) attempt at vegan jerky. But it's not! It's a(n) (obviously) yuzu flavored rice and/or miso dumpling that takes a good while to prepare, and it can have other stuff too, depending on the recipe. 

As for culture... Hmm, it's a cold-weather food associated with rural areas. (Lemme tell you, it just looks like something created for enduring hard times -- but I like lemony things, so for all I know I'd like it). It's also popular at New Years. 

With a sharp sudden turn in focus, and without out further ado, let's begin what's basically the second intro, the Yuzu Aside! (Which you can skip, and probably will, if you're just in it for the yubeshi).

Yuzu Aside

For those who previously were completely ignorant of the yuzu's existence and to round out our knowledge of the yubeshi, let's take a moment to consider the yuzu or 柚子 (though I've seen it just as 柚. If there's a nuance, no place I've read (that I could understand okay) has mentioned it.)

Botanists, and other science types probably, have been known to call this fruit Citrus junos. Like limes and lemons and such, yuzu are used in cooking -- for one thing, it's the fruit ponzu makers put in their ponzu -- unless it's a company that doesn't want to use something that's probably more expensive or has tariffs or something... they use lemon, from what I understand, which I think is basically what people who can't get yuzu use anyway. 

Pic of a yuzu I nabbed from the Wikipedia. (It had a
 mandarin too, but I edited it out. The shadow's on it's right is from
the mandarin). Seems to match the other pics I've seen -- a yellow
orange that looks like it's been left in the fruit bowl a bit too long.

Types

Getting back to yubeshi, it would appear that there're several types (or more... and not everyone says they're are types. *Shrugs* One book I found says two is the number, so for now we'll go with that. I mean, it's from 1976 and is a little confusing, but it's the most comprehensive definition I've got right now that I can read without guessing every other word.)

One type has a miso mix. You can use it as a party snack-y type thing (aka hors d'oeuvres -- or appetizer, if you're at a restaurant)  as a topper for foods, sliced.

The other type is composed of a mochi mix (looks like soy sauce, a sweet syrup (dunno which type) or at least some type of sweetener and glutinous rice). It's is supposed to be spicy and sweet but not super strong tasting. You use it as a snack/hors doeuvre/appetizer or as a candy.

Walnut yubeshi -- which is yubeshi with walnuts in -- seems to be a thing. Here's a (Japanese language) recipe video (I don't know what the song is about, but it sounds exciting. Oh, and walnut in Japanese is kurumi, and if you want to spell it in kanji, this is it: 胡桃).

Procedure

The general procedure for making them is this: either you cut your yuzus either in half or just part of the top end (got a bit of contradiction there) --  then you can scoop out the innards. (You know in Belize, they make jack o'lanterns out of grapefruits as a Día de los Muertos decoration. True story.) Once they're hollowed out, fill 'em with your yubeshi mix, apply steam and hang your filled yuzu molds up in a tree to dry. (Or, in the case of the videos I'm going to introduce below, in a commercial drier). This will take a good while -- but once their done, pop 'em out of their rinds like those little red cheeses in the dairy section and voila! A nice crop of yubeshi, ready to be sliced up thin and served. 

The point of using yuzu is so that the mix gets that yuzu taste... I haven't looked at people's personal recipes much, but I found a quick version for Yubeshi in Google Books where you just grate yuzu peel straight into your mix and put your yubeshi your fridge to chill for a few days.

Explanatory-ish Videos

Here's  video (part 1 of 2) that I don't understand. But it's got a dramatic-y cinematic Jurassic Park meets Hallmark/Disney Channel type feel, which might be enough to help carry you along to the end. (It's a yubeshi/yuzu growing tourist place promotional video, from what I do understand).

And because sometimes I'm filled with civic mindedness, below this sentence you will find part two. ;) 

Post-Script PSA

Oh, and just an FYI: do not search for yubeshi on the Amazon site for English speakers. Strange as it may sound, when I did that, there was nothing on the rice cake stuffed into a fruit rind and steamed then dried. 

No, what I did find was anime posters. Lots and lots of (somewhat suggestive) anime posters -- at least some of which were for an anime called Yubeshi (so props to the Amazon search box for accuracy). I gave up after several pages, and instead (after failing to find much on Google Shopping) went to the Japanese Amazon, where I struck some pay-dirt -- actual yubeshi products! Okay, this is starting to sound like an ad for Amazon, so I'd better stop. 

Ta!

References:

Hooray for search engines and the internet! 

"Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan; Eric Rath; 2010

"The Illustrated Cook's Book of Ingredients"; 2010

"The Book of Miso"; William Shurtleff, Akiko Aoyagi"; 1976

"A Dictionary of Japanese Food: Ingredients & Culture"; Richard Hosking; 1995

"和英：日本の文化・観光・歴史辞典" ("A Japanese-English Dictionary of Culture, Tourism and History of Japan"); 山口百々男, Steven Bates; 2014

"Chado: The Way of Tea"; Sanmi Sasaki, (translated by ‎Shaun McCabe, ‎Satoko Iwasaki); 2002    This one doesn't actually let you see the book, but if you scroll down the page to the "Other Editions" section, you get a limited preview of the 1997 version... which won't let me see anything on yubeshi. Yeah, it's a little convoluted. Oh wells, I tried!