Like a geisha
Today I wore a real original yukata straight from Japan, yay! It was a
summer yukata, so I had no problems putting up with the high
temperature. ^^ Yukata is a simpler version of kimono and takes "only" 15 minutes to put on. And requires another person to help you, because it's impossible to tie the sash by yourself.
There were that special shoes called zori that I also had to wear. They were extremely tall, small and uncomfortable! What's more, I didn't have the special socks and I felt even more uncomfortable.
Now I know why geishas take such small steps... Because otherwise they would simply fall over!
Zori - I had to wear something similar.
I had such a great occasion because there was that
festival, Kulmixtura (by the Wilanów Palace in Warsaw). My Japanese
language school had 2 stands there. We were selling Japanese teas
(well... one of them was Korean, but hush hush~!) for ridiculously cheap
price of 1,50 zł ($0,5), but very few people were interested anyway...
People
could also write their name in Japanese (for free) using traditional
calligraphy brushes and take the sheets home. It was sensei's task to
show them how they should write the Japanese characters.
The seinsei asked me to
come and dress in that beautiful yukata. So my task was to stand there
and look nice.
But I also did something more than that! :D I
changed the layout of our stand, so that it looked more tidy and
professional. It turned out to be a great idea ^^
Besides, I came
up with an idea of selling paper cranes. We had plenty of origami sheets
of paper, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a use of them. I
taught another girl (woman, actually...) to make them and we made
plenty of cranes. They cost 50 gr each (about $0,2) and they really took
off! xD I had to go at 16.30 and up to that hour we managed to sell
more or less 9 cranes! :D
Some old lady came up to our stand, pointed out the origami cranes and said, "PLANES!" xD Someone also thought that they were swans, somebody else said they were pigeons... Actually later I made a pigeon. It sucked. I mean I did it perfectly, but it didn't look so cool because we had wrong paper sheets. They should be white on one side.
Pigeon.
Before that I'd only made cranes and lucky stars, as far as origami goes. During that festival I folded pigeons and foxes. Origami isn't so bad after all!
I also made better advertisement signs ^^ Before that people passing by didn't really know what we offered.
I'm an enterprising genius. I should tell it my enterprising teacher at school, he should grade me for that! xD
Some people asked me to pose for photos with them ;D Well, I agreed. ^^ I hope to get some photos of our stand and publish them here or something ;>
I wish I had my own camera... But my batteries are dead and I can't take photos! D: I have 2 sets of rechargeable batteries and they are dead immediately after charging. :/ I just need new ones, but they are quite expensive ;(
Different kinds of people visited our stand. There was some man (who must have been drunk, I'm sure he was!) who asked sensei weird questions and she didn't know what he wanted from her. Neither did I. He wanted her to write "spring breeze" in kanji, but he quarreled with her about something and that was the part that made us confused. He called some Japanese friend of him and sensei talked with him in Japanese, but that friend also had no idea what the man wanted. Finally he called somebody else and it turned out that the men meant "mansion of spring wind"... Jesus. So annoying. It changed everything. He walked away and came back later, fortunately he only took that piece of paper with the kanji he wanted and went away.
I heard some little girl calling me a Chinese xD She said, "Mummy, look! That lady is a Chinese! I like Chinese girls very much. Do you know how they say 'good morning'? Shian shian hai! <> shian shian hai, shian shain hai, I will speak Chinese now! I like Chinese very much!" xD
We had a small shinto shrine and some old Japanese sweets in it as a decoration. Some child stole one and ran away. We didn't chase after it, we just wished it had a good meal, as the candy was as tough as a stone and at least 4 years old...
When second candy disappeared, we had to hide the sweets, because we didn't want them to cause any deaths more xD
When I was going away, sensei said to me, "Well, you've got your first festival out of the way! In 2 weeks, when Ania will get better and Milena will finally wake up, you'll start singing with them!" WHOA! I don't think it's a good idea, though xD But wheeee, I'm so honoured! ^^ I met 3 students of her school and I start thinking that I'm her youngest student. oO'' Feels a bit weird... They can call her "you", but is it okay for me to say so too? We always have this kind of dilemmas in Polish. That's why I love English - because everybody's my mate when I speak it xD If I called a teacher at school "you" in Polish, I would probably end up having a talk with the head teacher. So now I have no idea how to speak to my sensei. :/
summer yukata, so I had no problems putting up with the high
temperature. ^^ Yukata is a simpler version of kimono and takes "only" 15 minutes to put on. And requires another person to help you, because it's impossible to tie the sash by yourself.
There were that special shoes called zori that I also had to wear. They were extremely tall, small and uncomfortable! What's more, I didn't have the special socks and I felt even more uncomfortable.
Now I know why geishas take such small steps... Because otherwise they would simply fall over!
Zori - I had to wear something similar.
I had such a great occasion because there was that
festival, Kulmixtura (by the Wilanów Palace in Warsaw). My Japanese
language school had 2 stands there. We were selling Japanese teas
(well... one of them was Korean, but hush hush~!) for ridiculously cheap
price of 1,50 zł ($0,5), but very few people were interested anyway...
People
could also write their name in Japanese (for free) using traditional
calligraphy brushes and take the sheets home. It was sensei's task to
show them how they should write the Japanese characters.
The seinsei asked me to
come and dress in that beautiful yukata. So my task was to stand there
and look nice.
But I also did something more than that! :D I
changed the layout of our stand, so that it looked more tidy and
professional. It turned out to be a great idea ^^
Besides, I came
up with an idea of selling paper cranes. We had plenty of origami sheets
of paper, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a use of them. I
taught another girl (woman, actually...) to make them and we made
plenty of cranes. They cost 50 gr each (about $0,2) and they really took
off! xD I had to go at 16.30 and up to that hour we managed to sell
more or less 9 cranes! :D
Some old lady came up to our stand, pointed out the origami cranes and said, "PLANES!" xD Someone also thought that they were swans, somebody else said they were pigeons... Actually later I made a pigeon. It sucked. I mean I did it perfectly, but it didn't look so cool because we had wrong paper sheets. They should be white on one side.
Pigeon.
Before that I'd only made cranes and lucky stars, as far as origami goes. During that festival I folded pigeons and foxes. Origami isn't so bad after all!
I also made better advertisement signs ^^ Before that people passing by didn't really know what we offered.
I'm an enterprising genius. I should tell it my enterprising teacher at school, he should grade me for that! xD
Some people asked me to pose for photos with them ;D Well, I agreed. ^^ I hope to get some photos of our stand and publish them here or something ;>
I wish I had my own camera... But my batteries are dead and I can't take photos! D: I have 2 sets of rechargeable batteries and they are dead immediately after charging. :/ I just need new ones, but they are quite expensive ;(
Different kinds of people visited our stand. There was some man (who must have been drunk, I'm sure he was!) who asked sensei weird questions and she didn't know what he wanted from her. Neither did I. He wanted her to write "spring breeze" in kanji, but he quarreled with her about something and that was the part that made us confused. He called some Japanese friend of him and sensei talked with him in Japanese, but that friend also had no idea what the man wanted. Finally he called somebody else and it turned out that the men meant "mansion of spring wind"... Jesus. So annoying. It changed everything. He walked away and came back later, fortunately he only took that piece of paper with the kanji he wanted and went away.
I heard some little girl calling me a Chinese xD She said, "Mummy, look! That lady is a Chinese! I like Chinese girls very much. Do you know how they say 'good morning'? Shian shian hai! <> shian shian hai, shian shain hai, I will speak Chinese now! I like Chinese very much!" xD
We had a small shinto shrine and some old Japanese sweets in it as a decoration. Some child stole one and ran away. We didn't chase after it, we just wished it had a good meal, as the candy was as tough as a stone and at least 4 years old...
When second candy disappeared, we had to hide the sweets, because we didn't want them to cause any deaths more xD
When I was going away, sensei said to me, "Well, you've got your first festival out of the way! In 2 weeks, when Ania will get better and Milena will finally wake up, you'll start singing with them!" WHOA! I don't think it's a good idea, though xD But wheeee, I'm so honoured! ^^ I met 3 students of her school and I start thinking that I'm her youngest student. oO'' Feels a bit weird... They can call her "you", but is it okay for me to say so too? We always have this kind of dilemmas in Polish. That's why I love English - because everybody's my mate when I speak it xD If I called a teacher at school "you" in Polish, I would probably end up having a talk with the head teacher. So now I have no idea how to speak to my sensei. :/