a whole lotta matsuri - floats, sake, and teenaged boys, oh my!

About 6 months ago Keiko first told me about the Hatasho Festival (matsuri in japanese). She told me about how each village (read neighborhood) would make their own float. She told me that the men and boys from each of the villages would carry the floats to the temple, glugging bottles of sake and singing loud chants. She promised great festival food, bad weather, and lots of drunken, far-under-aged Junior high school students. And boy did she deliver!

Today's festival was exactly as she'd said it would be. Every town decorated a huge float with fake sakura (cherry blossoms), and crepe paper that melted in the rain, and large manequins of traditional japanese paper wrapped in plastic or ponchos to protect them from the weather. The men and boys in charge of rolling/carrying the floats mostly wore traditional style outfits (yukata, or summer pajamas, and the rubber-soled shoes that separate at the big toe), donned color coded banners (keiko's town was neon green), and shared a very large bottle of sake. The floats were carried to the street outside the shrine where they took turns, each village one-at-a-time, carrying the floats back and forth and back and forth in front of the crowds, chanting and running and banging on taiko drums and the bells carried by the boys too small to lift the float. After the pointless 50m dashes had ended, the float was hoisted again, and carried into the shrine, where each village again danced around with their float, this time adding in spins (that frequently left the more inebriated men lying in the wet sand) and tossing blessings and money toward the shrine. Later kids scavenged around for the coins and bills that hadn't quite made it inside.

There was more chanting and turning and drinking and lifting of the floats. Then finally there was a break, during which a famous comedian and a not-so-famous country singer came in to entertain the masses while they put their heads down and powered through to the height of their drunkenness. It was time to meander around the temple, bumping into people i knew (mostly students) and tasting the wonders of japanese festival food: takoyaki, crepes filled with whipped cream and bananas, ringo ame (candied apples), and more. And there was also time for drinking. As the token foreigner at the small-town matsuri, i'd recieved the attention of many strangers, a few of whom were outgoing or inebriated enough to come, introduce themselves to me and share their sake.

Mi-chan and Keiko eating a "Mickey" candied apple

Now when i say 'share' i should point out that the favored method of sharing at the festival was to put your bottle up to the other persons and hold it for them for as long as you saw fit. Being both a foreigner and a woman, I subconciously encouraged the men to play a little game with me to see how much i could glug down (eyes roll). The 30-something very drunken strangers offering me their sake was one thing, and it wasn't too hard to pass on the fourth and fifth offers, but when a group of my students came up to me and dared me to drink, it was hard to say no. Sure, i was thinking about how wrong it was, about how i shouldn't join them, about how it would undermine my authority, how i couldn't support their drunkeness...and yet i abandoned all moral reason and drank sake with my 14- and 15- year old students.

Now i'm sure this sounds shocking and you're picturing some completely morely inept society where teenaged boys are not only allowed but encouraged to drink in public. And you'd be partly right. But you'd be missing the bigger picture here: the sense of community, the right-of-passage, the idea that all boys are becoming men, and that together they can protect and carry on the ideals of the village and family and community they now share. Which is a really sappy why of saying its not as bad as it seems.

i told you i had a problem

night sakura at hikone castle

hikone castle at night

Is there a light at the end of this tunnel-vision? - a little too obsessed with sakura

So its true, lately i have been a little bit mono-maniacal when it comes to sakura. They tell me i have only days to enjoy it. They tell me i'm lucky it came at all, considering the late march frosts and snow. They invite me to hanami (flower viewing parties) and point me in the directions of sakura ice cream and tea and honey and bubble bath. They continue to feed the beast.

This weekend, as i've already written about, i went to see sakura at Himeji and in Kyoto. Then i started the journey around Aisho and discovered that maybe i didn't need to get on a train and travel 2 hours to see the beauty of spring. So of course i took three different bike and car trips to enjoy and photograph the cherry blossoms.

And now i hear the upcoming cold weather, while depressing my spirits, will keep the sakura a few days longer. I think that light keeps getting further and further away.

Hanami - the great tradition of flower viewing parties

Spring has finally arrived. And with it the wonderful Japanese tradition of Hanami - flower viewing parties. According to Shannon, some Meiji Era Emperor who really liked his booze started the tradition of hanami (along with moon viewing parties, fireworks in summer, dozens of festivals, and more) as an excuse to drink more. Whatever the history of the tradition, it is celebrated today with friends and family, on grass under cherry blossom and plum trees, with picnic food, festival food, and lots and lots of beer. This weekend Shannon and I had our own hanami, but with less booze and way more travel. Saturday we started our journey, heading down to Hyogo-ken to see the cherry blossoms at Himeji Castle. It was the perfect blend of beauty, fun, and festivities, teaming up the glories of spring with the fabulousness of food-on-a-stick.

Then today we hopped yet another train from Osaka to Kyoto to check out the flowers in the Imperial Palace Park and in the Gion area. It was absolutely phenomenal beautiful. We walked for hours, fought the crowds for pictures and walking space, enjoyed more sakura specialties (sakura ice cream, yum) though less food-on-a-stick, and had a great day. Yes, i'm officially exhausted. Yes, my camera battery is dead. Yes, i have a million pictures of trees and flowers that look virtually the same. Yes, even after a long bath my feet are still aching. But given the fact that the flowers will be falling in a few days, it was so worth it.

an act of self control

no, i'm not talking about giving up wine and chocolate for awhile (which i've been doing for about a week). I'm talking about the birthday presents sitting at me feet -the bags my mom and dad brought when they visited weeks ago and a package that arrived from Amy today. All sitting here. Unopenned. Waiting till Wednesday. And sometimes i think to myself, no one will ever know.

Yet i control myself. at least for now ;)

The Hofers Take on Japan - Part 1

So last week i was lucky enough to recieve a well timed visit from my parents. They arrived on Sunday, which coincided with the last week of school, meaning lots of random activities like cleaning day and a closing ceremony, which i was lucky enough to avoid! We spent some time in Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Osaka. They spent the first nights in Hikone and were able to meet some friends and my J-gparents. So that was fabulous. And thanks to their visit I got to see and do some things i'd been too lazy to on my own.

We spent one afternoon at Kyoto's beautiful Kiyomizudera. Now, while i can't support its campaign to be named one of the "new seven wonders" i will say it was a pretty fabulous, if not all together authentic experience. The street leading up to the temple is called 'Tea Pot Lane' and for good reason - its full of pottery stores. What they dont tell you in the guide books is that its also full of sweet shops and other fabulous touristy finds. We may not have been lucky enough to see the sakura (cherry blossoms) this week, but we tasted many sakura delicacies including sakura mochi (rice cakes), sakura ice cream, and even sakura cream puffs. Yum. Oh, and we saw REAL Geisha. or women dressed as Geisha posing for pictures at one of the biggest tourist attractions in Kansai. Take your pick.


In kyoto we stayed at a traditional ryokan, so my parents got a taste of the wonders of japan - sleeping on futon, wearing yukata, and eating fish and rice and miso for breakfast. It was actually really fun, if slightly less than appetizing.

On to Hiroshima - We arrived in the late afternoon, just in time for me to continue enjoying my horrifyingly-bad-yet-entertaining book instead of enduring the Hiroshima Peace Museum for the second time. I just wasn't sure i was up for the trauma of it all. Luckily Mom and Dad didn't miss it and we met up for a walk through the peace park. It was gorgeous with the warm weather and the sunset. The next day we took the ferry to Miyanjima to see the famous floating Torii, and wound up taking a cable car/hike to the top of the mountain. It was beautiful, but too foggy to render any fabulous photos.

And the next morning it was up and off to Osaka. Unfortunately it was rainy, but luckily our shnazzy hotel is the kind that lends you great big umbrellas, so we rushed off to see Osaka Castle and get some shopping in before our final dinner/drinks/night together. The week ended with a jolt too - while the rents were on their way to the airport i was awoken by an earthquake! Luckily i wasn't near the epicenter so it was pretty mild in my area, but still a little freaky.

In the end, it was a phenomenal week full of sites and tastes and fabulous conversation and fun with my parents. Im so glad to have been able to share this part of my life with them, and look forward to sharing it with more visitors in the future :)

and then there were two - gradumatation

Today the san-nensei students graduated. I share the sentiments of my friend Erin - some of the coolest kids in the school are gone. And i'm sad. Don't worry, i'm not like really sad. No waterworks here (shock to all). In fact, when i looked around during the graduation ceremony,
i was the ONLY female teacher not crying (and this was not during some student speech or sad song but when some chick from the Board of Eduation was speaking). And when i told one of my JTE's that i didn't cry at my high school OR college graduation ceremonies, she looked at me like i'd just killed her puppy. But really...

In any case, in spite of the cold, the 12+ hours of no sensation in my toes, the rain, and all the tears, it was a good day. The ceremony was held in the *unheated* gym, which i didn't think would be a problem last week, but then it snowed yesterday and all bets were off. Mostly the ceremony was attended by the students, staff, a bunch of flunkies from the BOE that no one knew, and the mothers of the third year students with SWETT corsages of lace and silk and paper and fake pearls. And everyone, and i mean everyone, wore all black. Freaky (i even partially complied).

After the 2 hour ceremony all the first and second grade students and teachers lined up outside to say goodbye to the third years. There were two rows of students, a huddle of teachers near the entry-way, and the school band playing just inside the main doors to the school. It was a love-fest as all the third years came out sobbing, flowers in hand, and notes to deliver to friends and teachers (i got quite a few that reminded me how sad i am that they're leaving... unlike the 2nd years they actually can speak english!), some handshakes, and finally i whipped out the hugs. I mean Japan is hardly a society known for hugging and physical affection, but come on, these kids were bawling and red-faced and waving good-bye to me and offering their had and i just couldn't take it. A few of them even know how to hug back :)

Most of the students had disposable cameras too (and mothers standing off to the side with digatal photo cameras AND video cameras) so we took lots of pics. Here are the ones i managed to snag on my own camera. In a few days after students email me ones from their cell phones i might post more. Assuming i dont spend the rest of my life regretting giving my cell-phone info to an entire class of 9th graders. Yikes.