Culture, baby
Last Thursday was the 文化発表会 (Cultural Presentation) at one of my schools.
It started off with a bang, with an electric shamisen rock band called JK-Soul.
Yes, an electric shamisen.
It was pretty awesome. The shamisen itself was bright yellow and in kind of a pop style, with a rounded body. The player gave us a long history of the shamisen and the different kinds of shamisen, and which kind his was and his own shamisen education. It was interesting, but I won't repeat it here. Apparently when they toured America he wore a kimono and educated Americans about the shamisen. He's only 31, and his playing was seriously awesome.
The rest of the band consisted of a keyboardist, drummer, and trombone player. It was so cute the way they acted like rock stars. Just that whole attitude and style of dress at a junior high school bunkasai. Heee. The kids certainly treated them like rock stars.
The hour-long concert started with an arrangement of "007" and went on to many traditional shamisen songs and original songs. It was cool to hear the different styles mesh, yeah. It did get a little repetitive with the lack of any vocals. But the kids like went crazy for it. They made them come back on for an encore.
*****
There were displays around the school of things the kids made.
Like ikebana.
And paintings.
("Endles" has no end. OMG deep!)
The English club did a presentation on Halloween, and we carved a jackolantern together for it.
The English Elective class wrote poems. I was really impressed by a lot of them. Here are some examples.
They ranged from the tried-and-true nature paean:
Sea
swimming fish
dolphin, turtle, octopus
I'm mended by it
Beautiful
to a celebration of normal objects:
Window
Very transparent
Can see over there
Like there aren't any walls
Beautiful
Paper
Cutting paper
Paper is drawn
But paper is happy.
Freedom?
(I really love the "Freedom?" Hehehe. Oh, if only we could live the simple life of paper.)
to the celebration of parts of student life:
Soccer
Very hard
Kick run head
My friends are smiling
Happy
Test
A war
On the desk
Face myself firmly
Interesting
to the political:
Human
Many kinds
Destroy the earth
Human is very foolish
Vain
to the psychological:
Jealousy
Silent jealousy
I murdered her
Was I crazy?
Deep red
to the vaguely homoerotic and polyamorous:
Chu
Deep kiss
I need you
I have many friends
Love
Love
Deep kiss
Yoshie Yui Anri
I love them very much
Sexy
I was struck by the vividness and depth of communication in their poems. But poetry is all about using language in new and arresting ways, and non-native speakers certainly do that.
It started off with a bang, with an electric shamisen rock band called JK-Soul.
Yes, an electric shamisen.
It was pretty awesome. The shamisen itself was bright yellow and in kind of a pop style, with a rounded body. The player gave us a long history of the shamisen and the different kinds of shamisen, and which kind his was and his own shamisen education. It was interesting, but I won't repeat it here. Apparently when they toured America he wore a kimono and educated Americans about the shamisen. He's only 31, and his playing was seriously awesome.
The rest of the band consisted of a keyboardist, drummer, and trombone player. It was so cute the way they acted like rock stars. Just that whole attitude and style of dress at a junior high school bunkasai. Heee. The kids certainly treated them like rock stars.
The hour-long concert started with an arrangement of "007" and went on to many traditional shamisen songs and original songs. It was cool to hear the different styles mesh, yeah. It did get a little repetitive with the lack of any vocals. But the kids like went crazy for it. They made them come back on for an encore.
*****
There were displays around the school of things the kids made.
Like ikebana.
And paintings.
("Endles" has no end. OMG deep!)
The English club did a presentation on Halloween, and we carved a jackolantern together for it.
The English Elective class wrote poems. I was really impressed by a lot of them. Here are some examples.
They ranged from the tried-and-true nature paean:
Sea
swimming fish
dolphin, turtle, octopus
I'm mended by it
Beautiful
to a celebration of normal objects:
Window
Very transparent
Can see over there
Like there aren't any walls
Beautiful
Paper
Cutting paper
Paper is drawn
But paper is happy.
Freedom?
(I really love the "Freedom?" Hehehe. Oh, if only we could live the simple life of paper.)
to the celebration of parts of student life:
Soccer
Very hard
Kick run head
My friends are smiling
Happy
Test
A war
On the desk
Face myself firmly
Interesting
to the political:
Human
Many kinds
Destroy the earth
Human is very foolish
Vain
to the psychological:
Jealousy
Silent jealousy
I murdered her
Was I crazy?
Deep red
to the vaguely homoerotic and polyamorous:
Chu
Deep kiss
I need you
I have many friends
Love
Love
Deep kiss
Yoshie Yui Anri
I love them very much
Sexy
I was struck by the vividness and depth of communication in their poems. But poetry is all about using language in new and arresting ways, and non-native speakers certainly do that.