The (mis)Adventures of Xewa: Matsuri Warrior Princess
So...my bid for driving legitimacy in Japan did not meet with success. I can't even blame the proctor for deliberately looking for ways to fail me because it was my own stupidity that did it. Sigh. If at first you don't succeed, lose any faith that you can actually accomplish it but keep trying anyway. It's not a very good motto and stems from feeling sorry for myself, but it works for me. I DO promise that this is the only self-pity that will appear in this entry, unless my bitching about successive earthquakes counts.
Which brings me to my next topic: the Niigata earthquake. This happened on Monday and was quite unpleasant for anyone living close to the epicenter (where it was almost a 7), but Anamizu only felt it as a protracted 4 (unlike almost the entire rest of the Noto which felt a low 5. hah) and other than some water slopping out of my fish tank it's only effect was destroying any wish I had to leave the house for the entirety of the day. Fortunately, Monday was a national holiday (Marine Day) and I had had a fairly busy weekend so I did not feel particularly guilty about this. I also cleaned my house, so it was not a total loss as far as productivity went.
Well, too bad. I haven't gotten there yet. Any discussion of a weekend should start with Saturday (or Friday night, but I just went to pottery so it wasn`t that exciting) and that is exactly what I intend to do. Saturday was supposed to be a fun day of Ewa Going To Pick Blueberries and Then Going To Karaoke, but instead turned into Ewa's Exciting Day of Fail. First of all (due to a typhoon that I completely failed to find out about) it rained almost ALL DAY. The only time it didn't rain was during the period when we were at Flatt's (a really rather nice bakery and cafe in Notocho) waiting for it to stop raining. IRONY. See me laugh.
When we (this is me and Cyndi, by the way, who was the only one who braved the rain to come join me) finally decided to just go regardless of whether it was raining or not, we found out that the blueberry farm was closed (probably due to the aforementioned typhoon - it honestly didn't rain much here, but other parts of Japan were hit pretty hard so I can understand their caution). Not to be defeated, we went to an onsen instead, which was nice. Karaoke later was nice, too. So I suppose there really wasn't THAT much fail going on. I was just sad because I wanted blueberries.
And now, we arrive at our feature presentation. The Hasebe festival (now with even MORE parade!). For something that basically consisted of a string of minor irritations, this was surprisingly fun. I even shocked my staff people by saying that I'll be happy to do it again next year.
My day started at 10 (well, a bit before that, cos I had to wake up, shower, get dressed, etc.) when I went to the information center by city hall to start getting dressed. This took longer than I thought should have been necessary due to all 18 of the girls needing makeup that took about 20 minutes to half an hour to put on and only 3 (later dropping down to two and then 1 as they got bored) women who were doing it. Still, at least the first hour and a half were interesting because the other marchers were all my students and thought that the ALT being in the parade was the most wonderful (and hilarious) thing ever.
There were three groups of people. The musha, or male warriors, the onna musha, or female warriors, and the koshimoto, or handmaidens. I was an onna musha, which meant that I got to wear a little red underthingy (which had all of the girls talking about Inuyasha) some arm guards (the kind that cover your arm and shoulder and are tied under your other arm), a breastplate (just the front bit), a big orange over shirt kimono thing whose sleeves were tightened into poofs around the elbow, some doubloon looking poofy orange pants and shin guards. It was all very...orange. And difficult to breathe in. And pretty stiff. (how in the world could anybody fight in that thing? I could barely move my arms! and what about going to the bathroom? it would take, like HALF AN HOUR) And hot. (does all this material actually protect me from harm by, say, sword? No? Well then I really don`t see the point. Why not something not as bulky? Or, you know, serving a protective function? Mind you, the latter would be heavier, so I shouldn't really be asking for it.) and...orange. (not my favorite color)
Eventually, we were all dressed and made up and had been informed that the danger of typhoon had passed so there WOULD definitely be a parade. (this was, incidentally, the first I heard of the typhoon) There was much rejoicing and in short order we went down to the buses and were whisked off to the Hasebe shrine.
There, we got to wait around for half an hour. Except NOW, instead of waiting around in a nice air conditioned room, we got to wait outside during the ONLY TWO HOURS of sun that day had. Fun times! But, as all things must, the fun eventually had to end, and we strode off. First went the soundtrack car, which played the same 8 measures of music over and over and over and over and over again. I can no longer remember the melody, but go listen to Ravel's "Bolero" on repeat for about an hour and you'll probably get an idea of how I felt about that song by the end of the march. After that went the boys, and then then the female warriors, followed by a horse with a guy dressed as the feudal lord on it on it, and then the handmaidens. Then a wagon with the feudal lady and children on it. And then some other stuff. Mikoshi's and things, I'm not really sure because I couldn't see that far back.
I'd just like to say at this point that it is a well known fact that it is much better to walk in front of the horse than behind it because you don't need to pay as much attention to where you step. HOWEVER, people should also be aware that if the horse is overenthusiastic you do NOT want to be directly in front of it because it will eat your hair and then possibly the rest of you. The people marching will be picked off one by one, dreading their fate but being unable to do anything about it; each time they look back, there is one less of them and the horse is That. Much. Closer.
But I digress.
We walked through the town and joined up with the "Make the town brighter" parade which had a bunch of lion dancers from Kobe and the anamizu yosakoi group. I was a little put out about not being able to see it, but into every life a little rain must fall. Or a lot, if it's the rainy season and you're in Japan. Or even more than that, if it is monsoon season and you are in India. And speaking of rain, as mentioned before, it didn't. Instead it was hot and sunny and completely lacking in any sort of breeziness.
Which makes me somewhat confused as to why I quite enjoyed it. That is a lie, actually, I enjoyed it because of the expression of shock that I put on the face of nearly everyone in Anamizu. That was pretty awesome, let me tell you. Also, funny. Many of the other high school students were there. Several of them said I looked very cool, which was nice of them even if it was a blatant lie. (one of the stupid 1B boy-monkeys called me a hag. Possibly thinking that I didn't know that word in Japanese. But I do, and you can all guess who is going to be my new favorite "dialog demonstration assistant" in that class. *insert mad cackling here*) My middle school students were especially prone to starting to screech when they saw me, which was cute. Most of the reactions were along the lines of "oh look! a gaijin! hey, she's looking over here - take a picture!" from people who didn't know me and "is that...Ewa? It IS! Hey, she's looking over here - take a picture!". Then they would all be quickly distracted by the guy on the horse, who, had a better costume and was, you know, sitting on a horse and therefore more exciting.
We walked down the main road and ended the parade at the police station where we got wet towels and drinks (tea of course). Then we hopped into buses again and went back to change into normal clothes. Naturally, as soon as we got into the bus it cooled down five degrees and started sprinkling.
I walked around the main street for a while and met up with my JTE, who had come to take pictures and help the Student Council sell cookies. (When we passed that booth, one of the teachers bought some and handed them out to us. So Nice!) There was supposed to be Taiko at 5, but it was also supposed to be outside and thus did not happen. Instead, me and my JTE got sucked into the yakiniku party that had apparently been going on in the garage of my apartment complex for the past five hours or so. This lasted until we heard an announcement saying that the taiko had been moved to the culture center at 7 - so we went to see that.
At first we got to watch the kids from the Aviation Academy dance, which was nice - they have excellent coordination. Apparently they have won prizes. Then there was some talking. Then some more talking, then, just as I was about to fall asleep, the taiko finally started.
THEY HAD SIXTEEN TAIKO GROUPS.
Tell me that that is not overkill. I will not believe you. I only managed to last through six before I was Taikoed out. My JTE could have easily stayed the entire time, but sadly had to go back to Waj to study for her teaching certification exam, which is this weekend. That is some mad dedication right there. Anyway, I saw the group from Kobe, so I was satisfied.
So that was Hasebe matsuri. I would definitely do it again, especially since I got paid for my pains (3000 yen! or 500 yen an hour...not exactly great pay, but hey, part of the payment is the memories, or something like that.) I also wrote an article about it for the school paper. Apparently all of the normal article writers were all out at baseball games or something.
In other news, I am supposed to get the new Harry Potter tomorrow. Glee! And, just because I know it will drive some of you insane, I feel I should tell you that the first thing I'm going to do is flip to the back to see who dies. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Also! New washing machine! It is all automatic and stuff! VERY EXCITING.
Pictures of the new washing machine (and the festival) will be up at some point - probably as soon as my JTE e-mails the shots she took to me, since it is hard to take pictures of parades that you are in.
Which brings me to my next topic: the Niigata earthquake. This happened on Monday and was quite unpleasant for anyone living close to the epicenter (where it was almost a 7), but Anamizu only felt it as a protracted 4 (unlike almost the entire rest of the Noto which felt a low 5. hah) and other than some water slopping out of my fish tank it's only effect was destroying any wish I had to leave the house for the entirety of the day. Fortunately, Monday was a national holiday (Marine Day) and I had had a fairly busy weekend so I did not feel particularly guilty about this. I also cleaned my house, so it was not a total loss as far as productivity went.
Well, too bad. I haven't gotten there yet. Any discussion of a weekend should start with Saturday (or Friday night, but I just went to pottery so it wasn`t that exciting) and that is exactly what I intend to do. Saturday was supposed to be a fun day of Ewa Going To Pick Blueberries and Then Going To Karaoke, but instead turned into Ewa's Exciting Day of Fail. First of all (due to a typhoon that I completely failed to find out about) it rained almost ALL DAY. The only time it didn't rain was during the period when we were at Flatt's (a really rather nice bakery and cafe in Notocho) waiting for it to stop raining. IRONY. See me laugh.
When we (this is me and Cyndi, by the way, who was the only one who braved the rain to come join me) finally decided to just go regardless of whether it was raining or not, we found out that the blueberry farm was closed (probably due to the aforementioned typhoon - it honestly didn't rain much here, but other parts of Japan were hit pretty hard so I can understand their caution). Not to be defeated, we went to an onsen instead, which was nice. Karaoke later was nice, too. So I suppose there really wasn't THAT much fail going on. I was just sad because I wanted blueberries.
And now, we arrive at our feature presentation. The Hasebe festival (now with even MORE parade!). For something that basically consisted of a string of minor irritations, this was surprisingly fun. I even shocked my staff people by saying that I'll be happy to do it again next year.
My day started at 10 (well, a bit before that, cos I had to wake up, shower, get dressed, etc.) when I went to the information center by city hall to start getting dressed. This took longer than I thought should have been necessary due to all 18 of the girls needing makeup that took about 20 minutes to half an hour to put on and only 3 (later dropping down to two and then 1 as they got bored) women who were doing it. Still, at least the first hour and a half were interesting because the other marchers were all my students and thought that the ALT being in the parade was the most wonderful (and hilarious) thing ever.
There were three groups of people. The musha, or male warriors, the onna musha, or female warriors, and the koshimoto, or handmaidens. I was an onna musha, which meant that I got to wear a little red underthingy (which had all of the girls talking about Inuyasha) some arm guards (the kind that cover your arm and shoulder and are tied under your other arm), a breastplate (just the front bit), a big orange over shirt kimono thing whose sleeves were tightened into poofs around the elbow, some doubloon looking poofy orange pants and shin guards. It was all very...orange. And difficult to breathe in. And pretty stiff. (how in the world could anybody fight in that thing? I could barely move my arms! and what about going to the bathroom? it would take, like HALF AN HOUR) And hot. (does all this material actually protect me from harm by, say, sword? No? Well then I really don`t see the point. Why not something not as bulky? Or, you know, serving a protective function? Mind you, the latter would be heavier, so I shouldn't really be asking for it.) and...orange. (not my favorite color)
Eventually, we were all dressed and made up and had been informed that the danger of typhoon had passed so there WOULD definitely be a parade. (this was, incidentally, the first I heard of the typhoon) There was much rejoicing and in short order we went down to the buses and were whisked off to the Hasebe shrine.
There, we got to wait around for half an hour. Except NOW, instead of waiting around in a nice air conditioned room, we got to wait outside during the ONLY TWO HOURS of sun that day had. Fun times! But, as all things must, the fun eventually had to end, and we strode off. First went the soundtrack car, which played the same 8 measures of music over and over and over and over and over again. I can no longer remember the melody, but go listen to Ravel's "Bolero" on repeat for about an hour and you'll probably get an idea of how I felt about that song by the end of the march. After that went the boys, and then then the female warriors, followed by a horse with a guy dressed as the feudal lord on it on it, and then the handmaidens. Then a wagon with the feudal lady and children on it. And then some other stuff. Mikoshi's and things, I'm not really sure because I couldn't see that far back.
I'd just like to say at this point that it is a well known fact that it is much better to walk in front of the horse than behind it because you don't need to pay as much attention to where you step. HOWEVER, people should also be aware that if the horse is overenthusiastic you do NOT want to be directly in front of it because it will eat your hair and then possibly the rest of you. The people marching will be picked off one by one, dreading their fate but being unable to do anything about it; each time they look back, there is one less of them and the horse is That. Much. Closer.
But I digress.
We walked through the town and joined up with the "Make the town brighter" parade which had a bunch of lion dancers from Kobe and the anamizu yosakoi group. I was a little put out about not being able to see it, but into every life a little rain must fall. Or a lot, if it's the rainy season and you're in Japan. Or even more than that, if it is monsoon season and you are in India. And speaking of rain, as mentioned before, it didn't. Instead it was hot and sunny and completely lacking in any sort of breeziness.
Which makes me somewhat confused as to why I quite enjoyed it. That is a lie, actually, I enjoyed it because of the expression of shock that I put on the face of nearly everyone in Anamizu. That was pretty awesome, let me tell you. Also, funny. Many of the other high school students were there. Several of them said I looked very cool, which was nice of them even if it was a blatant lie. (one of the stupid 1B boy-monkeys called me a hag. Possibly thinking that I didn't know that word in Japanese. But I do, and you can all guess who is going to be my new favorite "dialog demonstration assistant" in that class. *insert mad cackling here*) My middle school students were especially prone to starting to screech when they saw me, which was cute. Most of the reactions were along the lines of "oh look! a gaijin! hey, she's looking over here - take a picture!" from people who didn't know me and "is that...Ewa? It IS! Hey, she's looking over here - take a picture!". Then they would all be quickly distracted by the guy on the horse, who, had a better costume and was, you know, sitting on a horse and therefore more exciting.
We walked down the main road and ended the parade at the police station where we got wet towels and drinks (tea of course). Then we hopped into buses again and went back to change into normal clothes. Naturally, as soon as we got into the bus it cooled down five degrees and started sprinkling.
I walked around the main street for a while and met up with my JTE, who had come to take pictures and help the Student Council sell cookies. (When we passed that booth, one of the teachers bought some and handed them out to us. So Nice!) There was supposed to be Taiko at 5, but it was also supposed to be outside and thus did not happen. Instead, me and my JTE got sucked into the yakiniku party that had apparently been going on in the garage of my apartment complex for the past five hours or so. This lasted until we heard an announcement saying that the taiko had been moved to the culture center at 7 - so we went to see that.
At first we got to watch the kids from the Aviation Academy dance, which was nice - they have excellent coordination. Apparently they have won prizes. Then there was some talking. Then some more talking, then, just as I was about to fall asleep, the taiko finally started.
THEY HAD SIXTEEN TAIKO GROUPS.
Tell me that that is not overkill. I will not believe you. I only managed to last through six before I was Taikoed out. My JTE could have easily stayed the entire time, but sadly had to go back to Waj to study for her teaching certification exam, which is this weekend. That is some mad dedication right there. Anyway, I saw the group from Kobe, so I was satisfied.
So that was Hasebe matsuri. I would definitely do it again, especially since I got paid for my pains (3000 yen! or 500 yen an hour...not exactly great pay, but hey, part of the payment is the memories, or something like that.) I also wrote an article about it for the school paper. Apparently all of the normal article writers were all out at baseball games or something.
In other news, I am supposed to get the new Harry Potter tomorrow. Glee! And, just because I know it will drive some of you insane, I feel I should tell you that the first thing I'm going to do is flip to the back to see who dies. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Also! New washing machine! It is all automatic and stuff! VERY EXCITING.
Pictures of the new washing machine (and the festival) will be up at some point - probably as soon as my JTE e-mails the shots she took to me, since it is hard to take pictures of parades that you are in.