For 40 years during good weather, Henry [Fujima] doggedly pursued the elusive tuna in his hand-built sampan.
A sampan is a relatively flat bottomed Chinese wooden boat from 3.5 to 4.5 m (11.5 to 14.8 ft) long. Some sampans include a small shelter on board, and may be used as a permanent habitation on inland waters. Sampans are generally used for transportation in coastal areas or rivers, and are often used as traditional fishing boats. It is unusual for a sampan to sail far from land as they do not have the means to survive rough weather.
The word "sampan" comes from the original Cantonese term for the boats, 三板 (sam pan), literally meaning "three planks", although this term is no longer used in modern Chinese. The name referred to the hull design, which consists of a flat bottom (made from one plank) joined to two sides (the other two planks). The design closely resembles Western hard chine boats like the scow or punt.
Sampans may be propelled by poles, oars (particularly a single, long sculling oar called a yuloh) or may be fitted with outboard motors.
Sampans are still in use by rural residents of Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.
He longingly recalled the charcoal smell of the hibachis
The hibachi (火鉢, "fire bowl") is a traditional Japanese heating device. It consists of a round, cylindrical or a box-shaped open-topped container, made from or lined with a heatproof material and designed to hold burning charcoal.
In North America, the term "hibachi" is used to refer to a small cooking stove heated by charcoal (actually called shichirin in Japanese), or to an iron hot plate (teppan) used in teppanyaki restaurants.
History
It is not known when the hibachi was first used in Japan. However, written records suggest that it was used by the Heian period (798-1185 AD). Owing to the low availability of metal in Japan, early hibachis were made from dug-out cypress wood lined with clay. However, craftsmen soon began to make more decorative versions with lacquered finishes, gold leaf, and other artistic embellishments. Stronger materials such as metal and ceramics became popular over time. Traditional hibachis can be very attractive objects in themselves and are today sometimes sold as antiques. They were originally used mainly by the samurai classes and aristocrats but gradually spread among ordinary people. Their design developed throughout the Edo period.
For most of its history the hibachi was used for heating, but it has been put to many uses; for example, as a cigarette lighter and portable stove for Japanese troops during World War II.
The hibachi was once a common sight in Japan before the Second World War, and was often seen in waiting rooms at train stations, but it became a rarity and was gradually replaced by the oil heaters now commonplace in Japan. (Central heating is relatively rare in Japanese homes.) Hibachis remain in use in some traditional settings, such as tea ceremony, older stores, and outdoor festivals in winter, such as setsubun.
and his laughter as the saki bottles were passed from sampan to sampan
Sake, also known as Nihonshu, is a rice-based alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin. It is sometimes spelled saké to show the pronunciation more clearly. (Sah-kay)
Sake is also referred to in English as a form of rice wine. However, unlike true wine, in which alcohol is produced by fermenting the sugar naturally present in fruit, sake is made through a brewing process more like that of beer, thus it is more like a rice beer than a rice wine. To make beer or sake, the sugar needed to produce alcohol must first be converted from starch. However, the brewing process for sake differs from beer brewing as well, notably in that for beer, the conversion of starch to sugar and sugar to alcohol occurs in two discrete steps, but with sake they occur simultaneously.
Additionally, alcohol content also differs between sake, wine, and beer. Wine generally contains 9–16% alcohol and most beer is 3–9%, whereas undiluted sake is 18–20% alcohol, although this is often lowered to around 15% by diluting the sake with water prior to bottling.
No comments:
Post a Comment