Take two

Tokyo Narita Airport March 25th,

The sense of deja vu is undeniable. Only 42 hours ago I arrived here thinking it was an uncomfortably tight connection to my flight back home, only to learn that most long flights had been cancelled. After waiting in line for 4 and a half hours, I was rebooked on a flight today. A tragic accident caused the delay and cast a shadow over the whole airport, but some friendly stranded travelers and the helpful, gracious hotel staff made the unexpected delay much more palatable. I used the extra day to visit one of Tokyo’s famous spots, Ueno Park, and relaxed with a good book in preparation for a very long flight today. This morning I took a walk through the hotel’s traditional garden and enjoyed for the last time the colorful fish, the winding paths and curved bridges. The garden was empty, as spectacular as it was, it did not draw the crowds that the gift shop across the street commanded. Now, waiting is! This phrase, with me since college when I read Stranger in a Strange Land, has proved to be a perfect expression of the situation, over and over again.

As my Japanese experience comes to an end, there is so much to reflect on. I can sum it up with one word: wonderful, but of course this doesn’t explain why or share the learning on so many fronts and most importantly it doesn’t describe in any meaningful way the wonderful new friendships that were begun. You may have heard to old saying (I sang the song when I was a girl scout) “make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold”. And when new friends become old friends we are all so much richer!

As I teacher I was particularly disturbed by my difficulties as a student! I want to remember what it felt like to be the dummy of the class and avoid some of the “help” I got from some of my teachers that made me feel even worse and was no help at all! Do I do these same things when I’m teaching?
I got positive feedback from my little English class who liked some of the games and activities we did. Things I’ve learned from my wonderful colleagues at Falmouth Middle School. These were more appropriate for my older students than the traditional Japanese teaching methods that involve lots of memorization and responding quickly to questions.

I want to go home and practice the tea ceremony steps before I forget everything! I want to keep up my calligraphy too. It was one of the things I enjoyed the most! I will have to see if I can get into a yukata before I totally forget the intricacies of tying the obi! And then there is my next adventure: the Camino Del Norte! And my home and daughters await me! It’s hard to believe I survived this long with out seeing them!

I am so happy I am returning to an America where Obama is president! Well…ashita zenbu chigaimasu! Tomorrow everything will be different!

Art work

These last few days in Japan have been so full of events, and spending time with friends, that I have had little time to write or reflect, but the two works of art that I received today in some ways sums up my experience here. The photos to the left are of two superb works of art by two Japanese people, one a little girl of four and one totally unknown to me, but obviously a talented and appreciated artist. Sai chan’s drawing was given to me at the lunch I was treated to today with her grandmother, mother and a couple of faithful attendees of the monthly English Café. It was my farewell luncheon and all the children drew pictures for me and signed their names on back. The artist and her mom and brothers are in the picture above. Sai chan is the one I know the best as the boys are often busy with sports or other pursuits. She is too cute for words, and I often wanted to hug her but held back, as hugging is a not-much-practiced-show of affection here. It was hard not to cry when we said our final goodbye.

The other picture, an exquisite scroll painting with flowers from the four seasons, was presented to me by Takeda sensei, my ikebana teacher, Sai chan’s grandmother. I love it. It’s the epitome of traditional Japanese artwork, very decorative but some what understated. I was totally unable to express my thanks and hardly know how I will ever repay the kindness, but was thrilled to get it.

I have just one more week left here: final exams, lots of packing and saying goodbye. Today I painted little pictures I will turn into “certificates of achievement” for my English class. Tomorrow is a trip to Ise Jingu, one of the most holy shrines in Japan. There will be a K Class siyonara party and maybe even a speech in front of the whole school if I don’t chicken out, but before I know it I will be on the plane and in shock. Will I ever return and see these friends and sights again? I certainly hope so!

Short timer ( again)

March 7 outing

This past weekend the group of women I teach English to on Wednesdays took me out to lunch, a farewell meal. Knowing that I'm not wild about meat they took me to a well know Hokaido crab restaurant. I was told the restaurant was more than 50 years old. It was in a large building with 4 or 5 floors of dinning areas. We too the elevator to the third floor and after taking off our shoes were shown to a cozy tatami room with a long low table all set with a variety of crab dishes. There were the usual warm towels to clean your hands, a pot of hot green tea and a heated pad under our feet to make us even more comfortable. Our purple and peach kimono clad waiteress was always coming in and out to take dishes away and bring more. The courses seemed to be endless, all crab based dishes and various seaweed dishes, with the exception of the green tea icecream for dissert. I arrived first with Kate and Kitty ( the American sounding names two of my students use in class and with foreigners) and the other students came one by one till the whole class was there and we began eating. The conversation wondered all over the place from what would I do after leaving Japan to what color my personality is. I was given a fairly detailed explanation of the four colors of personalities that are calculated by the numbers of your birthday... too bad mine is sort of a bogus date, but be that as it may, I was calculated to be a red ( aka) personality. The other colors are green, yellow and blue. We took some pictures of course and I took some of the food because the presentation is always so artistic and colorful.
After lunch the whole group went to see some early cherry trees that are blooming, as I will miss the real cherry blossom season, probably the most cherrished of all the seasonal festivals. The trees we saw were planned by volunteers and there are about 90 of them! Even though they had gone a bit past peak they were still very beautiful and if it had not been for a very stiff wind we would have enjoyed them longer, but we soon found it too cold and went near by to have tea. From the tea room we could see the river and the trees while enjoy the season's sweet "hanamidango". Three small mochi balls of different colors on a short stick. (see the pictures)

If there's one thing I've learned about going our with Japanese friends it's to expect to spend at least three or four hours and to be treated like royalty. It's a good thing that my bad Japanese keeps me contanstly humbled, ne?

Included with the pictures above are some taken in the class. Please click on the picture above to see them.

The dolls festival : Hina Matsuri

I got up this morning and after watching my favorite 15minute mini-drama, started making a salade nicoise, a la “student in Japan”. I had been invited to go to a friend of my ikebana sensei’s for a potluck lunch and to see the Hina matsuri doll display in her home. March 3 is Girl’s Day and the culmination of the Hina matsuri which dates back to Edo period and is a mixture of other festivals from earlier times, but is basically a day for wishing good luck (and a good marriage) to young girls and is celebrated with a display of dolls, either a single pair of Empress (O-Hina-sama) and Emperor (O-Dairi-sama) dolls, or a more elaborate display that can include up to 7 tiers with dolls representing court ladies, warriors, and musicians as well as house hold items like tea services, carriages and trunks and plates of mochi, all in miniature. Typically when a girl is born, her grandparents give her a Hina sama doll, or a set of dolls. Separate “little girl” dolls join the display but I’m not sure just when they are acquired. In the last few weeks, displays of dolls have cropped up everywhere: in store windows, in my school, on TV. My sensei’s daughter has a big one in her home, but the one I saw today is the biggest and most elaborate I’ve seen.

A little before 12 I rode my bicycle to a shopping center not far from my “home”, where I met my sensei and then walked on to our destination. The house was a lovely mixture of modern and traditional styles with western style rooms, but also the traditional entrance way and garden and a large tatami room where the doll display was set up in front of the tokonoma and where we ate at the low table traditionally used for eating. Even though I know better, I even made the classically gaigin mistake of forgetting to take off my slippers (kindly loaned to me when I went to the kitchen) when entering this room! While Japanese people usually where slippers around the house, always leaving outdoor shoes at the entranceway, they NEVER wear them in the tatami room.

Soon after we arrived we all sat down to lovely lunch. The hostess’ husband joined us, the only man at the event. There was delicious chirashi sushi (scatter sushi), sandwiches (ham and egg perhaps), some kind of huge black bean that was sort of sweet, o nigiri, (rice ball made with read beans and sticky rice, a holiday specialty), a potato and meat dish, pickles made from daikon and my salad. Later we had a “jelly and fruit” desert, sort of like Jell-O but less sweet. Once lunch was done, the hostess, also a kimono teacher, got out some yukatas (light summer kimonos, see my blog O bon) so they could teach me how to tie the obi (sash/belt). She also dressed up Sai Chan, sensei’s granddaughter! Before I had to leave to go to my calligraphy class, tea was served and we ate the special Hina sama mochi (rice cakes. It was great fun to be sort of “one of the family” and a special foreign guest at the same time.

I’ve put a few pictures here and a link to more, probably more dolls than you want to see!

Hina matsuri

Valentine's Day in Japan

Valentine's Day Ikebana etc.

On Valentine's Day here I went with a friend to an ikebana show. It was held in a large department store (as was the one I saw I Nagoya a number of months ago). The weather was warm and breezy and felt like Spring was going to make an early arrival this year.

The show was lovely and I took too many pictures with my failing camera, but some of you might enjoy them any way. There a also a few pictures of the O Hina Matsuri dolls that we saw in the store afterward. The doll festival is coming up in the first week of March and I expect to see a lot more of these dolls. More on that next time, but for now please have enjoy the flowers and a few banal pictures of our lunch!

As for Valentine's Day here, it is mostly a day when girls give boys they like chocolates, so in the stores were all sorts of chocolates and also the makings for home made chocolates. The teachers bought us all some chocolates, but on the whole it's not that big a deal. In May I believe there is White day on which boys give girls chocolate!

A fiery festival

Takisanji Oni Matsuri in Okazaki

All over Japan they are celebrating the traditional beginning of spring by driving out demons and welcoming good fortune into their homes. People dressed as demons (oni) are symbolically driven out by throwing beans (or, as in the case of my school, packets of peanuts and roasted beans, which we gathered back up and ate after our demon, the head of the faculty, was driven out!) However, at Takisanji Temple Oni Festival fire is used to drive out the demons! Last night several friends and I went to see this famous local festival. The pictures I took are nearly useless, as I don't have the right camera for fast moving action and flaming bundles of wood and that is just what we saw. Having said that, I still posted a few of my pictures which you can see by clicking the link above.

To get to Takisanji temple I rode my bike to the central Okazaki train station, about 30 minutes, where I met my friends and caught a bus to the temple. After a 25-minute ride we arrived at the foot of a steep, wide stone stairway that let to the temple. A few of the usual festival food stands were just starting to offer interesting looking snacks at the several landings on the way up, but not knowing when the ceremony would begin, we hurried up the stairs. At the top we came immediately into the crowd that was beginning to gather around the front of the temple where a sort of stage was erected. On either side of this central space two huge bundles of bamboo and wood had been erected and were soon being ceremoniously lit by men in various, colorful costumes. Once these two fagots were lit, they threw off a lot of light and heat, and had to be attended to by several men with brooms constantly dipped in water and applied here and there to control the burning.

After that, several ritualized performances were done on the stage, accompanied by singing and drumming. For a long time nothing very exciting seemed to be happening, as the crowd slowly grew larger and larger. I took this opportunity to walk around the temple grounds and from one side I could see lots of coming and going as participants were putting on costumes and getting ready for something. There were groups of young people running around, fathers holding little children on the shoulders to see over the crowd, children climbing on the stone lanterns to get a better view, and lovers enjoying the darkness.

My friends and I had to catch one of only three buses that would be taking folks back at round 8 p.m., so we were getting a little apprehensive as the hour approached and still there was no sign of the finale, when suddenly from the back side of the temple, a large line of men dressed in white came running a long the porch carrying long burning torches which they bounced along the balustrade. Children wearing demon masks were carried and "chased" around the temple as the flames shot to roof edge and sparks showered the crowd. It was an amazing five or so minutes of drama as one wondered if, despite the numerous firemen on hand, the temple would not go up in flames at any moment or that one of the "demons" would not be dropped as they were lifted high to show the crowd!

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The burning torches were tossed off the porch into piles on the ground and the crowd immediately began to move to the stairways and down to the buses, cars or food stalls. We too headed down, but HAD to stop for a crepe with banana and whipped cream on the way. We just made it onto the last bus!

I am including a link here for a web site I found that describes this festival nicely and also has a few much better pictures. I hope you can feel the heat!

http://nippon-kichi.jp/article_list.do;jsessionid=D967EF22452A9F00F6C8DCAF8D4092A2?p=4660&ml_lang=en

Nagano trip

Nagano trip

To all my "regular" readers, my apologizes for being so sporadic! Things are getting very busy what with studies becoming more demanding and weekend events cropping up. This past weekend was devoted entirely to a Yamasa run trip to the Nagano and Gifu prefectures. It was a packed trip from Friday after classes to Sunday evening, so studies were a little behind at the start of the week. Rather then write a long narrative of the trip I've just posted a link to the pictures and added a few captions. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, enjoy these instead, please.

Oshogatsu - New Year's Eve

Although I’m back in School at Yamasa once more, I promised to write about the lovely experience I had on Oshogatsu, New Year’s Eve. It had been a cold and mostly grey day in Kyoto and I had been tourist-ing around since 8 that morning. Gion had been a bit of a disappointment, as had been the closed castle and the garden at Ryoanji, so I was undecided as to whether I would make the effort to go somewhere to see the New Year being rung in. Back at my little ryokan, the only dinner available was udon (noodles), but I was making the best of it, when the hotel owner sat down to chat with me. She must have thought I looked lonely there all by myself. I asked her what people did to celebrate the year’s end and she told me about the ringing of the bell in the temple. I asked her where was the nearest temple, as there are no busses after 8 or 9 to that part of town. She assured me there was one just a little ways up the road. She drew me a rudimentary map and I thanked her and returned to my room. I was still not sure it was worth the effort, but when I Google-mapped the temple and found that it really was close, about half a kilometer away, I decided to go.

I set out on foot at about 11:15. When I arrived at the temple I was surprised to find only a few people standing around a bonfire that was being built, from what I had heard, I was expecting a crowd. The big bell was lit up, as was the temple itself. I greeted people and got the expected strange looks, but soon the woman standing next to me struck up a conversation and asked me where I was from. When I said “America” she immediately brightened and told me that her daughter had just returned for the holidays from America where she is studying. Soon Keiko was introduced to me. Her American English was good. She had clearly been studying in the States for a while. She seemed happy to explain things to me, and from then on she and her mother took me under their wing and made sure that I was shown what to do.

On Oshogatsu the tradition is to ring the BIG bell 108 (then one more) times to ring out the earthly desires that weigh us down in life, thus starting the New Year fresh. The head priest at the temple later explained at length how the number came about, but besides it involving old traditions and scriptures, I didn’t get much of the explanation and Keiko found it hard to explain as well.

At the temple each person who comes t ring the bell goes to the temple first and gets a little wooden tablet with a number on it, a receives a little gift of tea and a blessing from the temple staff. The number is your turn at ringing the bell. The little tablets are collected in order until all 108 and the final have all been rung in. I did this with Keiko, who explained to the Buddhist monk, head priest, (what should I call him, I don’t really know), how it was that I was there, as it was just people who were affiliated with the temple in some way that had showed up that night. He was very welcoming. As the night went on, there were less and less people there, but the bell had not been wrung enough times yet, so we started to take second and third turns at the ringing it. Soon every one who was left was taking another turn and another turn, each ring counted with the little tablets. My new friends explained that every year is different. Sometimes there are plenty of people to ring in the year and other years, like this one, people have to take many turns. Since Keiko’s father was head of the lay people for this temple, her family was staying to the end, so I stayed too, and helped ring in the year.

When we had finally made the count, it was about 1:30 am. The bonfire had burned down low and only an handful of people were left, so Keiko and her family invited me to join the for a cup of tea up in the temple. While we were sipping our tea and listening to the explanation of the 108 rings, others were scurrying about putting things away and packing up. I was just thinking it was time to excuse myself when they invited me to join them for more tea with the group in another building.
“ This is a good opportunity for you” they said and seemed to be happy to offer it to me so I accepted. In a building attached to the temple we were seated at low tables, the Head monk sat in the middle of the U, with Keiko and I, her mother and father and another woman on one side, and 5 or 6 men on the other. We were all served a special New Year’s sweet and macha tea (green powdered tea) by kimono clad ladies. Once every one was served the priest gave a short speech, a hope for the coming year I took it to be, then he handed out presents to each of us, me included! These consisted of the little board, ema, that one usually writes a prayer or wish on and leaves at the temple, and a little package with a backscratcher and an ear pick (cleaning tool), all decorated with signs of the new year which is the year of the bull or ox, depending on how you translate. I asked what I should do about the “ema” since I wouldn’t be there to bring it back and the priest said to take it home and put a wish on it and bring it back next time I came to Japan! I was very touched that they should include me in this small but very special gathering! I thanked every one and asked that we take a picture of the group, which we did, but my hosts took it with their camera, so I am waiting to see if they will remember to send it to me! After many farewells and thank-you’s, I headed back toward my hotel on foot, but was soon picked up and dropped off by one of the families from the temple. My head was still spinning with amazement at how the unexpected can be so wonderful. I felt it was a very special opportunity indeed.

If you’re interested in learning more about Japanese New Year’s celebration check out this web site:
http://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ENG/Hiroshima/Festivals/27.html

Nara and Mount Inari

The first three pictures of from the New Year's celebration (oshogatsu) and the rest are from Nara, the first capital city of Japan.

Nara, Japan

Here's the link to my latest pictures from Kyoto. I want to write about my very special New Year's Celebration but that will have to wait till I have a bit of time, in the meantime here are some pictures so you have some idea of the places I visited.

Fushimi Inaritaisha Shrine and Mount Inari