International Festival pictures

Maeda-san e-mailed me these pictures today from the International Festival. I'm on stage with his daughter (Risa). She was dressed in traditional Japanese clothing and I was representing Canada on behalf of Jason.
Later, he found us while we were eating lunch. We we sampling phad thai, Australian BBQ, a Korean potato/veggie pancake and Malaysian banana balls. Yum!

Mr. Maeda

Mr. Maeda was the director of the stage performances for the International Festival. I met him at the rehearsal that we had before the festival. He was a very nice man. He invited me and Jason and one of the other English teachers to join him for his community's festival (which, it turns out, was the Aboshi Lantern Fighting Festival that we were already planning to attend).
I've included some pieces of the e-mail that he sent me ...

We will go to the Shrine together by such a small car as used at Universal Studio.

We will see 3 floats (Portable Shrines) and lantern fighting events there.

After that we will come back to my sweet home and take a dinner together there.

We were a bit confused about what he meant by the Universal Studio car and why he it was his "sweet home." His car, it turns out, was a typical Japanese car that is small by American standard, but fit 4 people comfortably. He referred to his house as his "sweet home" every time he mentioned it. We're not sure why.
But his house was lovely. We got to meet his wife (Erika) and one of his daughters (Yui) -- we met his other daughter (Risa) at the International Festival. She was my Japanese MC counterpart. She lives in Kobe and we hope to go visit her there.
The whole family speaks English very well, which made the evening especially enjoyable because we were able to have nice conversations. They were thrilled when the found out that Jason was Canadian -- and then proceeded to say "Eh" after every sentence. The other teacher (Lauren) who was with us is Australian, so the family kept saying how excited/honored they were to have such an international dinner.
Erika made the dinner. It was delicious. There was a whole assortment of different traditional Japanese items spring rolls, sushi, tempura.
We really enjoyed getting to meet them and seeing inside a Japanese home.

International festival

This is the last of the October festivals.
The International Festival is actually quite different than the other festivals. It is not a religious-based event. It is hosted by the city as a showcase for all of the different cultures in Himeji. The booths sell a traditional food item from each of the countries represented.
During one of our teachers' meetings about a month ago, they asked for a volunteer to read something in English at the festival. I said I would do it. I was under the impression they had a short speech or something and that I would just read it on the stage.
It turns out, they wanted me to be one of the English MCs. I'm finding this is somewhat typical of our Japanese experience -- we never really know what we're getting ourselves into.
It wasn't a problem, and I was happy to help. They had a script prepared and a native Japanese woman read her part and then I'd follow with the English translation. They were very excited to have a native speaker participating in the stage announcements. Plus, as part of the rehearsal, I met Mr. Maeda. (more on him in a future post)
Jason also volunteered at the festival. He was one of the native speakers in the English language booth. He signed up for a hour, but ending up working longer because the booth was quite popular. People paid 100 Yen (about a dollar) and then they'd be able to have a 10 minute conversation with the native speakers.
The second picture is of one of the trash areas. The Japanese are really thorough about their trash/recycling. You had to separate your trash and then wash it before putting it into the appropriate bin.

Aboshi Lantern Fighting Festival

Wednesday was the Aboshi Lantern Fighting Festival. As the name implies, they take beautiful paper lanterns and bash them together until they're all in tatters. It was fun and exciting to watch, even though at times it seemed like it was a shame to ruin such beautiful lanterns.
The festival started with a parade of the shrines -- I guess that's necessary at any festival -- and then they brought out the lanterns. There was a "target" lantern that came in various shapes and figures. Jason particularly liked the one that was shaped like a person.
Groups of young men (all of them with their bums hanging out) would make a circle around it. Each of them was carrying a long wooden stick with a smaller lantern attached to it. They would dance and chant around the bigger lantern and then all attack it. After a few seconds they would blow a whistle and everyone would retreat. The lanterns were usually damaged, but not destroyed, at this point. So they would huddle again, chant and attack. This would go on until they concluded that the lanterns were sufficiently destroyed.
We were so close to the action that we actually rescued two of the smaller lanterns to bring home as souvenirs. One of them is in perfect condition (sometimes they would fly off as the person swung their pole) and one of them has a small gash in the side -- a token to remember what festival it came from.
There are more pictures from the festival on the picasa site. Check out the lantern carnage!

Nada videos

I put two of Jason's videos from the Nada Fighting Festival on the picasa page in the Nada folder. Here's one that shows the end of a fight as the shrines are falling over. You can see why it's dangerous.

Oshio Lion Dancing Festival

Festival month continues ...
(This post is actually a little delayed -- it's hard to find time to write posts when there's another festival to go to.)
The Oshio Lion Dancing Festival was last Wednesday (Oct. 14). We were told to go in the evening for the parade into the temple. We arrived a little early and wandered around the temple grounds, which seemed to me more like a small-town fair. There were food booths and games for kids. It was a fun atmosphere -- and since there was a threat of rain, the crowds weren't too big.
My favorite part of the evening was actually before the main festival events started. There were some men performing a lion dance on the street outside of the temple. They were incredible. I couldn't believe how athletic their dance was. Plus, the lion costumes were very interesting. We were told that they're actually made from bear hair. I'm sure that it was very hot in there for the dancers.
The festival started with each community parading their lion into the temple's courtyard. The men in the lion costume would ride on the shoulders of other community members. This elevated the lions as they danced into the temple. In the courtyard, each community gathered and cheered for their drummers/lions. We enjoyed walking around the temple and seeing a couple of the different groups.
One of the other teachers knew the festival's organizer, and she arranged for us to go up into the primo area overlooking the entire courtyard. The view was great because you could see many of the different groups at the same time. However, when we thought we were leaving we were actually conjoled into sitting down and having a meal (Jason had already had 2 dinners before this -- but he managed to eat some more).
There are more pictures from Oshio on the picasa site.

Nada fighting festival

We came around the corner, working our way through the crowd and into the stadium, when suddenly a giant shrine came lurching toward us. The police starting yelling for us to get out of the way, so we pressed up against the wall with dozens of other spectators as 70 men carried the huge shrine out of the stadium and down the street.
It was the Nada Fighting Festival, one of the highlights of festival season in this part of Japan. I had been there all day, including sitting in some choice seats for the morning program. Chelsey had arrived after work to take in the main part of the spectacle.
There were essentially two components of the festival. One involved groups of 70 men carrying around these huge shrines - essentially a souped-up version of what Chelsey and I did at the Shinzaike festival the prior weekend. In the morning I saw the "portable" shrines get carried into the main shrine of the city for display - but only after stopping in front of the gate to have their tops unscrewed, because otherwise they wouldn't fit through the gate.
After the morning festivities, these shrines were carried through the city streets and up the hill where the night's action takes place. At the top of the hill, they gave thanks to the gods. After dark, the men carried the lit-up shrines back down the hill. Carrying a really heavy shrine uphill is hard work - sometimes the men would only make it a few meters before having to rest again. But carrying it downhill can't be a lot of fun either.
The second major feature of the festival is the shrine fighting, whence the festival gets its name. This involves two smaller, but still big, shrines being shoved against one another until one topples the other. This can be dangerous; reportedly, someone actually died this year, although not while Chelsey and I were there. I saw a couple of bouts in the morning from my seats, but the main event is the nighttime jousting. This is held at the bottom of the afore-mentioned hill, and people crowd into seats all up both sides of the hill to watch. The net result is several thousand spectators. We lucked into some seats, so we had a bird's-eye view for the beginning of it.
People aren't confined to the seats, however, they're also allowed down in the "pit", which is where we headed after a while. That's when we had our encounter with a shrine (not the fighting kind). We joined the crowd in the pit as the large, lit shrines descended the hill. You had to be alert, because the shrines, and therefore the crowds, tend to move and change direction erratically. Twice I was forced to abandon the main area as the crowd in front of me started to surge back away from incoming shrines.
It was certainly one of the biggest spectacles we've seen in Japan so far. Perhaps next year we'll go back with a better idea of what's going on, and how to deal with things. We'll try to keep out of the way of the shrines, however.
-Jason
There are more pictures on the picasa site. Videos to come soon. Jason did a great job of taking pictures while he was there in the morning, and I took a few more after I got there in the evening. All of the men who were carrying the shrines were wearing what I call the "sumo diapers" -- I'm sure they have a proper name, but I don't know what it is. But everyone was wearing them. Jason joked that it was tough to take a picture that didn't have "cheek" in it. I saw several men who were wearing them sitting on a bench near the train station and it has given me second-thoughts about ever sitting on a bench in Japan again. But I still think that both of my brothers and my nephew need one of these for Christmas. :)

Shinzaike festival

It's the middle of festival season in Japan, and we got involved last weekend. Each neighbourhood or town has a local festival around this time, usually to celebrate the rice harvest. Our neighbourhood, Shinzaike, had its festival last Sunday, and most of the residents of our building turned out to participate. We gathered in the morning at a local shrine near our building, with everyone wearing identical happi coats.
The main part of the day consisted of taking our portable shrine around town. Fortunately, we mostly did this by wheeling it. However, occasionally we would stop and a couple dozen of us would pick the shrine up. Once we'd lifted it, we jostled it around while chanting (the chant had something to do with vegetables, I'm not sure exactly what the translation is). A couple of times during the morning we met other groups carrying their shrines (these meetings were pre-determined). Each group would then lift their shrine and do the chants.
Our main destination was a park across the street from our apartment building. The five or six groups carrying shrines all congregated there for a lunch break. After lunch, we all picked our shrines back up and jostled them. This was interesting, because we would line our shrine right up against the side of the next shrine, then lift, jostle and chant. It was a little bit of a nervous time, especially as you tried not to trip over anyone's feet while moving around and trying to hold up the shrine. Nobody got hurt, however, and it was all a lot of fun. The local community seemed to think the festival went well, and at the celebration dinner that night most people seemed to be enjoying themselves...especially when one of our fellow residents taught them a trick with a can.
-Jason
There are more pictures on the picasa site -- the first six items are videos.

Ichiro

One of my mentor teachers was getting the students to practice some rhyming words "map, cap, tap" etc. She was having me explain or mime what the words mean. When we got to "hit" I pretended to be a baseball player and took a swing. She decided to add some extra explanation, and said "Ichiro hits the ball" and then she took a swing.
Immediately, several of the boys got very animated and starting saying something to her in Japanese. The junior high students are painfully shy in the classroom. It's difficult just getting them to speak, let alone show some emotion in class. So I was curious what had sparked this outburst. I know that Ichiro is popular, but his name had been mentioned before in class without this type of reaction.
The teacher started laughing and then explained to me that she took her swing as a right-handed batter and the boys were correcting her and telling her that Ichiro bats left-handed.

Typhoon Melor

It's our first typhoon! This map shows its movement. Himeji is around the bay from where it says "3AM Thu." You can see that it isn't coming right for us, plus we have Shikoku island blocking for us.
It's about 10 p.m. Wednesday for us, and right now it's just a heck of a rainstorm, with some wind. Nothing to worry about. We haven't had any power flickers or anything like that.
Though there is the possibility my school will be canceled tomorrow morning. My school is out in the countryside a bit and that region is prone to flooding. It would be my first-ever school cancellation due to weather conditions -- I've secretly always been jealous of those snow-day people, except, of course, for the fact that they live where it's cold enough for it to snow.
So, I'll have to check the weather advisory when I get up in the morning. But as the map shows, the worst of the storm will be past us by the time we wake up tomorrow.

Moon viewing festival

Saturday night was Himeji's Moon Viewing Festival. It was recommended to us by some of the veterans here, and fortunately it came off. As you might imagine, rain puts a big damper on moon viewing, and on the signs it even said the festival would be postponed until Sunday in case of rain. Fortunately, despite clouds during much of the day, it didn't rain, and even cleared up at night for a nice view of the full moon.
I wasn't sure what to expect at a moon viewing festival, other than looking at the moon, but when we got down to the castle there were already a lot of people sitting in front of a big stage. When we arrived, the stage was featuring some kind of performance. I don't know what to call it, but it featured two guys in a traditional lion outfit climbing up a ladder after another guy. About halfway up, the guy who was the back end of the lion stopped and did a handstand on the ladder. When they got to the top, the "lion" stood up and jerked each way off the side of the ladder. It was pretty spectacular, if a little bit worrisome that someone might fall.
The stage featured a series of performances through the night, including a koto concert (Chelsey will explain more about koto soon), some singing, and the finale of taiko drumming. They were all pretty good, although the drumming got the biggest crowd response.
For many people, I think, the main attraction of the festival was the sake. For about $5, you could buy a souvenir cup and then go get unlimited refills of locally-brewed sake. (Or as the woman who sold me my cup said, "drink sake many times"). Chelsey and I bought a cup to share. Sake is not my favourite drink, and this event didn't make it into my favourite, but it was not too bad. I've certainly had worse drinks. There were also food booths, but we ate before the festival, so we passed on those. None of them looked too interesting, anyways.
Oh yeah, and it was a beautiful night to see the moon.
-Jason
more pictures on the picasa page

tea ceremony club

Almost every student at my junior high school belongs to a club. These groups meet before or after school (or possibly both) every day, all year long. Toyotomi (my school) has a fine arts club, English club, koto club (it's a traditional Japanese musical instrument), etc. Sports are also lumped into "clubs." We have clubs for baseball, softball, boys volleyball, girls volleyball, judo, table tennis, tennis, track and field, etc.
Each student can only belong to one club. So where I was on the volleyball team and then the soccer team and then the track and field team each year in high school, these students must pick just one activity for the entire year.
My schedule is arranged so that I can visit the clubs after school for about 30 minutes Tuesday and Wednesday and for over an hour on Mondays and Fridays. I have been trying to spent a day with each club, so that I can see what it's like and what the students do.
Last Friday I joined the tea ceremony club. This club performs a traditional Japanese tea ceremony every Monday and Friday. This involves the students learning how to make the tea, the proper way to pour, etc, etc, etc. And there are a lot of etc. in the tea ceremony process. While I was there, the teacher was trying to explain the proper method for wiping the bowl after certain actions. Of course I had no idea what she was saying, but I picked up that there are different cloths to be used, the wipes go in different directions depending on what was just in the bowl, the cloths must be folded, unfolded and then refolded in specific ways between each step. It was very complicated, but interesting.
It appeared that half of the students are the "performers" and half of the students simply get to enjoy some tea and snacks. They grouped me in with the "enjoyers." So I had to sit (on my knees, which after 20 minutes is really painful), and first they served me a small dumpling snack. It was pale green and sticky, and I had no idea how I was supposed to politely eat it. Then they gave me a long, flat toothpick like object and showed me how to cut the dumpling -- which should then stick to the toothpick so you can eat it. But my technique wasn't very good and it kept falling off. Since I know that it's rude to spear your food, I was at a bit of a loss at how to eat the thing.
Then they made me a cup of tea. The have special hot water that was transfered between pots. Then they scoop some of the green tea powder into a cup and add the water with a special ladel. Then they use a bamboo whisk to mix it. The end product is a very frothy and neon green.
They had a special ritual for setting the cup in front of me, and I am sure that there were certain things I was supposed to say or do to receive it, but since I had no idea what was going on, I just kept saying arigato (thank you) and bowing.
The tea has quite a potent flavor and is quite gritty. And it is so frothy that it's hard to drink. I laughed when I saw that even the students had to kind of choke it down.
It was a very enjoyable experience, and I think that the students enjoyed having me join their club for the day.
The first picture is of me drinking some tea, and one of my students doing the go-to Japanese picture pose. The second is of the awesomely green tea. I've put some extra pictures on the picasa page.

sports day pictures and video

I put all of my pictures from sports day on the picasa page. I also figured out that this is the best way for me to post video. So, the first several items in the sports day folder are videos. You should be able to click on them like you would a normal picture. If they are too fuzzy, try clicking on the "google video" button at the bottom right-hand side of the video. Then select "original size."