Komochi-Matsuri with Araki-sensei

Greetings all. You may have noticed that I took a fairly extended sabbatical from posting. This was due to a dramatic upswing in my life's activities due to joining a gym and starting dating again. Thanks to all who took notice. (meh meh meh, we want more content, wah wah waaah) As a result, until further notice blog posts will not be on any set schedule, but rather as events occur, or as I see fit. Cope. ^_^

Pseudo-recently, one of the old teachers from Kanashima Jr. High took me to a neighboring village to see the annual festival they have there. It's during the time of the second round of cherry blossoms (the seven-layer ones - less delicate and slightly longer-lasting than the paler variety that come out first of the year), and is highly regarded in the surrounding areas. Here are some pics.

This is the general ambience - the festival took place along a long street with a river flowing down the middle of it and sakura planted along the river, with really old buildings along both sides, and had vendors and shopping and things to eat and performances and all kinds of nifty traditional Japanese matsuri day stuff.

Here's me and Araki-sensei and his two kids, in front of a dashi. (Dashi? I think it's dashi. If somebody wants to do the research to correct me, feel free.) It's a traditional matsuri festival cart, similar to a Mardi Gras float or something, except these have a built-in music section. They all look similar, with variations of color and subtleties of design. There are four small drums on the front of the cart, and a big drum on one side and a brass gong/bell on the other side. In the center, a flute player carries the melody of the tune. The instruments are played with a certain amount of ceremony, but also a certain amount of enthusiasm, and the percussionists on the sides wear harnesses to keep from falling off, and seeing them lean way off the cart while leaning on their harnesses is fairly common. Fun times are had by all.

A better view of a dashi. The drummers up front have stylised drum beat arm motion routines that they coordinate beforehand, and they look pretty cool. The girl second from the left is one of my old students from Kanashima - I ran into a few of the 3rd graders who graduated last year at this festival, that was pretty cool.

One of the high points of any dashi event is when the male members of the dashi squad "pull the dashi." Understand that the dashi are all motorized, and require no manual effort to pull at all. Also understand that when they do this little ritual, there are blocks under the wheels. The sucker don't move. So all the male members of the squad line up holding two ropes attached to the front of the dashi, and on a signal, the two lines kind of slam into each other, jumping around and yelling and making a big spectacle of this farce that they're trying to move this thing, and meanwhile the leaders of the group are on the dashi blowing whistles and yelling encouragement. The two teams of rope pullers just kind of mosh there for a while, and nothing goes anywhere but everyone has a blast being unproductive. It's quite a scene. I have a video. It's very shaky, I was laughing quite hard.

Koto players and their apprentices. That was the first time I had seen the instrument played, I was very happy to.

A close-up of the 7-layer sakura.

The highlight of the day was the samurai procession. I didn't quite understand the tradition behind it, Araki-sensei's English and my Japanese are about on par, and neither is sufficient to hold an in-depth history discussion. I just about know the Japanese word for "history." I'm happy to know that. Anyway, traditions aside, it was cool just to see a bunch of guys dressed up as samurai parading up and down the street.

This guy was all buff. Despite the fact that the name of this prefecture is Gunma, literally "many horses," this is about the only horse I have seen the entire time I've been in Japan.

Here's a guy who I decided was cool enough to let pose with me.

Araki-sensei was a cool guy and bought his kids some fighting stag beetles. They cost him about 20 bucks per pair. For more info on this particular national obsession, I refer you to the links below. Beetle sumo is something that I just haven't gotten into.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_rhinoceros_beetle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushiking

Here's a shot of Araki-sensei and his wife in their front yard. They have a pretty nice place, spacious for Japan. I think the house has been in the family for a while.

Well, I'm gonna call that a post. See you next time!

Thoughts on Japan (AKA Wall of text)

Hey everyone! It's been a while since my last post, so I wanted to regale you with some of my experiences and thoughts about life here in Japan as a reward for being so patient. Your reward is to trudge through a featureless wasteland of text. Try to contain your excitement. ^_^

To begin with, yesterday I went to a pool with a friend of mine and her kids. The pool was called the "Carribean Beach," and I have to say it was done up pretty well. It was centered around a good-sized wave pool, with beach chairs all around it. The whole place was heated to a balmy temperature, and I really felt comfortable in my swimsuit. There were murals on just about every wall and even the ceiling depicting scenes of the Caribbean, with cruise ships, blue skies, ocean waves, tourists, ocean-front houses and hotels, flags of the local countries, etc, etc. There was a lazy river, some water slides, and even a Tiki bar selling non-alcoholic frozen beverages. So, all in all, it was pretty nice for Gunma in early May, when it was still below 75 outside (that's Fahrenhiet). The most noteworthy thing about the day, though, and the thing I would like to draw your attention to, was the body boarding, and the body boarders. Later in the evening, the pool started kicking up some serious waves, and you could rent a body board from the stand and start shredding. I found it interesting that there were a few people that looked like regulars, who came in wetsuits and proceeded to shred as if the waves had personally offended them. These guys displayed some genuine skills, and did some things that I've never seen done on a body board. However, I suspect that they only have this talent in this forum because this is the only forum they know. I don't think that they would be able to stand on a body board with such dexterity if they had ever made the transition to a surfboard. I suspect that thes guys from Gunma, a very land-locked prefecture (in the middle, I might add, of an island nation), have taken up an impractical hobby, and pushed it to extremes that would not be seen in people that actually live near the ocean. This is a phenomenon that I have seen a few times in Japan. For another example, there are the gun collectors. These people publish magazines, have miniature target ranges, and purchase guns at really unreasonable prices. Now, this is in a country where CIVILIANS CANNOT HAVE GUNS. It's against the law. All these guns are replicas, which fire plastic and/or foam pellets. I don't know if they're pump action or spring-loaded or what, I've never fired one. But they're really expensive. An utterly impractical hobby taken to otaku-ish extremes.

On another topic entirely, I would like to discuss the medicine in Japan. The main thing is, it's really weak. I think the Japanese take it as a source of pride that it doesn't need to be really strong, i.e. the Japanese body is tough enough to heal most maladies on its own. I don't know if this is true, or if it's largely hogwash, as I suspect. However, the fact of the matter is that it's tough to find strong medicine and painkillers here, let alone strong over-the-counter medicine and painkillers. I had some Nyquil and Dayquil shipped over from the States, and it came in handy. I'm able to get Bufferin, but that's the only brand I'm really aware of. There are still large elements of Chinese medicine here, acupuncture and herbal and animal remedies and so on, and also preventitive medicine in addition to curative medicine. There's these powders and little brown bottles of elixir-ish stuff you can buy, and they're really popular. You wrap the powders in these little rice paper discs and swallow them. Personally, I'm a fan of pill form. Another thing I find interesting is that despite the inefficiency of their medicines, it's impressive to be a pharmacist. There is even a comic that I have seen about the adventures of a young woman who makes medicines in the Edo period, something which I seriously doubt would be popular in America. Their doctors are some of the best-trained in the world, and I've heard it said from an American EMT who did a study that Japanese EMT's are trained more thoroughly than American EMT's. However, he also said that since the Japanese method offers little real field experience, and tries to control every element, that American EMT's end up with more ability to think on their feet and make judgement calls. So Japanese are better trained, but have fewer opportunities to use what they have learned, which hurts in the long run. Anyway. I think I'll stick with my knock-your-butt-out western medicine, thanks. For now, though, I'll just rely on Bufferin. Cures what ails ya. I've come up with a nifty little ad line for it, though: "Sufferin? Bufferin!" Tell me you guys wouldn't buy some Bufferin if you saw that on TV.

I've largely been basing my opinions of the Japanese mentality from what I see in the teachers at the schools, and also my few Japanese friends. Of course this would be the case. I've largely lacked contact with what I hear as the competetive and slightly ruthless Japanese big business culture. I'd like to experience it a little, but I get the feeling that it's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. For a little glimpse of this, I'd like to refer you to a book by Michael Crichton called Rising Sun. It was written in the early 90's, just at the end of the Japanese bubble economy, so it definitely casts a shadow on the ruthlessness and cunning of big business practices. It exaggerates a lot, but many of the practices it gets right on the money. It's a pretty insightful book, even if you have to take it with a grain of salt. I enjoyed it.

So many Japanese (at least, in Shibukawa - I can't really speak for Tokyo and that) have cell phones, computers, TVs and fancy cars, but still do without clothes dryers, dishwashers, and central A/C. I really can't fathom a reason for this. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'd trade my computer for a dishwasher, but a dishwasher is something that makes life a whole lot easier if you can afford it. I think most Japanese can afford it, too. I really don't understand. Maybe it's the whole self-imposed discipline thing. Eh. Laziness is the mother of invention.

There is a LOT of Engrish in Japan. It's really not worth it to detail specific cases, since it's just prolific. I think the entire nation just has it in mind that if they put something that they can't read on a T-shirt, it makes it cooler. I guess I kinda had the same thing going with Japanese and Cajun-french music for a while there, but I didn't plaster it all over my body. And it's really not even good. Well, maybe I'll detail a few cases. On a T-shirt: "A few dew fall petals begin the red scene: pretty cutie" On a billboard advertising nature gear: "Lets enjoy woody life." Even in the rare cases where it is correct English, it still ends up stilted and weird. For example, on the tire cover on the back of a Jeep: "Hiking through the wilderness brings me closer to nature." See? Totally correct sentence, nothing wrong with it at all, but still odd. I guess you should just never refer to yourself in the first person in taglines. Anyway. Strange. The kids at Toyoaki elementary school love it when I read their nonsensical shirts to them, they think it's funny that I know what it means, and I think it's funny because it's always so awful. Some of the brand names are strangely familiar, too: American Eagle, Old Navy, New Balance, Puma, etc.

Well, I'm frankly tired, and I'll call that a post. More of my views coming soon. One more thing, though. Yesterday I went to Nikko and saw the huge temple/mausoleum where the ashes of Tokugawa Ieyasu are enshrined. Here's me with the big dog himself.

Best wishes from Caffery-san and Tokugawa-sama.