lessons in japanese culture

today, december 28th, is the last day of work before the new year holidays. . . everyone is running around cleaning like mad. . . just as importantly, they are giving their year end greetings. . .“おせわになりました。来年もよろしくお願いします。”

amidst all this, the people in my office (only six of us work at this branch of the b.o.e. now) decided to give me a lesson in japanese culture. . .

lesson 1: the first dream of the new year. . . if you dream about mt. fuji, a hawk, or eggplant, you have a good year ahead of you. . . since mt. fuji ensures the best year, my supervisor thinks it’s a good idea to spend most of december 31st staring at a poster of fuji . . . at the very least he says to put a picture of it under your pillow before you go to sleep. . .



lesson 2: this one started with a discussion of the chinese zodiac (2008 will be the year of the rat. . . fyi: i am a dog). . . somehow this discussion ended in a psychological test. . . out of 100, how many horse would you choose and how many sheep would you choose. . . (please answer now). . . .

. . .

i said 55 sheep and 45 horse. . . the girl next to me – whom i adore for bringing me coffee and chocolate everyday at 3:00p.m. – apparently chose 90 sheep and 10 horse. . . all the others said 50/50. . .

. . .

a larger percentage of horse means you are aggressive. . .
a larger percentage of sheep means you are passive. . .
i am every so slightly on the passive side, and the girl next to me begs to be bullied (according to the guy who sits across from her . . . think they’ve been friends since they were about five). . .

those are my lessons thus far today. . . but it is only noon. . . i’m just hoping to avoid the mochi this year! who can eat all that rice?!

halloween

technically a nonexistent holiday in japan. . . leave it to the foreigners to make a new yearly tradition, right?

all the dancers helped me do a quick transformation from a sweaty dancer to a . . . well, i think i was originally going to go as a goth lolita. . . due to lack of planning and accessories, it turned into me looking cute in my harajuku outfit. . .



tsuyoshi’s costume consisted of a yellow jacket paired with a chicken cap we “won” for getting last (and second to last) place in a bowling tournament last year. . .



in the end, much fun was had by all. . .

夏ホントに終わったね…

“夏終わったね!” (summer is over). . . has been on my list of top five greetings since august 12th (the last day of yosakoi). . . but today, september 26th is the real end. . . i can say this because 1) the office lady served hot coffee today instead of iced. . . 2) the evening of august 25th (apparently) has the most beautiful moon of the year (despite the fact that it is technically two evenings before an actual full moon). . . and 3) because tsuyoshi and i took our annual summer’s over/ welcome autumn trip up the mountains yesterday. . .

my first year here, we went to one of kahoku’s famous waterfalls （とどろの滝）. . . last year, we went to a vine bridge in tokushima　（かずら橋）. . . and this year we took a rather frightening trek over the river and through the woods. . . not to mention past a few landslides from the last typhoon. . . up to the top of a mountain to see yet another amazingly beautiful waterfall in kahoku　（おおあれの滝）. . .

おはようございます! ムカデです!

this morning, i had my first encounter with a (live) centipede. . . i screamed, cried, and called tsuyoshi. . .you know what he did? he laughed at me!!!! he said if it bit me, i wouldn't die. . .which i still don’t believe. . .

i went out for a nice, relaxing morning walk, picked up some coffee. . . came home to this thing smack in the middle of the main entrance to my building. . .

tsuyoshi told me to a) step over/around it (which was a difficult solution as it was laying in the exact center of the doorway). . . or b) find a large broom and brush it away. . .

i obviously didn’t like either idea and was thankful to find the backdoor unlocked. . .

once i got up to my room, i checked to see if it was still downstairs. . . and it was. . . it was large enough to be quite visible from the second floor windows. . .

however. . . by the time i left to go to school. . . i could not see him. . . i checked the shoe area to see if he made it under the door. . . but i could not see him. . . i didn’t dare open the front door for fear that i would see him. . .

the worst part of all this is that i know i was the only person to enter or exit the building this morning. . . so i know that no one else killed or moved him away from the building. . . then i found this information online. . .

“juvenile and adult centipedes live alone and are most active at night. during the day they can be found in damp, dark places: under leaf litter, rocks, and logs, and in soil crevices. when the weather is too wet or too dry, or when residential construction disrupts their habitats, these pests seek other locations, including the insides of homes. once inside a home they seek dark areas (inside shoes and clothing, under bedding, and in cracks and crevices), although they prefer areas with high humidity such as bathrooms, damp closets, and basements.”

please note that the main entrance to my building is also the shoe area. . . i will be avoiding all shoes that are not in my room upstairs for the next several months. . . if it were possible i would also avoid my bed and clothing in general (but i don’t think my school would look favorably upon that). . . still, i may not be able to sleep until winter. . .

more information to make your day, just as he made mine. . . “this centipede is a predator. it feeds on arthropods and other smaller invertebrates. it generally feeds by grasping its prey with a pair of legs and injecting a venom with its fangs. it can then feed off the immobilized or dead prey. the venom of scolopendra subspinipes can cause pain and serious swelling in humans.”

when and where you expect the least. . .

there is a boy named yusuke at my main elementary school who has autism. . .from what i can tell, it’s pretty severe autism (but i have essentially no training in that area, so who knows). . . he’s in sixth grade. . . definitely cannot join the normal classroom. . . always running and jumping all over the place. . . sometimes locks himself in rooms. . . screams. . . etc. . . he likes to pinch my nose and then have me attempt to breathe through it. . . anyway, he hasn't run around in the back of my english classes since the end of 4th grade. . .

today, he ran into the staff room while i was preparing for lessons and found my foam alphabet blocks that i use with the little kids. . . he dumped them on my desk and sat down in my chair. . . one of the other teachers and i were saying the letters as he picked them up. . . i thought he was just being random “P”. . . then he wanted to find “A”. . . ok. . . mmm. . . “U”. . . “S”. . . no meaning. . . random, right? “E”. . . me: “huh?!?!Yusuke, “P” “A” “U” “S” “E”, “pause”. . . yusuke repeats “pause”. . .

well. . . maybe it was just a coincidence. . . letters back in a pile on the desk. . . next “L”. . .“O”. . .“S”. . .“E”. . . again, me: (shocked expression) “lose! lose!” . . . but he was still looking for letters. . . “W”. . . oh, okay. . . coincidence, right? losew isn’t a word. . . “I”. . . losewi. . . yup, nothing. . .“N”. . .WHAT?!?! “lose, win”. . . his special ed teacher walked in and i showed him what yusuke was doing. . . his teacher didn’t even know how to spell “lose”. . . so where did this kid learn it???

fyi, average students in japan don’t formally start english education until junior high school. . . i teach the alphabet, but i don’t specifically teach reading or writing. . . just easy vocab and oral communication. . . i.e. most of the kids in the normal classroom would not have been able to write “LOSE/WIN”. . .

finally, yusuke said “love”. . . and found the letters “L-O-V-E”. . . then he said “music”. . . and found the letters. . . me: “Yusuke, do you love music?” . . . not sure he understood me, but he said “love music”. . . and he does love music b/c he often walks around listening to a portable cd player. . .

after that his teacher said it was time to go. . . yusuke found all of the letters and put them back in the bag in order from A-Z. . .

i am still amazed by it all. . . is it really as big of a deal as it seems to me? (lauren? mother? any other psychology majors out there?)

erinn and buddhism?

the weekend between kochi’s yosakoi festival and super yosakoi in harajuku (tokyo), we had a “spiritual retreat” at senkoji temple in the mountains of takayama (gifu). 小倉先生, miyuki, miki, and i all went as “teachers”. . . obviously for dance and not the spiritual part. . . but none of us can recall doing any teaching. in fact, i think we learned the most (especially me, you know, not being buddhist).

for three days, we ate, slept, and danced at the temple. we also had buddhist services (chanting and all) at 6a.m. followed by meditation sessions. . .fyi: the temple’s original floor, which has since become the ceiling, still has blood stains from samurai who died by seppuku -slitting their stomachs. . . kind of creepy place to meditate, right?



anyway, the whole experience was really interesting (despite the fact that i understood about 5% of what was being said). the buddhist priest was a really amazing guy as well. he joined us every night after dinner and baths for chats about dance, music, travel, and religion. when he was younger, he walked all the way from gifu to shikoku, through the 88 temple pilgrimage, and back to gifu. one night, he tried to explain a bit of the differences between christian and buddhist thinking/ philosophy to me in japanese, broken english, and drawings. . . fyi: religion is not an easy topic to discuss in a language that is not your own. . .but we did our best. . .what else? oh, he also happens to be a musician and has produced a cd of buddhist music and chants, in a sense inspired by christian hymns. . .kind of, sort of. . .during a service at a european cathedral, he found himself wondering why buddhist music couldn’t produce that same feeling of awe and emotion that christian hymns could. . . which is basically what influenced his arrangements of the buddhist chants. . .like i said, seriously amazing guy. . .

so. . . we danced and hiked through the mountains. . .



we even took a miniature piligrimage through the 88 temples of senkoji (a miniature version of shikoku's 88 temple pilgrimage). . . according to miyuki, we had a good ghost with us (she knows this because of in the bright spot in the top corner). . .



at the end of the retreat we celebrated our efforts to be pure and meditative beings in nature by strolling through the streets of takayama, shopping, taking pictures in giant chairs with the takayama sarubobo (baby monkey), and gorging ourselves on delicious yakiniku, cake, and coffee. . .oops. . .











senkoji's homepage: http://daien.senkouji.com/

土佐の高知のよさこい祭り！

YOSAKOI!!!


i have never gone through so many highs and lows in two days. . . probably not even in two years!!

august 10th and 11th 2007. . .
wake up 3:30a.m. . . .
shower. . .
drive to kochi city. . .
hair and make up appointment at 5a.m (major issues with stylist). . .
coffee and calorie mate for breakfast at 6:30a.m. . . .
half crash until 9a.m. (requires sleeping while trying not to disturb the overly expensive but nonetheless professionally done hair and makeup) . . .
catch the train to kochi station (one of the few crazy people in full costume carrying naruko). . .

10a.m. team des shabary meeting and warm-up. . .
then the day begins. . .begins with exhaustion from 3 1/2 hours of sleep the previous night. . . frustration with the old lady trying to hang curls down my forehead but ending up getting annoyed with the picky foreigner and pulling it back into a severe ponytail. . . almost throwing up from a weird mix of not eating, not sleeping, and not knowing what to expect from this festival in the intense kochi summer heat. . .

time to dance (朝:11時から夜:22時). . .










muscle pain. . .
starvation. . .
dehydration. . .
lack of breath. . .
excess of heat. . .
sunburnt face, chest, hair. . .

hit a wall. . .
pass it. . .
hunger fades. . .

there is always time for one more dance before the food. . .
then there is exhaustion beyond exhaustion. . .
and even more pain and exhaustion beyond that. . .

somehow the crowd. . .
or the lights . . .
or the taiko drums. . .
or the music. . .
or the mcs. . .
or the team. . .
or 小倉先生. . .
something pulls you through everything. . .










the flower medal. . .
the tv camera. . .
naps on the bus. . .
self-massages. . .
shaved ice かき氷. . . especially mango with sweetened condensed milk. . .


enormous blocks of ice to cool down your body mixed with the sweat of all your teammates. . . you don’t even stop to think how disgusting it is . . . your all in it together. . .



screaming, yelling, singing, cheering. . . which pumps you up but leaves you with no voice the next day. . . no voice now (two days later). . .



all this resulting in the most amazingly memorable experience. . .

土佐の高知のはりまや橋で　
坊さんかんざし買うを見た　
よさこい　よさこい














final performance . . .


technically this is at harajuku super yosakoi in tokyo two weeks after kochi's festival. . .same team, same dance, easier to see [me] v(^_^)v . . .


if you want to see more pictures from yosakoi, use this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029425&l=11cfb&id=40401705

Team des Shabary with Dance Cream (performance schedule)

８月１０日（金）
10:00 新京橋プラザ横噴水前集団（出席を取ってください）Warm up
11:30 中央公園ステージ
13:00　はりまや橋商店街
15:00 万々商店街
17:00 愛宕商店街
18:00 夕食 潮江西の丸公園
19:00 梅ノ辻
20:00 追手筋必着
20:42 本部競演場


８月１１日（土）
10:00 高知公園丸の内緑地 橋の辺り集合（出席を取ってください）Warm up
11:20 帯屋町商店街
13:00 中央公園ステージ
14:30 上町
16:30 升形
17:30 夕食 青柳公園
19:00 知寄町
21:00 菜園場