Halloween!

Shirasagi Residence (our apartment building) has an annual Halloween party for the neighborhood kids. It's a big event, because Halloween isn't really celebrated here in Japan. The kids came all dressed up, decorated trick or treat bags, played a couple of games, and then went trick or treating in the apartment building. They had lots of fun and they were so cute!!Here are Karen and me. I'm dressed up as Lilo and Stitch (thanks Lockett, for the costume idea!)

the inland sea and the cosmos

Seems like I've been neglecting my blog lately. I think that's because things are starting to feel "normal" and I've fallen into a routine of sorts. But don't despair - tomorrow night is our Halloween party, and on Saturday I plan to go to Osaka. I promise a timely blog on these events.

This week I did go on a little road trip after school (just to the next city over - Tatsuno). We stopped at a beautiful seaside hotel (this being the so-called "inland sea"). Then we visited some fields of flowers (cosmos). I'm not sure I understood the explanation correctly, but apparently these flowers are in rice fields. Either the government pays people to plant flowers instead of rice (I guess there is a surplus on rice?) or they're just letting the fields go fallow. Either way, it was beautiful! (So beautiful some "dolls" decided to have a tea party there. In the last photo, those dolls are made of plastic bags stuffed with crinkled paper. A local kindergarten class made the setting).

It's Festival Season!

Sunday was a busy day! We went to the Nada Festival which is very famous in this part of Japan. It was basically a more elaborate version of the neighborhood festival we participated in last weekend, except these portable shrines (I’ve learned they’re called yatai, I think) are much heavier, up to two tons. In fact, someone referred to the neighborhood’s festival as a children’s festival. At the Nada festival there were many men wearing fundoshi (loincloths), I guess because carrying that yatai is hot work. We started out with a bento box lunch – containing lots of shrimp and some raw octopus, and some unagi (eel sushi) (I thought of you, Lockett!). After lunch, we were led to the box seats owned by the city (that's Cecy and Trisha waving from our seats). The seats looked out over a large square in front of the shrine. These box seats are used only two days a year, so they’re very expensive. The mayor wandered through greeting people and a reporter came by and interviewed Heather for a newspaper article. The first part of the festivities basically consisted of each neighborhood bringing their yatai into the square. There was a whole ritual involved. Each neighborhood has a color associated with it, so the procession started with large pom-poms on sticks, and a large vertical banner, and sometimes a lion dance (see the lion below). All the men carrying the yatai were wearing a headband the color of their neighborhood and chanting yo-ya-sa. The yatai are so heavy that the men have trouble controlling which direction they’re going. In addition to the men carrying the yatai, there was also a leader clapping some bamboo pieces together to indicate what they should do and four men inside the yatai banging out the rhythm on a drum. This went on for several hours. Occasionally, there would be two yatai in the square at the same time and they would come together and mock fight. We wandered around a bit, checked out the fair food. It seems the love of food on a stick is universal! We noticed octopus dumplings, and cakes in the shape of a fish with red bean paste filling. After all the neighborhoods had made their grand entrance, they came back out of the shrine and paraded around together. There were seven neighborhoods (and yatai) in total, so the square was packed with people. We really enjoyed watching the swaths of colors move through the square. It was incredible the energy and momentum of the yatai. Many times the men on one side faltered and the yatai almost tipped over. On Monday was the real excitement at the Nada festival when they fought with smaller versions of these yatai. One yatai will be destroyed in the battle, and sometimes men are trampled in the excitement.

We left before the Nada festival was completely over because we wanted to visit a second festival at Oshio. This festival was the Lion Dancing Festival. A bit more information about these “lions” – they’re not really lions, particularly considering there have never been in lions in Japan. The mythical creature, a shishi, came from China and is more of a lion-dog. That would explain their sheepdog-like appearance. The costume is made of bear hair (it’s really long bear hair, I’m not sure what species of bear has that long of hair). It is good luck to be kissed by the lion, so we all got that blessing.
This is the story and progression of the lion-dog dance, as explained in the brochure:
1. Shishi (lion-dog) which lived in the dark cave unblessed by the deity goes out amused by the peony flower.
2. An allured shishi goes out and see the world for the first time where all living things flourish vividly and happily, and dance, for the joy of life.
3. Shishi which danced out into the fine and prosperous open space dances for the joy of the deities’ boundless gifts of nature.
4. Shishi which was filled with joy and thanks is in the peak of excitement.
5. Shishi which is violently dancing for joy of thanks is gradually getting tired.
6. Shishi which recovered its strength again rejoices over the Deities’ gifts and ends its dance with gratitude to the heavens.
(The dance appears to end with people tackling the shishi – not sure what this represents.)

Two men get in the costume to perform the dance. At times, there are three men – one on top of the front man’s shoulders. When they move through the crowd performing the dance, there are several men supporting the guy on top. They also switched out men while still dancing – very impressive considering the coordination and timing that took.
Again we were shown the royal treatment. We were admitted into the shrine building to go upstairs to the balcony for great birds-eye views of all the activities. Then we were requested to pose for a photo with Miss Himeji Castle! She, of course, looked lovely, while we were all in jeans and warm jackets! They treated us to another bento box dinner and then we went downstairs to see the action from street level.
Most of my photos didn’t turn out – it was quite dark and the shishi were moving quickly (they’re the large dark fuzzy objects!), but here are a few.

My Happy Place (Joyfull)

I've been back to Joyfull several times now since that initial blog, and tonight I finally remembered to bring my camera along!


Heather and Valerie feeling joyfull

Me, particularly joyfull, at the Pepsi fountain


The Joyfull version of spaghetti carbonara - a poached egg on top of spaghetti and cream sauce. Surprisingly, it's a close imitation. Still not as good as Mom's though!

Brave Heather ordered the Soft Chicken Bone Stick. What she got - chicken cartilege on a stick! Heather obligingly ate several, though later she complained her stomach wasn't too happy.

12 on 12 October-style

Well, I'm feeling somewhat better and I convinced blogger to display in English, so I'm back! I took my new camera along with me yesterday to share with you the following 12 sights!

1. This odd contraption was smoking away in a rice field right near my school. I showed the photo to one of the teachers and he explained that they are burning rice hulls to make a fertilizer for the field. 2. During cleaning time I wandered around the school and snapped some shots. You can tell these kids are 2nd graders (that's 8th graders to you and me) by their green name plates. Don't they look smart in their uniforms?

3. This is the shoe changing area. There are six rows of cubby holes - one for 1st grade boys, one for 1st grade girls, one for 2nd grade boys... you get the idea. One day I realized that all the 3rd graders were out, only because I noticed all their inside shoes were in the cubbies. Turns out they were visiting high schools.

4. These are some of the girls in the English Club. I don't know them by their names, instead as their roles in the play - so the second from the left is the Prince, the third is the evil queen in disguise, and the fourth is Doc the Dwarf.

5. The famous staff room where I spend a lot of time! This conglomeration of desks is for the 2nd grade teachers. The guy with the yellow collar is an English teacher and very funny!

6. A persimmon tree! The one I see everyday as I walk to school!
7. As I walk to school every morning, I see tons of elementary school students walking to their school. Because the bus drops me off so early, I walk slowly and greet the students with a cheery "good morning". The problem is that ocassionally I see them in the afternoon too, and they're still saying "good morning" to me. The elementary schools also have a uniform, but they're not strict about it. In this photo, only the girl on the left is wearing the uniform.

8. The shrine near my school. I did a little research on Japanese shrines and temples, and now know these little bits of trivia - the backwards swastika indicate that it's a Buddhist shrine (or maybe temple...). And the statue is of Jizo, a Bodhisattva beloved by Japanese. He's a guardian of dead children and infants and people often put cloth bibs on his statues.

9, 10 and 11. Last night I went out for dinner with the 1st grade teachers. We went to a sushi place. Luckily I was sitting by the guys who ate plenty so it wasn't noticed that I barely ate! A few of the delicacies - that orange stuff (bottom left corner of the first photo) is raw sea urchin. And it was insisted that I try it. It just tasted slimy. Also on that plate were raw octopus, raw salmon with salmon eggs (the teacher next to me told me those are his 3 year old son's favorite!), raw shrimp, and some seaweed. In the right photo are whole deep fried octopus -carefully positioned by one of the teachers for my photo. They were pretty little, about the size of a chicken breast. I didn't try those!

12. The 1st grade teachers at dinner. We went for karaoke afterwards, but I didn't take any photos then. I should have - it was entertaining!!

Thursdays with Sara

On Thursday I went to the third of the elementary schools I rotate between. Last month, this school gave me a sheet a paper with lesson plans for each grade for the rest of the semester. This week I was with their sixth graders, and on that lesson plan, among other things, was something called “A very giant elephant. Have you ever seen the very giant elephant of life?” I was perplexed by what they might mean by this, what sort of lesson might be expected of me, and how I might gently tell them their lesson is nonsense. I was desperately afraid it might be some sort of children’s book I was to read to them! How would I keep a straight face reading it?
I arrived at the school at 8:30 and was met by my contact teacher in the shoe changing area. After I switched into my somewhat cleaner “indoor” shoes, I noticed a glass case with a very ragged looking taxidermy animal in it. The poor thing was made to stand on two legs and wear doll shoes. I wished I had my camera along! I asked the teacher what animal that was, and she said a sort of bear. Mind you, this animal is about the size of a large cat, so I gave her my usual look of confusion, and she said it was a tanuki (raccoon dog). Those of you who saw “Pompoko” should now be very interested! I discretely looked for the anatomically distinctive feature of tanukis, but saw only a very swollen belly. The teacher went on to explain how they believe tanukis can change shape by holding a leaf over their head. I was so glad I had the background of “Pompoko” so I could understand her explanation. I did refrain from asking her about the children’s nursery rhyme about tanukis! (If you haven’t seen Pompoko yet, rent it! It’s a sort of depressing animated movie, but if you do a little research on wikipedia first, and then watch it with the English subtitles, it’s very entertaining!)
On to the staff room, where I was left in the principals lounge (in this way, I’m reminded of Kenya. Kenyans loved to sit their visitors in an empty room and leave them alone for hours to stare at the dirt walls. At least the walls aren’t dirt here, but really concrete walls aren’t much more interesting). They brought me tea, which I discretely poured down the vanity sink when they were out of the room. There is a weird flavor to Japanese tea; I think it’s toasted rice or something, but to me it tastes burned. And considering I don’t like tea to begin with, I really don’t like burned tea! I have begun bringing a bottle of water to the elementary schools so that when they offer tea, I can flash my bottled water with a smile. But sometimes they don’t ask, they just bring it, again much like Kenya…
Then a brief meeting with the 6th grade teachers, where I was very relieved to hear that they didn’t want to follow that lesson plan, and instead I should just teach greetings, colors, numbers and fruits. OK, I can do that; it seems to be the standard lesson at elementary schools. Since these were the 6th graders, I took it up a notch and taught them shapes as well.
As usual, I had lunch in the classroom with the students. We were served some plain spaghetti and what I thought was a creamy soup, as well as some sort of soggy patty, a bread roll, and a 1/5 of an apple. Those who know me well, know that I am perfectly content with plain spaghetti, and I was quite happy considering the past school lunches I’ve been served (bread with walnuts, deep fried tiny whole minnows, etc.) I dug into my plain spaghetti and immediately realized by the looks on the students’ faces that I wasn’t supposed to eat it this way. That’s what I was afraid of. Apparently I was supposed to put the spaghetti in the creamy soup which was loaded with onions, shrimp, and some unidentifiable things (I think they were fishcake) and eat it from there. To humor them, I put a small amount of spaghetti in the soup and ate it, and then communicated through charades that I preferred it plain. Luckily, this teacher let the students trade food, so I knew I could get away with not eating the soup. (Other teachers have sent kids back to finish their food, so I feel compelled to finish mine as well).
A side note – Japanese kids are NOT picky eaters! How could they be?? Whenever I teach food vocabulary and ask the students what they like and don’t like, no one claims not to like any food! Onions, tomatoes, fish – they all like it! They do, however, like the expressions on my face when I tell them I don’t like octopus. But there may be one thing even the Japanese don’t like. The science teacher at my junior high school “challenged” me to try pickled sea cucumber!! (He obviously doesn’t know me very well!) He showed me a photo and I asked him if he liked it. He waved his hand in front of his nose (Japanese body language for “no”). I asked if most Japanese people liked it, and he said about 50%. Finally, something at least some people won’t eat!!
But back to the events of yesterday. I skipped Japanese class that night considering I wasn’t feeling well, and so far it’s been all review from the summer class I took. Apparently I am not the only one not feeling well. Our whole building is sniffling, coughing, and sneezing. Julian tells us that this time of year, the wind changes and we get the air pollution from China.
This weekend should be another busy weekend. Tonight (Friday night) is another dinner with the teachers at my school. Tomorrow night is a birthday party for Lauren, one of the Aussies in our building. And on Sunday I am going to two festivals! The first festival is the famous Nada festival and we will be in box seats with the mayor! The second festival is a lion fighting festival. I bought a new camera last weekend, so expect some great photos!

struggling...

sorry to be absent here. I have two good excuses. I have a nasty sinus infection which has resulted in me taking many naps. And blogger has decided Japanese is a language I can read. Somehow, everything is in Japanese, so I can only use controls I know from memory. ARGH. I fixed this once before when I first arrived in Japan, but I don't remember how now.
Anyway, I did discover facebook! If any of you loyal readers are on facebook, come be my friend!!

Yo Ya Sa

Today was our neighborhood festival. We were invited to participate and we all wore "happy coats". However, it started at 8 am, so some folks were less than happy.

The purpose of the festival is to thank the god(s) for a good harvest this year and to pray for a good harvest next year. I suggested that they could just do this festival on alternate years, since they seem to have their bases covered for two years with just one festival. But somehow, I don't think my idea will catch on. So much for the Japanese appreciating efficiency!

We all met at our friendly neighborhood shrine to pick up this huge thing (don't know what we'd call it in English, but it what you see in some of the photos. I'm going to call it the portable shrine). The children led the procession with large pom-poms on sticks, followed by younger children holding the ropes in front of the "portable shrine".

Then came the portable shrine, carried by many men (at times it was on rollers, so it was just pushed along).

Inside this portable shrine were two children banging out a beat on the drum. The rest of us marched alongside and behind.

Steve got his hands on the megaphone and led us in the incessant chant of Yo-Ya-Sa.

We meandered through the neighborhood for several hours, stopping frequently for beer and sake breaks, and once for an ice cream break. Here is Lauren showing her green tea and red bean popsicle.

A couple times we saw the neighboring neighborhoods and their portable shrines. Eventually we made it to the park where three other neighborhoods came with their shrines. The park with filled with people eating their boxed lunches (they are a lot less appetizing than they may appear!).

Then each neighborhood lifted their portable shrine and raised it up and down - quite a feat for 30 men to do in unison!

Finally, the lion dance. The lion is the black thing in the photos, and that is a young boy holding a flower. I think the flower was supposed to be teasing or enticing the lion. It was incredible to see them up on top of this ladder. The boy even did a summersault on the bamboo poles!

It was an interesting morning. October is festival month, and there is a festival planned for each weekend, so stay tuned.