Aden elementary school. If I were a kid, I'd go there. Three classrooms overlooking the ocean, waves exploding over the tide pools in your backyard, while the goats graze around in the banyan trees. Smells perpetually of the sea, in the best way possible. No more than 20 kids in the whole building, almost every single one of them a charming little thug. They all come up and ask questions about English all the time, and half the time they surprise me with the weird words they already know. I got a letter at the office from one of the 3rd grade girls yesterday before my visit today, actually mailed it, stamp and everything, asking me to come to their cultural festival on Sunday and see her, to translate from the Japanese: "Speak in a very loud voice". How can you not just melt? Every time I think they've hit a cuteness singularity, by gosh they go and find something else.
But as perfect as the place is, it has this one kid who I just don't know what to do about. He's maybe 12, severely ADHD, and kind of a bully. More than kind of, he's a downright terror, especially since the Japanese school system leaves discipline up to classmates for the most part. You don't really have teachers stepping in to break up fights. My first day at Aden he grabbed firm hold of my leg and would not be removed until I had managed to walk half way across the school on my way to narrowly catch the bus home. I call him Tatsumaki, Japanese for tornado. He calls me Goldman.
Today I was playing with one of the little 2nd year boys, real pistol of a kid with a mole right on the end of his nose. He's also incredibly ticklish, but refuses to let the fact that I am about 8 times his size deter his efforts to get me back. He ran outside and managed to seal himself behind a door in the music room, so as to better make faces at me. "HEY GOLDMAN!!!" come the cries from behind me. Seeing a possible opportunity to maybe play with the kid instead of fight him I ask him to help me out. He does so. By running down this sweet little kid and bitch-smacking him just about as hard as he can.
I swear I have never been so angry in my life.
Tornado wanders off somewhere, and I'm left standing there watching this little kid stand near the doorway to the school building, hand on his cheek, this confused little look on his face trying desperately to make sense of what just happened. And then here's what kills me. I can see he wants to cry. Hell, his face is turning red and swelling up, I wouldn't blame him. But he doesn't. This tough ass little 8-year-old, sniffling and wiping his eyes, but he doesn't stop to cry, not even for a second. He goes over to the turtle pond, and sits down to watch them swim. And my heart just breaks. I go over and sit down next to him, and wish there were anything I could do to make it right. But there isn't. So I pat him on the back, and then get one of the turtles to come over and try and eat my finger, which makes him laugh a little.
There has always been something about little kids being tough beyond their years, which just destroys me.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Ikyunakana
We shuffle up on stage behind a half-drawn red-velvet curtain, propped up by just enough mic-chords and other wires to break the illusion that the stage is not yet a stage. I take my seat, second row center behind a line of grade-schoolers putting forth a valiant effort through sheer force of will to be both taller and blonder than I am in order to shield me from the crowd down below. They fail on both counts, but I appreciate the effort. I pick up my Shamisen, run my hand over the synthetic snakeskin, and rest my little bamboo plectrum on the middle string. I look over at Hiroki, my teacher and friend, and wink at him. He responds with a beaming grin, and all I can manage to think before the curtain rises is: "Got me again Kikai, you ambush-happy bastards."
Her name is Naomi. Instruments need names, otherwise they're just tools. Name it, and you acknowledge that it's a partnership. That in some fashion, it is an extension of you, or that it embodies part of your soul, if you are of the type who is partial to the belief in souls. Naomi is named after a character in a Japanese novel, a young girl who is taken into the home of a wealthy man, after he falls in love with her, and decides he is going to mold her into a proper woman. She goes on to evolve into a scheming, manipulative dominatrix, and absolutely crushes him. What can I say? I wanted my Shamisen to have spirit.
I started taking lessons a month, month and a half ago. Originally I used an old, flaking shamisen I was borrowing from the guy who runs the dive shop I frequent (licensed now, by the way. I'll throw up something once I can get the fantastic photo of my first solo dive). It sounded more or less like it looked, emitting a sort of muffled spongy thud rather than the crisp twang my teachers', and prepubescent classmates' instruments produced. For an hour every Friday I would sit around in formal Japanese seiza posture, slowly going numb with a smile on my face, and pretended to play along with some of my favorite 10-year old ruffians, and an increasingly senile old man who invented island shamisen music. Sometimes Hiroki, the grandson of the family, and heir to the shamisen throne, shows up and I actually learn things. Perhaps it is because he my age, or because he speaks Japanese instead of Kikai-go, but I can spend 40 minutes as an utter disappointment to my family and country with the group, then go bang it out perfectly in the next 20 when it's just Hiroki and I dicking around. He also has a wonderful habit of picking up my ticks in English.
Naomi arrives eventually, and we get along swimmingly. She sounds great, looks beautiful, and unlike most of the other Japanese instruments I meet these days she has sass. We go home together and sit up all night, drinking coffee and getting to know one another.
Week after week we show up together at the Yasudas' house, and set to work. Yoishima, Ikyunakana, Honenbushi, names becomes songs, this one bouncy and festive, the next somber and mournful, the final fast and sharp. Progress is made, walls are hit, funny faces are made at inappropriate times. I'm no prodigy, but I have a good ear, and as long as I can avoid taking it to seriously I'm enjoying myself.
But then, oh you black-hearted ambushing islanders. It's 2 weeks ago, and I can maybe play 2 songs in parts, though haven't gotten the familiarity to string it all together yet. The matriarch informs me that there will be some sort of festival coming up, and I'm going to play Ikyunakana with the kids. Oh neat, that sounds fun. You do know I can't play that right? Oh, you do. You say it's not a problem. Well, I suppose if I'm up there with other people one song isn't going to kill me, and I have some time to practice still.
Wait, what's that you say when you finally get around to telling me the actual date? It's on Sunday? Oh, well that's still ok, it's over at the dinky little elementary school up in the hills with 14 kids. It'll be like, what, 30 people tops, assuming they bring their extended families? I can look foolish for one song, I've certainly done more embarrassing things since I got here.
I show up to an auditorium of about 300 or so, including my boss, and most of the principals on the island. About half way through tuning up, it becomes readily apparent that I will be on stage for all three songs, including the one I've never even heard before. Oh Kikai, when will I learn?
It actually went alright. I faked my way through it well enough that unless you were both familiar with how to play the songs, and looking at me the whole time, you probably didn't even notice. I like to pretend that the entire audience being native islanders over 60, and myself being the only tall blonde man on a stage of short, black-haired girls, do not almost guarantee this state of affairs. But I survived it, scoring even more unstoppable bad-ass points. Stuck around for the rest of the festival and to watch Hiroki play the twangy dance-hall version of island shamisen...
...annnnd also maybe flash some of my newly acquired bad-ass points to flirt with one of the younger teachers. But that is neither here nor there.
Her name is Naomi. Instruments need names, otherwise they're just tools. Name it, and you acknowledge that it's a partnership. That in some fashion, it is an extension of you, or that it embodies part of your soul, if you are of the type who is partial to the belief in souls. Naomi is named after a character in a Japanese novel, a young girl who is taken into the home of a wealthy man, after he falls in love with her, and decides he is going to mold her into a proper woman. She goes on to evolve into a scheming, manipulative dominatrix, and absolutely crushes him. What can I say? I wanted my Shamisen to have spirit.
I started taking lessons a month, month and a half ago. Originally I used an old, flaking shamisen I was borrowing from the guy who runs the dive shop I frequent (licensed now, by the way. I'll throw up something once I can get the fantastic photo of my first solo dive). It sounded more or less like it looked, emitting a sort of muffled spongy thud rather than the crisp twang my teachers', and prepubescent classmates' instruments produced. For an hour every Friday I would sit around in formal Japanese seiza posture, slowly going numb with a smile on my face, and pretended to play along with some of my favorite 10-year old ruffians, and an increasingly senile old man who invented island shamisen music. Sometimes Hiroki, the grandson of the family, and heir to the shamisen throne, shows up and I actually learn things. Perhaps it is because he my age, or because he speaks Japanese instead of Kikai-go, but I can spend 40 minutes as an utter disappointment to my family and country with the group, then go bang it out perfectly in the next 20 when it's just Hiroki and I dicking around. He also has a wonderful habit of picking up my ticks in English.
Naomi arrives eventually, and we get along swimmingly. She sounds great, looks beautiful, and unlike most of the other Japanese instruments I meet these days she has sass. We go home together and sit up all night, drinking coffee and getting to know one another.
Week after week we show up together at the Yasudas' house, and set to work. Yoishima, Ikyunakana, Honenbushi, names becomes songs, this one bouncy and festive, the next somber and mournful, the final fast and sharp. Progress is made, walls are hit, funny faces are made at inappropriate times. I'm no prodigy, but I have a good ear, and as long as I can avoid taking it to seriously I'm enjoying myself.
But then, oh you black-hearted ambushing islanders. It's 2 weeks ago, and I can maybe play 2 songs in parts, though haven't gotten the familiarity to string it all together yet. The matriarch informs me that there will be some sort of festival coming up, and I'm going to play Ikyunakana with the kids. Oh neat, that sounds fun. You do know I can't play that right? Oh, you do. You say it's not a problem. Well, I suppose if I'm up there with other people one song isn't going to kill me, and I have some time to practice still.
Wait, what's that you say when you finally get around to telling me the actual date? It's on Sunday? Oh, well that's still ok, it's over at the dinky little elementary school up in the hills with 14 kids. It'll be like, what, 30 people tops, assuming they bring their extended families? I can look foolish for one song, I've certainly done more embarrassing things since I got here.
I show up to an auditorium of about 300 or so, including my boss, and most of the principals on the island. About half way through tuning up, it becomes readily apparent that I will be on stage for all three songs, including the one I've never even heard before. Oh Kikai, when will I learn?
It actually went alright. I faked my way through it well enough that unless you were both familiar with how to play the songs, and looking at me the whole time, you probably didn't even notice. I like to pretend that the entire audience being native islanders over 60, and myself being the only tall blonde man on a stage of short, black-haired girls, do not almost guarantee this state of affairs. But I survived it, scoring even more unstoppable bad-ass points. Stuck around for the rest of the festival and to watch Hiroki play the twangy dance-hall version of island shamisen...
...annnnd also maybe flash some of my newly acquired bad-ass points to flirt with one of the younger teachers. But that is neither here nor there.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
And there will be days
It is the days like these, watching the boys take their first steps into manhood,
and the girls take their last steps out of childhood;
watching a boy named Shogo who is fearless in English class, fight like a demon to win 5 fights in a row, against boys twice his size,
while the old women beat their drums, and cheer on their pint-sized champions.
It is the days like these, watching children follow in their fathers' footsteps, as far away from the lights and explosions of Tokyo as one can go, that I am aware of the rare gift I have been given.
I get to watch an island grow up.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Sports Days, Chibi-ko sumo, and other adventures in drunkenness
Let it be known, just so that there are no surprises, that Japan is a society profoundly rooted in the consumption of alcohol. So much so that I would comfortably say that most Japanese social gatherings are some form of excuse to consume said alcohol. I've finally, after a comfortable stretch in Tokyo and my two months in taste-like-paint-thinner-goes-down-like-water Shochu land, managed to find a comfortable way to participate in these shenanigans without having to curl up into a ball and die at the end of the night...and then go to work the next morning dead. So while I have been drinking since...4 pm? I am by no means what one would call "drunk". Oh Japan, where to begin?
My office is fond of ambushes. Usually social, occasionally military-tactical. The mother of all ambushes was sprung on me this Sunday. It had been casually passed around that there was going to be "a relay race" of some kind and that I "would be running in it!" which was all fine and dandy. I like running. I'm fast, somehow, despite the fact that I spent the last 4 years pretending it was either too hot or cold to go running. What they didn't tell me, was that the entire island would be attending this event, which would take the better part of the entire day, and the partying afterward would extend well into the night. The whole town must have been in on this one.
For those of you in Japan, you are well aware of the unique Japanese "sports day" phenomenon, which is the deranged offspring of a track-meet and a Japanese festival (discussed previously). A series of races are run, cheering is elaborate and well choreographed, and other strange events crop up all over the place. The race where they tie 8-10 kids together and make them all run in unison comes to mind. As does the 1920s stick-and-metal-hoop race. I really can't find a way to describe it beyond that. Go google images of children playing before the depression. Normally these sports festivals occur at a school—the Wan Elementary School Sports Festival! etc. But Kikai has never been satisfied with doing what is normal. We're a special breed of loonies. We need to divide the island into administrative blocks, and then make everyone on the entire island compete for the better part of 8 hours. I only had to run in the one race, but I managed to increase my gaijin-cred significantly. I think some people are actually beginning to suspect that I am infallible, but I won't be satisfied until I reach the point of ineffable. Not because I have anything to prove, I just think it's a fantastic word. Adam the Ineffable...
After the awards ceremonies, and the tear-down, and the green tea kampai (like cheers...but cheerless), I was informed that the board of education was going to be going and having dinner together. My well honed ambush-sense began tingling.
It is surprisingly hard to avoid drinking to excess when the cultural norm for drinking is to pour other people's drinks. I think it is the vaguely depressionesque clean-plate dynamic clashing profoundly with the Japanese hospitality imperative. What am I supposed to do? NOT drink it? It will get warm, and that's just wasteful. But I've found that the relatively low alcohol content of Japanese beer means as long as I pace myself I can avoid undue trips to the trauma center. Usually. Unless after the first party, and its 6 different kampais, I am whisked into an unmarked car, and driven to a second party for the winning neighborhood, and am subjected to a further 3-4 kampais. And then another neighborhood...and another. Thankfully, I managed to lose my party somewhere around this point, and ended up with a group of teachers from the high school. It didn't stop the drinking, but at least it stopped the alcohol IV the Board of Ed guys seemed to have me running on.
The rest of the night was spent jumping from izakaya, to bar, to coffee shop...serving alcohol. I kind of hit a new people saturation point around the 8th round of introductions, right about when I ended up alone in a room with a 50-60 year old guy who was drunk beyond all possible rationality, and who kept talking not so much with me but at me in very fast Japanese while insisting on shaking my hand literally every 20 seconds. No really. No hyperbole what so ever. He shook my hand every 20 seconds for about 15 solid minutes of "conversation".
Celebrating in Japan can be...dangerous. The night ended well though, and I made some new friends, assuming I can ever remember exactly which random Kanji in my phone book represents each of them.
There's a part 2 to this story, because unless I that celebration managed to run from Sunday evening through Tuesday evening, logically I am talking separate events here. I'm tired though. For now lets just say that a) every time I think that nothing could be cuter than (something adorable the kids did) they surprise me by finding something cuter, like elementary kid sumo wrestling, and b) being good with kids in Japan apparently is defined as "being able to carry on a conversation while holding a beer in your hand, and 2 kindergartners on your back".
I'll pick out some of the choice photos of little kids throwing each other around a ring, and get back to you some time later this week.
My office is fond of ambushes. Usually social, occasionally military-tactical. The mother of all ambushes was sprung on me this Sunday. It had been casually passed around that there was going to be "a relay race" of some kind and that I "would be running in it!" which was all fine and dandy. I like running. I'm fast, somehow, despite the fact that I spent the last 4 years pretending it was either too hot or cold to go running. What they didn't tell me, was that the entire island would be attending this event, which would take the better part of the entire day, and the partying afterward would extend well into the night. The whole town must have been in on this one.
For those of you in Japan, you are well aware of the unique Japanese "sports day" phenomenon, which is the deranged offspring of a track-meet and a Japanese festival (discussed previously). A series of races are run, cheering is elaborate and well choreographed, and other strange events crop up all over the place. The race where they tie 8-10 kids together and make them all run in unison comes to mind. As does the 1920s stick-and-metal-hoop race. I really can't find a way to describe it beyond that. Go google images of children playing before the depression. Normally these sports festivals occur at a school—the Wan Elementary School Sports Festival! etc. But Kikai has never been satisfied with doing what is normal. We're a special breed of loonies. We need to divide the island into administrative blocks, and then make everyone on the entire island compete for the better part of 8 hours. I only had to run in the one race, but I managed to increase my gaijin-cred significantly. I think some people are actually beginning to suspect that I am infallible, but I won't be satisfied until I reach the point of ineffable. Not because I have anything to prove, I just think it's a fantastic word. Adam the Ineffable...
After the awards ceremonies, and the tear-down, and the green tea kampai (like cheers...but cheerless), I was informed that the board of education was going to be going and having dinner together. My well honed ambush-sense began tingling.
It is surprisingly hard to avoid drinking to excess when the cultural norm for drinking is to pour other people's drinks. I think it is the vaguely depressionesque clean-plate dynamic clashing profoundly with the Japanese hospitality imperative. What am I supposed to do? NOT drink it? It will get warm, and that's just wasteful. But I've found that the relatively low alcohol content of Japanese beer means as long as I pace myself I can avoid undue trips to the trauma center. Usually. Unless after the first party, and its 6 different kampais, I am whisked into an unmarked car, and driven to a second party for the winning neighborhood, and am subjected to a further 3-4 kampais. And then another neighborhood...and another. Thankfully, I managed to lose my party somewhere around this point, and ended up with a group of teachers from the high school. It didn't stop the drinking, but at least it stopped the alcohol IV the Board of Ed guys seemed to have me running on.
The rest of the night was spent jumping from izakaya, to bar, to coffee shop...serving alcohol. I kind of hit a new people saturation point around the 8th round of introductions, right about when I ended up alone in a room with a 50-60 year old guy who was drunk beyond all possible rationality, and who kept talking not so much with me but at me in very fast Japanese while insisting on shaking my hand literally every 20 seconds. No really. No hyperbole what so ever. He shook my hand every 20 seconds for about 15 solid minutes of "conversation".
Celebrating in Japan can be...dangerous. The night ended well though, and I made some new friends, assuming I can ever remember exactly which random Kanji in my phone book represents each of them.
There's a part 2 to this story, because unless I that celebration managed to run from Sunday evening through Tuesday evening, logically I am talking separate events here. I'm tired though. For now lets just say that a) every time I think that nothing could be cuter than (something adorable the kids did) they surprise me by finding something cuter, like elementary kid sumo wrestling, and b) being good with kids in Japan apparently is defined as "being able to carry on a conversation while holding a beer in your hand, and 2 kindergartners on your back".
I'll pick out some of the choice photos of little kids throwing each other around a ring, and get back to you some time later this week.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Aftermath Report with Adam "You Can't Kill Adam Golder" Golder
Spent my 8 hours in washing machine Melor, with minimal loss of life, limb or property. I regret to inform the readership that my lovely flowering tree, which did so gallantly stand guard at my front step, defending my gaijin-decency against the prying eyes of the Japanese, met with an unfortunate end at the hands of gale-force winds, being ripped limb from limb, until a mere stalk remained. He will be missed, as will his brethren on other properties which previously prevented me from even knowing I had neighbors. These newly discovered neighbors may consider themselves lucky (or unlucky) that it is no longer the blisteringly hot "naked season" here on Kikai.
Aside from that:
The children of Dai-ichi Middle school suffered the tragic loss of a single day of my wonderful presence. Many of them may have gone on to become senators, star athletes and astronauts, if only they had that one extra day to bask within my confidence bolstering aura. Now, they'll probably turn to drugs, and die in a gang turf war. Will your cruelty never end Melor?
My fingers suffered some minimal burns, caused by an abundance of candles, hot melted wax, and boredom.
A pot of rice also suffered a terrible fate when the power blinked off again, right around dinner time.
Finally, someone, somewhere, is missing a single roof tile, a corner piece if I am not mistaken. If you can describe it, you can have it back.
Aside from that:
The children of Dai-ichi Middle school suffered the tragic loss of a single day of my wonderful presence. Many of them may have gone on to become senators, star athletes and astronauts, if only they had that one extra day to bask within my confidence bolstering aura. Now, they'll probably turn to drugs, and die in a gang turf war. Will your cruelty never end Melor?
My fingers suffered some minimal burns, caused by an abundance of candles, hot melted wax, and boredom.
A pot of rice also suffered a terrible fate when the power blinked off again, right around dinner time.
Finally, someone, somewhere, is missing a single roof tile, a corner piece if I am not mistaken. If you can describe it, you can have it back.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Pregaming Typhoon Melor
Just a quick shout out, in the case of my highly unlikely typhoon related demise. Kikai is due to get obliterated by the charming but deadly Melor sometime tomorrow. I can't really sift through the exclamations of shock and awe in Japanese well enough to know if it is actually a huge typhoon, or just an average typhoon which happens to be headed towards Kikai. But the news sources I've looked at seem to refer to it as a "super" typhoon. So...it might be pretty serious business.
Know that I am well stocked with provisions, combustible fuels, light sources and reading materials! My house is the very model of sturdy, single floor craftsmanship! My laundry racks, picnic table, and large concrete cinder blocks have all been taken inside, safe from being tossed through my window and crushing my sleeping body! And take solace in the fact things are not bad to the point that I am actually in danger of getting a day off work or anything. I'll be biking my ass up that hill, 150 km/hr wind gusts and all.
Kikai has been getting its pear-shaped ass handed to it by typhoons since before there were Japanese people to stubbornly go to work despite of them. We've got this covered. And I promise, I'll be back after the main event, to tell you all about it.
Know that I am well stocked with provisions, combustible fuels, light sources and reading materials! My house is the very model of sturdy, single floor craftsmanship! My laundry racks, picnic table, and large concrete cinder blocks have all been taken inside, safe from being tossed through my window and crushing my sleeping body! And take solace in the fact things are not bad to the point that I am actually in danger of getting a day off work or anything. I'll be biking my ass up that hill, 150 km/hr wind gusts and all.
Kikai has been getting its pear-shaped ass handed to it by typhoons since before there were Japanese people to stubbornly go to work despite of them. We've got this covered. And I promise, I'll be back after the main event, to tell you all about it.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
They're coming faster than I can tell them
Some things are just going to have to get lost in the mix, sadly. I have too much going on. The great satsuma-sendai tug of war may just have to be one of them. I'll write up something short, but I'm beat. Spent all day underwater, and continued to prove that as long as it isn't talking within sight of the incredibly pretty doctor/gangster's girlfriend/(fingers crossed!) daughter (Edit: turns out they're married. Problems solved!), there isn't anything I'm not instantly awesome at.
There was something oddly epic about 3000 men coming together to get excessively drunk, and engage in a godzilla sized version of a child sized game. But here's the truth of it: all said and done, basically all Japanese festivals are the same. 1) a gathering is called. 2) drink is imbibed. 3) something is venerated. Now in this case it was a giant rope, but it could just have easily been a raccoon, an ice castle, or a giant stone penis. Yes, these are all real festivals. 4) competition is often then involved. Like tugging said rope, hunting said raccoon, building said ice castle for judging, or ramming one another with said giant stone penis. 5) everyone gives up and drinks more.
Grats, you've now good as been to 90% of Japanese festivals.
But here's some photos anyway:
From top left:
1) The rope before the festival, they spend the day before making this rope. It is about as big around as a Japanese dude's torso, and it went from one end of the main-street to the other. So...it weighs lots.
2) Everyone was snapping photos of themselves on the rope, and the kids were climbing all over it. It was actually one of the coolest parts of the event. You got a real sense of the community coming together for this incredibly ridiculous, time honored ritual.
3) We were entertained by a number of groups, ranging from the traditional and very serious Taiko drumming troupe, to the guy who basically seemed to be air-drumming (in a traditional and very serious way), and finally to the oh-my-gosh-dorable kindergartners hammering away, producing something resembling the drumming which came before, minus rhythm, plus cuteness.
4) I go to Japanese festivals for the food, just so we're clear. But it was a cool photo of the kid who accidentally jumped in front of the lens. He was dressed in miniature like all the men in the festival, and I wondered if his dad or brother or both were out there in that shochu-fueled brawl.
5) Some of the men spent the whole event riding on the shoulders of others, waving flags. They were usually fairly bad-ass individuals, with their fair share of tattoos. Also featured, center-right, is the giant plastic bottle filled with 50-60 proof Japanese Shochu. Mmmmmm! At first we thought it might actually be water, because they kept dumping it over their head much as one would a large, refreshing bottle of water. But the announcer kept calling it "strength water", so...
6) Seconds before the mayhem started. A lot of intensity. Once the drums started pounding we pretty much lost sight of the rope. The groups up at the front don't even pretend to touch the rope, they just go push each other. People assured me that this was "strategy" but I've been to enough punk shows to know a mosh pit when I see one.
All in all, a wonderful end to a much needed vacation.
Now to start writing about Kikai again. It has not disappointed dear readers. No it has not. Everyone is a surprise waiting to happen. You walk in to get your flat tire changed, and end up watching the owner of the bike shop hop around his garage on the back wheel of his homemade trail bike. But the stories will have to wait. I need to get some sleep. I finish my dive skills training tomorrow.
There was something oddly epic about 3000 men coming together to get excessively drunk, and engage in a godzilla sized version of a child sized game. But here's the truth of it: all said and done, basically all Japanese festivals are the same. 1) a gathering is called. 2) drink is imbibed. 3) something is venerated. Now in this case it was a giant rope, but it could just have easily been a raccoon, an ice castle, or a giant stone penis. Yes, these are all real festivals. 4) competition is often then involved. Like tugging said rope, hunting said raccoon, building said ice castle for judging, or ramming one another with said giant stone penis. 5) everyone gives up and drinks more.
Grats, you've now good as been to 90% of Japanese festivals.
But here's some photos anyway:
 |  |  | |
 |  |  |
From top left:
1) The rope before the festival, they spend the day before making this rope. It is about as big around as a Japanese dude's torso, and it went from one end of the main-street to the other. So...it weighs lots.
2) Everyone was snapping photos of themselves on the rope, and the kids were climbing all over it. It was actually one of the coolest parts of the event. You got a real sense of the community coming together for this incredibly ridiculous, time honored ritual.
3) We were entertained by a number of groups, ranging from the traditional and very serious Taiko drumming troupe, to the guy who basically seemed to be air-drumming (in a traditional and very serious way), and finally to the oh-my-gosh-dorable kindergartners hammering away, producing something resembling the drumming which came before, minus rhythm, plus cuteness.
4) I go to Japanese festivals for the food, just so we're clear. But it was a cool photo of the kid who accidentally jumped in front of the lens. He was dressed in miniature like all the men in the festival, and I wondered if his dad or brother or both were out there in that shochu-fueled brawl.
5) Some of the men spent the whole event riding on the shoulders of others, waving flags. They were usually fairly bad-ass individuals, with their fair share of tattoos. Also featured, center-right, is the giant plastic bottle filled with 50-60 proof Japanese Shochu. Mmmmmm! At first we thought it might actually be water, because they kept dumping it over their head much as one would a large, refreshing bottle of water. But the announcer kept calling it "strength water", so...
6) Seconds before the mayhem started. A lot of intensity. Once the drums started pounding we pretty much lost sight of the rope. The groups up at the front don't even pretend to touch the rope, they just go push each other. People assured me that this was "strategy" but I've been to enough punk shows to know a mosh pit when I see one.
All in all, a wonderful end to a much needed vacation.
Now to start writing about Kikai again. It has not disappointed dear readers. No it has not. Everyone is a surprise waiting to happen. You walk in to get your flat tire changed, and end up watching the owner of the bike shop hop around his garage on the back wheel of his homemade trail bike. But the stories will have to wait. I need to get some sleep. I finish my dive skills training tomorrow.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
stumble home
The good days, are the ones where you come home and collapse, unable to maintain the pretext of boundless energy any longer. But you made it, got through the door. They bought it. Technically, off days are bound to happen. The job is no different from life. But if half the job is teaching English, the other half is showing them what they could be, making every fumbling sentence seem like a step forward, instead of a failure. Because it is, it is, every time they find the courage to open their mouths even if it's just to say something completely wrong, it is. And I need them to believe that. And everything you have is just enough, to make them believe.
That's my inspirational sermon for the day. If I find the sanity, I'll throw something up over the weekend talking about the middle schools, and my new 11 year old friend, this absolutely fantastic kid named Daigo in the learning disabled class at the big elementary school. I also owe something about the tug of war festival and the end of Kagoshima. It has the grounds of a wonderful story. I'll try to fit it in over the weekend, but I have 4 dives planned. Getting my license! So much writing. So much busy.
Feels good.
That's my inspirational sermon for the day. If I find the sanity, I'll throw something up over the weekend talking about the middle schools, and my new 11 year old friend, this absolutely fantastic kid named Daigo in the learning disabled class at the big elementary school. I also owe something about the tug of war festival and the end of Kagoshima. It has the grounds of a wonderful story. I'll try to fit it in over the weekend, but I have 4 dives planned. Getting my license! So much writing. So much busy.
Feels good.
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