Diary

October-December 1999

Topics: Terror and Tradition (10/31/99); Live! Live, Mr. Chris! (11/04/99); Singin' and swingin' and merry like... School Festival? (11/12/99); Delights of the North and South (11/25/99); Eel for Thanksgiving (12/06/99); No Christmas in Thailand for me! (12/27/99).

Terror and Tradition

10/31/99

Halloween. Today has been a slow day for me. Yesterday had its ups and downs. I had spent the day down in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, with another JET that I had met in the Kashima train station a few weeks ago. We spent the afternoon walking around the famous temple in the city and we did a bit of shopping at the interntional food store. I was on my way home from dropping Laurie off at her place in Sawara when disaster struck. I heard a loud noise... almost like and bang, and my poor little car shut off. Luckily traffic was slight and I coasted into the parking lot of a little tonkastsu restaurant. I was about 10km shy of my apartment. I had a 7:30 appointment with my supervisor, and it was now about 7:28. I eventually tracked him down after having gone through my insurance agent (imagine the heart-pounding I gave him!). My supervisor drovw down and picked me up, and we left my little car without really knowing what happened to it.

My appointment was with the instructor who had agreed to teach me shamisen, a three-stringed, banjo-like traditonal Japanese instrument which is plucked with a large plectrum called a bachi. We went to the instructor's house where quite a few people had gathered. Apparently, the group meets every Saturday night, but this night. They were practicing for the culture fesitval which is to take place on Wednesday at the Junior high school (you can expect more on that one later). I was treated to a delightful ensemble of miyo, or traditional folk songs. In Kanazawa I had studied the shamisen, but the music, and the instrument itself, was much different. I had learned nagauta, or theatrical music, on a performance shamisen. The shamisen I was listening to last night was a people's shamisen--basically the same instrument, but slightly thicker and heavier. In Kanazawa, I had learned the music of the court and nobles, but here in Taiyo, I will learn the music of the laborers, farmers, and fishermen. I'm pretty excited about it.

Without the car, I was stranded in my apartment last night and missed out on attending the JET Halloween party in Kitaura. I just had a quiet night. Today, my supervisor helped me take care of the car--we're waiting until tomorrow for the repairman to check it out. I've done laundry, cleaned the apartment, and set up my kotatsu, or heated table. It's winter yet, so I haven't turned the kotatsu on, but boy does it feel nice to stick my legs under the thick futons covering the table. No special Halloween plans for this eveing. I don't think I'll be getting any tick-or-treaters. I'm just staying in. I lit the little Japanese-pumpkin Jack O'Lanterns that I made for my apartment. I'll get a photo on my views page eventually.

Live! Live, Mr. Chris!

11/04/99

It's been a few days since I wrote last. My car is still in the shop. I haven't heard what the problem is, and I think I will be without a car for the weekend. Sigh.

Yesterday was Taiyo-mura's Bunka Matsuri, or Culture Festival. But November 3 also marks the day of Taiyo-mura's IkiIki Matsuri, literally 'LiveLive Festival'. It was held in the front lawn of the Junior High school, and all day Tuesday, the town was busy setting up tents and laying the ground work for the following day's activities. The rain held off and the festivities began... and did they ever began early. Since it was a national holiday and the event was going to last all day, I had chosen to sleep in. Little did I know that the unusually chipper young women that every Japanese town festival seems to summon to be its MC would start SO early. At 8:00 am, I heard her. It's a 30 minute walk from my apartment to the school. The voices of these high-pitched Japanese women on overly-loud speaker systems can really carry! I pulled myself out of bed after enduring it for an hour or so, and got ready for the festival. By the time I lazed about the apartment, did various errands, and stopped by the mom and pop grocery store up the street from me for a bit of emergency shopping, it was already 2:00. So I set out for the festival and got there at about 2:30, just in time to see the tail end of the 'Go-Go Five' action adventure show. 'Go-Go Five' is another children's tv show featuring costumed martial arts experts battling space monsters, ala 'Power Rangers'.

From there, I chatted with various people, played the exciting bingo game in which I only had four numbers, all at different corners of my game card, and wandered about. The festival culminated with the emergence of Taiyo-mura's own festival float. Wheeled, wooden, and crowned with crepe paper flowers, it was covered with townspeople who played flutes and drums, and was dragged by an interesting assortment of men, women, children, and grandparents. They covered about 600 feet of the main street, stopped, turned the float around, and then started doing various dances. I seemed to be the only one watching, so I don't know if they were actually performing, or just practicing. Then, they grabbed the ropes and started pulling the float back towards the Junior High School as the musicians played on. They pulled the float up into the front lawn and continued playing and dancing. Men came around with sake, offering it to everyone, and as you quickly learn in Japan, you don't turn down offers of food and drink. After I gulped down my plastic cup of sake, much to the thrill of the little old man who gave it to me, I had to answer a barrage of questions about Japanese and American alcohol. A small portable shrine, or O-mikoshi, was brought out on the shoulders of a group of elementary school boys and carried around the front lawn, struggling a little, but doing a fine job nonetheless.

Suddenly, everyone gathered around the musicians, for the mayor and another village dignitary had climbed atop the float and had started the final crescendo of the days activities -- they threw handfulls, boxes really, of white and pink mochi out to everyone. Now, mochi, a gooey paste made from pounded rice, can be used in all sorts of things, so I know it is a welcome present. But when mochi is dried, it gets very hard -- almost rock hard. These men were throwing these things out into a mad crowd of children, grandmothers, and housewives -- frantic to get as many as possible. I was trying my best to avoid getting hit in any vital areas, either by flying mochi or by someone in the melee. These mochi cakes could easily give you a shiner, or cripple you in almost any imaginable way. I came out of it unscathed, holding three mochi that I had caught myself, and the flour marks on my arms and legs from several near-misses. An exciting end to an evening of fun...

And it wasn't over. Everyone trapsed across the road to the Community Center to attend the Karaoke party. The auditorium was filled with onlookers as various members of the community got up and sang and danced to their favorite traditional Japanese songs. Actually, all of the songs were enka, a sappy, yet fascinating, modern song form which is most closely compared to American country music. Lots of the grannies and fathers that came up on stage gave powerful renditions of the song, despite the fact that many of them were a bar or two behind in the music, a bit off key, or quite soft or short-winded -- they had gumption, and I guess that's what matters, isn't it? I did have the fortune to see my shamisen instructor perform. He sat in a chair at the back of the stage as five women (all of whom I had met last Friday) danced a very nice fan dance to an old folk song, and another lady in a lovely kimono sang the tune. In all, it was a very nice day, and I feel like I am much better known in the community from all of the conversations, comments, and stares I received in the course of the afternoon.

Singin' and swingin' and merry like... School Festival?

11/12/99

This weekend marks the end of my second month in Japan. Time seems to be moving pretty quickly, especially as I get more and more accustomed to my daily routine. I'm keeping busy with school, activities, and my homepage. More stuff is coming along, so please keep checking back.

I thought the school was a frenzy of activity in preparation for the village's culture festival. I hadn't seen anything. The school's culture festival is this Sunday, and many of the projects that I had thought were being done for the village's festival have actually been in preparation for Sunday. To my surprise, the festival has a largely environmental theme. Yes, there will be games and musical performances by the students and faculty, but most of the projects, displays, and crafts deal with recycling materials. The student's in Miss Ishii's homeroom have made a giant mural by painting on the back of milk cartons that they saved up, washed, dried, and attached into a giant 'canvas' that will grace the front of the school. It has a picture of the earth (with a very large Japan, and even bigger China, taking center stage -- poor Korea looks like a bulge on the coast of China, and we won't even think about what happened to SE Asia). The students in Miss Watabe's homeroom have done something amazing. Or at least I was impressed with the idea. They've taken plastic bottles and transformed them into flower vases. Yes, it sounds like all you have to do is take off the lid and VIOLA you have a vase. But the kids cut, glued, and painted, and the things look very impressive. They also converted some of them into those little bulb-holders that are so expensive in all the fancy shops -- you know, the kind that holds the flower bulb up over clear water, allowing the roots to grow down and the flower to bloom without any soil... Neat ways to recycle things. Note: There won't be any of the food typical of most Japanese festivals. The school had a bad case of bacterial infection from their festival food a couple of years ago, so they're ordering box lunches. I'll be sure to take some photos of Sunday's events.

I've been roped into performing for the festival. I, 'Mr. Chris', will be the lead vocalist in the faculty's musical performance. They all seem excited to have me leading them in an interesting rendition of 'Hey Jude' by that quintessential Japanese musical favorite, the Beatles -- they especially love 'Yesterday'. I don't know if everyone will be happy on Sunday, when I sing in front of the assembled masses of students, teachers, and parents. But I think they're expecting the best because we've prepared our encore: 'Let it Be'. Mr. Shimokobe is even going to accompany us on his guitar. I'm hoping not to shatter anyone's eardrums. I seem to be so picky about singers who can never quite sing on key. I'd like to think I'm decent, and as far as I can tell, I'm not butchering the song. My voice is untrained, and weak, and you can tell. But in the true Japanese tradition of karaoke, I'll have spirit...and I'll be heavily miked (perhaps with a groovy echo effect). If those go well, I'm planning to join the faculty and the PTA in singing some Japanese songs. At least in a big chorus, where I'm not standing with microphone in hand, I'll be able to blend in and mask any mistakes. I hope the few times I've gone out to sing karaoke with friends and strangers will give me the confidence to sing in front of such a large group. We'll see how it all goes.

Oh. I finally found out about the car. The fan belt snapped. It took them a week to figure that out and we'll see how long it takes them to get it fixed. My supervisor called the place yesterday afternoon and got the repairman's son on the phone. Turns out both parents were out. If I can get my car back by Monday, I'd like to swing up into northern Ibaraki. I've recently discovered that Ibaraki has one of Japan's three great waterfalls. It also has one of the three great gardens and one of the three great Inari Shrines. As I read all of this in a lovely little leaflet the prefectural JET people FINALLY sent me, I was taken aback. I'm thinking there might be more to this nuclear prefecture on the periphery of Tokyo than I had expected. I'll have at least 8 more months to learn more about it.

Delights of the North and South

11/25/99

Thanksgiving Day. Can't say it really feels like it. I woke up to an eerie fog covering everything this morning. I almost hit a couple of students on their bikes on the way to school. It was impossible to see them. None of the other American JETs seem to have anything special planned for Thanksgiving, so I'll be spending it alone (sniff). I'm just planning on taking it easy, fixing some sort of comfort food, and then curling up with a nice book for the evening.

I've taken two nice trips since I wrote last. The first was up to the northern part of Ibaraki Prefecture. I had been reading about what my prefecture had to offer, and discovered that it has one of Japan's three great waterfalls. It's tucked away in the little town of Daigo up in the mountains of Ibaraki. It was a nice drive. I had to go through the heart of Mito, which got a little confusing. But in all, it wasn't very difficult. The city soon faded away and I was surrounded by rice fields and farmhouses (not a big change from Taiyo, really). The mountains popped up soon. They aren't huge mountains, but they are very steep. Climbing them would be a real effort. The foliage was changing and I was granted some magnificent views of mountain rivers surrounded by leaves of every color. I'm hoping my photos will turn out. Fukuroda Falls is tucked away in a little valley. You sort of stumble onto it before you realize it. The mountain is very small, so you don't really expect the marvel that is before you. From the numerous parking lots, you walk through the little tourist streets up to the 'entrance'. You pay a small fee, and then head through a tunnel drilled from the mountain. It seems like quite a bit of engineering for a waterfall observation platform. But without this tunnel, viewing the falls would be impossible. You make a turn in the tunnel and suddenly it's before you -- a wide stream of rushing water. Fukuroda Falls is immense. It comes tumbling over the top of the mountain, cascading down in three stages. At the bottom of each stage is a large collecting pool, but from the observation deck, all you can really see if the rushing water. The rocks bulge out, so the water streams over the surface of the rock instead of plunging over thin air like many other waterfalls. My description isn't really doing it justice. I had never seen anything like it, and in less than 5 minutes I was halfway through my second roll of film. I'll post some photos when I get them developed.

My other trip was down to Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands. Thanks to confusion at Haneda Airport which resulted in a delay of my departure, I didn't do a lot of sightseeing. I mainly went to spend some time with two of my friends from my year abroad in Kanazawa. They are both participating in the JET program. Suparna lives and works in Nango, a small town on the coast of Miyazaki Prefecture. She is surrounded by wide, clean, sandy beaches, palm trees, emerald waters, and sunshine. Miyazaki is SO alien to Ibaraki -- cold, drab and 'regular'. Suparna and I went out in a glass-bottom boat. It cruised around the bay in Nango and brought us specificially to one of the area's CORAL REEFS. This coral reef is a five-minute drive from Suparna's house. Coral of all shapes and colors, numerous fish, sea urchins, and various aquatic creatures abound. I was amazed. I had never actually seen a real coral reef. I could have stayed there all day, and am convinced that I have to get certified for SCUBA diving one of these days. Amazing. Suparna and I spent the rest of the day driving down the coast in search of monekys. They live on a large island which is connected to the mainland at low tide. They cross over to the mainland and forage all day, and then wander back to the island at night. We didn't find any, and Suparna said I wasn't missing much. In her words, "All they do is sit in the road with their young and spit bananas at you." Regurgitated bananas or not, I still would have liked to have seen them.

The other highlight of my Kyushu trip was a dip in the sand bath at the raunchy hot spring resort of Beppu, up in Oita Prefecture. My friend Emma met Suparna and me for the day and we all trapsed through the town looking for the sand bath. It was marvelous. You enter a huge room, and there is a little Japanese lady waiting for you with her pants rolled up and a big shovel in her hands. She's up to her knees in sand. You undress, rinse your body, and then ever-so-discreetly place yourself in a depression the little lady has been so kind as to dig for you. Then, starting with your ankles and working her way up, she scoops shovels full of warm, wet sand on top of your body. Once you're generally covered, she smoothes it out and leaves you there for 10 minutes. It's like a very good sauna. The sand is weighing you down and the heat is so soothing. After ten minutes, you emerge from the sand and have the fun job of washing off. The sand gets EVERYWHERE, and rinsing yourself clean takes quite a bit of effort. But afterwards you can endulge in the pleasures of a traditional hot spring -- rinsing, soaking, rinsing, soaking in the steamy waters... It's just not a feat for the timid -- public nudity. I'm surprised that I can make myself do it.

That evening, the girls and I met up with one of your advisors from Kanazawa University. He had contacted Emma and told her he would be in Beppu. It amazingly coincided with the visit from Suparna and me. We had a very long talk over coffee (iced tea in my case), and we all reminisced about our Kanazawa days.

It's been a good two weeks. Not terribly productive, but fun. Hope everyone enjoyes the holiday, and I'll be writing again soon.

Eel for Thanksgiving

12/06/99

Another big gap in between updates. Sorry.

Things have been going pretty slowly since the last diary entry. Thanksgiving was quite for me. Due to conferences, holidays, and numerous class cancellations, I didn't prepare anything in the way of a Thanksgiving lesson plan. I had overly prepared for Halloween, and felt very much in the holiday mood in late October. But because I didn't make a fuss over Thanksgiving, or talk about it in 12 different classes as I had with Halloween, I sort of missed out on a lot of the Thanksgiving holiday spirit. Thansgiving day was a work day for me, so from 8:00-4:30 I was at the school doing nothing in particular. When I got home, I made sure the rest of the day was mine. I prepared dinner... It wasn't a particularly exciting affair. I had been planning on cooking something really American like Mac n' Cheese. Turkey is hard to find over here, so I was going for something that would be easy to find, cook, and eat by myself. But, I'd been grocery shopping earlier that week and had 'perishibles' in the fridge. I decided to prepare some of them instead of popping open the patsa and velveeta (heehee). So, for the first in what may become a Japanese Thanksgiving tradition, I broiled up a delicious, juciy, mouth-watering Thanksgiving EEL. Yum Yum! Eel is one of my all time favorites... It's baked, but remains moist. It's a slightly fatty meat, but that just makes it taste all the better. I was treating myself in a way, but eating rice, eel, pickles, and tofu as my Thanksgiving dinner seemed a little strange. There's always next year, and Mom had prepared me a nice Thanksgiving dinner in the summer since she knew I'd be missing it this fall. Good thinking, Mom. I spent the rest of the evening curled up on the floor with a good book.

This past weekend I took a little trip over to Kasama. It's a town in the hills of central Ibaraki prefecture. It is called a Little Kyoto, like many other Japanese towns, for its number of temples and the high number of traditional crafts that are still practiced there today. As nice as Kasama is, I think that other towns like Kanazawa and Takayama have many more reasons to call themselves Little Kyotos. Anyway, the two big tourist magnets in Kasama are the famed Inari Shrine (one of Japan's Three Great Inari Shrines) and the fabled pottery. Both seemed to have a higher reputation than are probably due. While Kasama pottery is pretty, every piece I found myself eager to buy ended up being some other variety, from Gifu or Tochigi Prefectures. Kasama pottery may just not fit my ideals. As ignorant as I am of pottery types, I'll try to explain Kasama pottery. The glazes range from vivid earthly tones to pale pastels. They tend to favor a sort of dripped technique in applying the glazes, so that after they are fired, it looks like the glazes are dripping down the edges of the pottery. The most typical type of pot seems to be a small cylindrical dish with high sides and a small-handled lid. It looks like the special type of pots used for baking chawamushi, a Japanese type of egg custard that usually contains vegetables and seafood. But there seem to be Kasama pottery of all shapes and forms. I just found myself going for the more elaborate and colorful pottery from neighboring prefectures. I had actually selected them thinking they were Kasama pottery, but upon purchase, I asked the saleswoman and she clarified things for me. No, that pretty sake set is Minou-yaki from Gifu Prefecture. Thwarted in my attempt to find something spectacluar in Ibaraki Prefecture...

The Great Inari Shrine left me a little disappointed. The two other Inari shrines of note are in Yutoku, Saga Prefecture, and Fushimi in Kyoto. I had been to the Fushimi Inari Taisha twice and it remains one of my favorite places in Japan. The buildings there are immense and a vivd red. The red torii gates cover and entire mountainside and you can spend the better part of a day exploring the shrines and environs of the precincts. Kasama Inari Taisha, while very pretty, is small in comparison. The main gate stands extremely close to the street, and the entire shrine complex could easily fit in the space taken up by Fushimi's courtyard. There were remnants of Kasama Inari Taisha's famous Chrysanthemum festival. The two large 400-year-old wysteria vines in the counrtyard, designated important cultural properties, were covered with magnificent yellow leaves, and these glowed in the afternoon sun. The shrine was very serene, and the noises of the town were completely inaudible in the rear of the shrine, where a wonderful gathering of fox statues grabbed my attention. Inari shrines are often covered with representations of foxes and horses, two of the symbols of the patron god of the temple, the Shinto god of fertility and the harvest. In all, it was a nice day trip. I am making myself give Kasama another chance, but I can't help but feel slightly disappointed after seeing so many of the other wonderful shrines and potteries of this fine country. I just entered with very high expectations, and that wasn't fair to Kasama.

This morning was a bit eerie. I had had trouble getting to sleep last night, and was fearing that I would sleep in this morning. As I had feared, my alarm didn't go off (or I slept through it). But I was awakened in time. I was shaken awake by an earthquake. I guess mother nature didn't want me to be late for work. I got up, got ready for work, and rushed out the door. It was surprisingly warm after days of very cold mornings. It was overcast and very dark. It felt like it was about 5:00am, but my watch clearly said 7:55. Just a strange morning. Today's tremor marks #8 for me. That's 8 in less than 3 months here. For a geologically inactive region of Japan, I've sure felt a lot of tremors. One came the other night... Friday I believe. I was lying in bed, and since the futon is on the floor, and I was lying with my ear to the pillow, I could hear the earthquake coming. That was a strange feeling. I just heard the ripples, thought to myself, 'earthquake', and then the room started shaking. I'm scared of an earthquake hitting in the night. I have images of the big heavy wardrobe toppling over on top of me if a big one hits. At least I know it will wake me up quickly after what happened this morning. Ah the joy of plate tectonics!

Well, that's enough excitement for today. I'll write again soon.

No Christmas in Thailand for me!

12/27/99

Another 20-day gap in installments. Ugh!

Well, Christmas has come and gone here in Taiuyo-mura. I can't say it was a breathtaking spectacle of light, joy, and revelry. Christmas was very quaint this year. And most of the joy and excitement of the season came from me, some of the other local JETs, and the numerous carsd and packages that kept coming in the mail. Don't get me wrong. The Japanese do celebrate Christmas. Santa Claus has become a symbol that every Japanese child recognizes. Every Japanese child gets as excited about Christmas as an American child does. They expect presents and can't wait to dig into their Christmas cakes (creamy things covered with strawberries). But that's where their knowledge of Christmas ends. It's a time for presents and sweets. In class I aksed the question, "Why do we have Christmas?" The most common answer was because it was the day Santa Claus gave us presents (although I heard a whole slew of fun answers). Alarmingly, quite a few answered that it was the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. In all, the Christmas spirit had to come from within this year. I spent Christmas Eve with a few other local JETs. We fixed a nice dinner, chatted, and watched some movies. We woke up on Christmas day and had a mini present opening with our secret Santa gifts. Then I went back to my apartment for my own Christmas (the gifts I'd been sent from home). It was very small and quite (took me about 5 minutes, and that was taking it slowly). But it was nice. I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and trying not to rip through the Harry Potter book that mom sent me.

The 2nd term of the year ended at Taiyo Jr. High School on December 22. My classes all went well. The past 2-and-a-half weeks I had been filling in in the second year classes for Ms. Ishii, who had been out for throat surgery. I used the time to experiment with some games, etc, and to talk about Christmas. It all went well, but I fail to see the educational value in some of the classes. It just gave the kids a chance to have a little break from rewgular lectures and lessons and play some English language games -- and even then a lot of them didn't use much English. There are so many games one can do with Japanese kids, but so few work well with large numbers of kids. If you had a group of 5-10 that you could work with, all would be fine. Oh well. I did manage to find out what types of games worked well and what didn't, so I ended up learning things these past 3 weeks.

It is now Winter break for the school, but because I am employed by the Taiyo Village Board of Education, I have to work. I only have national holidays off. Luckily Christmas was on a Saturday when I don't have to work. I had the 23rd off (The Emperor's Birthday yeah!), and I have the 29th to the 3rd off as the official New Year's holidays. But the rest of the time I MUST be sitting at my desk in the Board of Education. You can see how thrilled I am. I have NO responsibilites except to sit here at the desk. But, I realize I'm saving money by not running off to Thailand with every JET and his/her brother, and I'm saving up my days off for times when I want to travel and times when people come a-visitin'. I'm planning on savoring my days off. I'm just going into Tokyo, but I'm meeting up with a friend of mine from college, Karin (who's also on JET). I want to take some time to explore the city, and maybe do a day trip or two outside of the city limits. heehee. You can probably tell that I;m looking forward to getting out of Ibaraki prefecture.

Well, that's about it for now. I just wanted to write a quick update about Christmas. I'll be back to report again shortly after New Year's. Take care and good luck with Y2K.

continue to January-March 2000

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