Festivities

Now that I have finished bringing my house into somewhat livable fashion (I never really realized how much of a neat freak I am until I had to live all by myself), I can sit down and briefly (or perhaps not so) recount the last couple of days of my life. Last Friday morning, I decided that it would be a good idea to go play tennis with the Shio chugakko (junior high school) girls’ tennis team. It would give me a chance to get to know the students a little more, as well as the two coaches who also happen to be the two English teachers at the school, those with whom I will be working more often. Plus, it would be good exercise. So we went and played at the sports complex on a hill near my house. We played on clay courts and it was a peculiarly Japanese version of tennis, played with normal rackets but soft, as opposed to hard, rubber balls without any of the yellow felt on them. So they did not bounce very well, which meant that there was lots of running around. We did drills and such and some free practice; it was amazing how some of the girls were better than their instructors and myself. By the way, did I mention that Japan is stupendously hot at this time of the year… Yeah, people told me before hand to prepare for it, but, ladies, this is the most intense heat and humidity I have ever experienced. Its regularly above 30, with the hottest parts of the day tottering around the upper 30s (pardon the Celsius), with the humidity at an insane level. A five minute walk outside nets me a soaked t-shirt and probably a smell that a rhino would find unfriendly. So, after three hours of playing, I had become a bathroom sink. I consumed three bottles of Gatorade, purchased at a conveniently located vending machine by the courts. It was fun overall however. Interesting side note – the junior high consists of three grades (1st, 2nd, and 3rd, which are the equivalents of 7th, 8th, and 9th grades in the US) and the first grade always gets picked on to do chores. Actually, all students have to do chores (i.e. the school has no janitorial staff; the students clean it twice or three times a week) but the first graders get the worse of it. So after those three hours of tennis, the teachers, 2nd and 3rd graders and myself sat around, relaxing, while the poor first graders had to go and rake the clay, roll up the nets, and generally get the court into playable condition again. I felt pretty bad for them as I watched in between huge gasps for air (remember, I, I, I, had been playing for three hours). That’s just the way it is; next year, the new first graders will have to do it, and so it goes…Judge for yourself. When we got back to the school, I was dying for a shower and asked the teachers where it was. As I was to find out later, the teachers don’t really shower after strenuous sports activities, but rather just change. So they had to take the big American over to the only shower, which happened to be right by the outdoor swimming pool. So, I’ll skip over the details of a big dorky white guy, showering naked outside, right next to the Jr. High swimming pool of a school in the middle of nowhere, Japan.

That night, I took the train down to Kanazawa, the nearest “big” city, with a population of 450,000. I bicycled down to the train station and left my bike there (out of the fifty or so bikes that were at the train station, maybe four or five of them were locked up, the rest were just standing there….), planning on catching the last train out of Kanazawa at 11:00 PM that night. It was a fifty-minute ride or so, and when I arrived, I met up with a group of other JETS, both new and old, and we hiked down the main street of Kanazawa to the group meeting point at a restaurant. The city was fairly nice – not as anonymous as Tokyo, but still with a big city feel. (We passed all three Starbucks in the city on our half hour walk to the restaurant). The cuisine that night was a new one for me, called okunomiyake. The basic idea is a bunch of ingredients are stirred together and made into this omelet like thing. It difficult to explain, but imagine an omelet where the eggs are not the main ingredients, but rather the cementing agents, and there’s all kinds of other stuff in it. It was quite good, and we actually got to make it ourselves (the tables had hot plates in the middle of them). I sat with the drinking group and we got all-you-can drink (nomihoudai) for one hour, so it was this all out marathon (probably like seven or eight rounds over all). So, slightly intoxicated, we ate our food, and “got to know each other,” in the pc way, smazo. Many of the people I hung out that night, while cool to hang out with, were not necessarily people I would want to know further or become good friends with. Some were simply outright loud, obnoxious, “typical” Americans, we all know the type. But for an evening, it was alright. After, we went to a rooftop bar that caters to foreigners and hung out there for a bit. It is very interesting how the foreigner culture works and interpenetrates with the Japanese culture. Naturally enough, the foreigners feel a bond in this place, and as we walked among the crowds of Japanese, I thought about this a bit, and it should be interesting to see how it develops further. After the bar, we stocked up on some “biiru” in a “konbini” and went to the riverfront and just hung out there for a while. Some guy, Pete from Australia, had some kerosene and fire sticks, so he was breathing fire for a bit (nothing like drinking, and then putting kerosene in your mouth and blowing huge flames). Naturally enough I had long ago missed my train back, so I had to hang out until the morning. At around 4:30, I began a leisurely and highly reflective stroll back to the station. As the morning dawned around me, it gradually hit me that I would be here a long time, and that I would have to make the best of it… Someone once said that life is what you make of it, that you can either make the most or the least of ANY situation. Over here, that expression has an especially true ring to it. I caught the 5:24 train back and rode my bike back in a daze to the early morning traffic.

After like a three hour nap, I had to meet some Japanese fellows and we went to see the Houdatsushimizu basketball team play against another local team. That was fun, to watch some ball. They’re already gearing up to have me join this team, as I had at least three or four inches on the tallest player. What they don’t know, of course, is I wouldn’t last five minutes running up and down the court. (Something else I’d like to work on). Afterwards, they took me out to lunch. By the way, I was with four guys, and none of them, repeat none of them, spoke any English. So it was interesting and I could truly play the role of the strong silent type. Anyway, after the dropped me off, I caught up on some sleep before the big night outing.

In the evening, I drove with Ryo (a Japanese guy from the BOE, who speaks English) up to Wakura, a little town about one hour’s ride north of me. It was their annual Issaki Hoto Matsuriya festival. Apparently, this town used to be a huge fishing village (it still is to some degree, but not the same as like one hundred years ago) and this festival is a celebration of the fishing season. It was quite a new, unique, and barely describable experience. Basically, the festival centered around six huge floats. Each float had a different team associated with it, and each team had about 60 or so members. These floats were huge. About 80 feet in length and at least as high. On them were some kids, six flute players, and a guy playing taiko drums. In the center of each was a huge drawing of some sort (each different, some sumo wrestlers, some samurai, some just old Chinese writing). Again, hard to describe (I will post pictures soon, but they’re fuzzy as it was dark and hard to get a good one). So, here’s the fun part of that festival. The big idea was to have like 65 guys carry this gigantic thing on their shoulders (it must have weighed a good ton, if not more). They were set up in rows underneath, heaving, carrying, and chanting. Mind you, they carried them through highly narrow streets filled with people who cheering along. It was insanely hot, no space, the float leaning this way and that, the whole thing strangely reminiscent of the running of the bulls. They must have carried those things around for a good four or five hours. Meanwhile, we the bystanders, stood around, drinking, eating some highly interesting festival food. (While getting this food, I had the pleasure of witnessing a bunch of yakuza escorting a boss’ family, and a caravan of six or seven expensive German vehicles speeding away). Again, the whole festival idea is difficult to describe, but its quite unlike anything that I have ever seen. Even stranger was what we did next. Apparently, the people who live in this town open up their doors to strangers on this night and invite them in to eat and drink in their homes. So, we went in to a bunch of people’s houses, sat and drank and ate with them. It was quite a good time. One guy in particular (a trainer of sumo wrestlers) had a bunch of people over, and invited us inside. We sat around, drinking JW Blue Label, eating some fine sushi and tempura, and chatting away. Well naturally, I wasn’t chatting, mostly eating and drinking, being amazed at the hospitality. Again, never before had I experienced stuff like that. At like two in the morning, we took cabs back to someone’s (a Jet’s) house to crash for the night. He lives in an old supermarket, which was remade into living quarters – quite huge ones at that. So I slept there and got a ride back in the morning. That day, I had makudonarudo for lunch, just to try it out in Japan. It remarkably similar. The rest of the day, literally, was spent ironing. Jesus, go ahead and try ironing for six hours straight, it’ll make your head go funny.

And so another week begins. Monday, I was putzing around all day, opening a bank account, trying to buy a cell phone (I didn’t yet, will wait until the latest model comes out on the 19th) and finally finished tidying up the house, which is about where I came in. For the rest of this week, I have a three day orientation in Kanazawa, so I won’t have online access. But I’ll definitely write about it later. For now, all please take care.

Peter Jennings, R.I.P.