Karaoke, Undoukai, and Soran-Bushi
Hi, everybody. Another exciting update from Japan.
So Friday another exchange student from USF invited me to sign karaoke with her, an exchange student from England, and a group of her Japanese friends. Now I'm a fan of singing in the car, by myself, but in the company of other people- I was a little worried. But I thought to myself, this is an experience so quintessentially Japanese I can't afford to miss it. So we all took the bus to the karaoke place and rented a room for 2 hours, which included dessert and all-you-can drink (non-alcoholic) drinks. I drank so much melon soda, it was ridiculous. Anyway, the karaoke room was cool- it was dark, with a big table in the middle and a padded bench for all of us to sit around. There was a TV at the end of the table for all of us to see, along with two microphones whose cords could stretch all the way across the room. At first I was really nervous, but the more songs I sang the less reserved I became. I'd have been mortified had I had to sing solo, but luckily for me the English guy knew a lot of classic rock hits so we sang duets. The two most memorable songs of the night for me were Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca." They were both really fast-paced, so keeping up with the lyrics you didn't have to worry about holding a note, and they both had really intense parts, so you got to shout into the microphone. I liked "We Didn't Start the Fire" because I've never actually seen all the lyrics before (I've only listened to it on the radio), and sometimes I couldn't help but laugh when I discovered that what I thought he said was entirely different from what he actually sings, or when he threw in a reference to some famous person whose name I can't pronounce. But more than "We Didn't Start the Fire," I really got into "Livin' La Vida Loca." I really belted it into the microphone, and whether the Japanese kids were marvelling at my scratchy voice or vocal talents, they really got a kick out of it and started taking pictures of me and the British kid singing it. Good times, and I wouldn't mind hitting the karaoke place again sometime- as long as someone will sing oldies with me. I was really eyeing the Queen/David Bowie selections.... After the karaoke my USF friend's speaking partners had to go, but me, my USF friend, my British friend, and a Japanese guy my USF friend knows went out to eat! We went to a place with good goya (like dumplings), but I opted for the ramen/katsu(breaded pork)/fried chicken. I would have had yakisoba, which I have to say is my favorite Japanese dish so far, but I don't want to have too much of a good thing. When I'm about to leave for America, that's when I'll start gorging on all of my favorite Japanese foods.
So Saturday was uneventful- just studying for a test I have this Tuesday. Sunday, however, was the Sports Festival (undoukai) for my little brother's (Chihiro's) elementary school. It was the most surreal thing- my house is about 3 minutes from the elementary school, and when I woke up in the morning I could hear music coming from the sports field's loudspeakers. Originally my mom, dad, and I were going to leave for the festival at around noon, after the morning's events for the younger children, to eat a picnic lunch with Chihiro. Then we were going to watch the afternoon events, which had more sixth-grader events that Chi was participating in. I was especially excited because in the afternoon the family of the elementary school students were going to have a tug-of-war, and since my host dad didn't want to do it, I was going to be able to pull for Chihiro's team. Because the weather was rainy the school changed the program around, so Chi's event came earlier than expected. So around 10 am mom, dad, and I rushed to the school to see Chihiro and his friends dance/march to the Indiana Jones theme song. It was quite a spectacle- at first Chi, barefoot and in his gym uniform, looked kind of embarassed and was hardly marching. But as the event went along I think he got a little more into it. My favorite part of that event was the human pyramid- for being 5 students tall, I was really impressed that no one fell. I think it was in due in part to the organization scheme. With each whistle blow of the gym teacher a new row of kids would pile onto the pyramid (more or less in sync with the music), and the same system was used for kids climbing down from the pyramid. Chi's second event was where a kid with a red or white cap is held up by three other kids (he sits on top of one's shoulders, while the other two support his feet). The kids with the red caps would try to steal the caps of the kids on the read team, and vice versa. Needless to say, it was all very entertaining to watch. I especially enjoyed it when two people were locked in a struggle to steal each others' caps, only to have someone sneak up and steal a cap from behind. I saw a couple of other events for the younger grades- it was almost too cute, seeing the little Japanese kids running around and cheering when they had finished a relay or scored the most points or what have you. The events themselves were all very interesting to watch- more than your average "balance a hard-boiled egg on a spoon" events at American elementary school's field days. For instance, during one of the relays a group of 3 or 4 kids ran abreast to one another while carrying a big stick, and when they passed the center cone they had to all rotate around the cone to turn around- kind of like the cone was an axis. And instead of a 3-legged race, with the potential for injuries and such, they had a race where each kid fit into one leg of an extremely large pair of shorts. That way the kids still had to run together, but if one of them got dragged along or tripped it wouldn't result in a sprained ankle. And before the next pair in the big-shorts relay donned the shorts, the pair that had just finished had to fold the shorts and make sure the holes in the legs were open. Whether this was to teach the kids the proper way to fold clothes or to keep the kids safe from tripping I don't know- it seemed out of place in a fast-paced relay, because some of the kids couldn't get the hang of the folding and sat there for quite a long time trying to figure it out as the other teams were crossing the finish lines. I have to say the cutest event by far involved a mass of itty bitty kids throwing little hacky-sack sized balls into a central net. The team with the most balls in the net won. At first I didn't have my camera out, but as I watched the event I thought, "this is too cute- it would be a crime not to tape this" and pulled out my digital camera. It was almost like a snow globe, with an innumerable number of red balls being thrown into the air and then falling back down to the earth. And the little kids were so cute, scrambling for fallen balls and then throwing them upward with all their might. And also cute was when the number of balls in the net were counted- one by one- and the little children joined in the counting. "Ichi! Ni! San! Shi!"
Unfortunately it started raining pretty hard, so the rest of the events were pushed off to Tuesday. I'm glad I got to see what events I did, though, especially Chi-chan's. My mom had prepared lunch for us- we're talking rice balls (onigiri), vegetables, salads, goya (dumplings), omelette things, fried chicken, fish, etc.- but because of the rain we had to eat at home. I didn't mind, though. I ate with my mom, dad, my mom's friend, and my grandfather. My grandfather is really quiet and hard of hearing, but has a kind face and from what I can tell is very friendly. I talked to him a little bit after the festival- about how fun it was to watch Chihiro's team win the cap-pulling event and how it was a shame it had to rain that day. I wish I could speak and understand Japanese better, because this guy is at least 80 years old and I'd love to hear some of the stories he has about living in Japan before, during, and after World War 2. I bet he's seen some radical changes in his lifetime.
So that was the weekend. Today (Monday) I attended my first practice of the Soran-Bushi dance team. Kansai Gaidai is going to have an international festival in mid-November, and one of the events will be the Soran-Bushi dance. The Soran-Bushi is really exciting because it is very rough- fast-paced with a lot of movement. The dance moves along to a heavy drum beat with worker chants ("Sora, Sora... Dokkoisho, Dokkoisho"), and I think the movements are supposed to resemble Japanese heavy labor from back in the day. Like, we pretend to pull ropes, pick up crates and throw them over our backs, pull a bow an arrow?, etc. There's a lot of bending down, reaching, and crouching down on your legs, so it's really strenuous. I didn't think the dance would take as much out of me as it did- the majority of the time your legs are spread out and you're crouching down, so it takes a LOT out of your thighs- my legs were actually shaking during the dance, it was so strenuous. The other students (about 10 in all- 3 Japanese, the rest exchange students) had been to practice before so they kind of knew the ropes already, but I tried my best. I'm still really shaky on the moves, especially the order, but I think I made good progress. We have practice again on Thursday (if I can even walk up the stairs to the practice room), so hopefully I'll have the basic movements down by then (i.e., what hand to move where and which foot to stomp on), and later I'll work on the sequence. I think on Thursday we are supposed to get CD's with the music on them to help us practice; that will be nice.
So this weekend was very busy, very productive, and very fun. I tried something I never thought I'd do in a million years, saw the Japanese version of a world-wide elementary school event, and connected with my latent dancing side that surfaces every now and again. Oh, and I got my alien registration card finally, so no longer do I have to carry my bulky passport around. Yatta! That's all the news from Japan; Sayonara!
So Friday another exchange student from USF invited me to sign karaoke with her, an exchange student from England, and a group of her Japanese friends. Now I'm a fan of singing in the car, by myself, but in the company of other people- I was a little worried. But I thought to myself, this is an experience so quintessentially Japanese I can't afford to miss it. So we all took the bus to the karaoke place and rented a room for 2 hours, which included dessert and all-you-can drink (non-alcoholic) drinks. I drank so much melon soda, it was ridiculous. Anyway, the karaoke room was cool- it was dark, with a big table in the middle and a padded bench for all of us to sit around. There was a TV at the end of the table for all of us to see, along with two microphones whose cords could stretch all the way across the room. At first I was really nervous, but the more songs I sang the less reserved I became. I'd have been mortified had I had to sing solo, but luckily for me the English guy knew a lot of classic rock hits so we sang duets. The two most memorable songs of the night for me were Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca." They were both really fast-paced, so keeping up with the lyrics you didn't have to worry about holding a note, and they both had really intense parts, so you got to shout into the microphone. I liked "We Didn't Start the Fire" because I've never actually seen all the lyrics before (I've only listened to it on the radio), and sometimes I couldn't help but laugh when I discovered that what I thought he said was entirely different from what he actually sings, or when he threw in a reference to some famous person whose name I can't pronounce. But more than "We Didn't Start the Fire," I really got into "Livin' La Vida Loca." I really belted it into the microphone, and whether the Japanese kids were marvelling at my scratchy voice or vocal talents, they really got a kick out of it and started taking pictures of me and the British kid singing it. Good times, and I wouldn't mind hitting the karaoke place again sometime- as long as someone will sing oldies with me. I was really eyeing the Queen/David Bowie selections.... After the karaoke my USF friend's speaking partners had to go, but me, my USF friend, my British friend, and a Japanese guy my USF friend knows went out to eat! We went to a place with good goya (like dumplings), but I opted for the ramen/katsu(breaded pork)/fried chicken. I would have had yakisoba, which I have to say is my favorite Japanese dish so far, but I don't want to have too much of a good thing. When I'm about to leave for America, that's when I'll start gorging on all of my favorite Japanese foods.
So Saturday was uneventful- just studying for a test I have this Tuesday. Sunday, however, was the Sports Festival (undoukai) for my little brother's (Chihiro's) elementary school. It was the most surreal thing- my house is about 3 minutes from the elementary school, and when I woke up in the morning I could hear music coming from the sports field's loudspeakers. Originally my mom, dad, and I were going to leave for the festival at around noon, after the morning's events for the younger children, to eat a picnic lunch with Chihiro. Then we were going to watch the afternoon events, which had more sixth-grader events that Chi was participating in. I was especially excited because in the afternoon the family of the elementary school students were going to have a tug-of-war, and since my host dad didn't want to do it, I was going to be able to pull for Chihiro's team. Because the weather was rainy the school changed the program around, so Chi's event came earlier than expected. So around 10 am mom, dad, and I rushed to the school to see Chihiro and his friends dance/march to the Indiana Jones theme song. It was quite a spectacle- at first Chi, barefoot and in his gym uniform, looked kind of embarassed and was hardly marching. But as the event went along I think he got a little more into it. My favorite part of that event was the human pyramid- for being 5 students tall, I was really impressed that no one fell. I think it was in due in part to the organization scheme. With each whistle blow of the gym teacher a new row of kids would pile onto the pyramid (more or less in sync with the music), and the same system was used for kids climbing down from the pyramid. Chi's second event was where a kid with a red or white cap is held up by three other kids (he sits on top of one's shoulders, while the other two support his feet). The kids with the red caps would try to steal the caps of the kids on the read team, and vice versa. Needless to say, it was all very entertaining to watch. I especially enjoyed it when two people were locked in a struggle to steal each others' caps, only to have someone sneak up and steal a cap from behind. I saw a couple of other events for the younger grades- it was almost too cute, seeing the little Japanese kids running around and cheering when they had finished a relay or scored the most points or what have you. The events themselves were all very interesting to watch- more than your average "balance a hard-boiled egg on a spoon" events at American elementary school's field days. For instance, during one of the relays a group of 3 or 4 kids ran abreast to one another while carrying a big stick, and when they passed the center cone they had to all rotate around the cone to turn around- kind of like the cone was an axis. And instead of a 3-legged race, with the potential for injuries and such, they had a race where each kid fit into one leg of an extremely large pair of shorts. That way the kids still had to run together, but if one of them got dragged along or tripped it wouldn't result in a sprained ankle. And before the next pair in the big-shorts relay donned the shorts, the pair that had just finished had to fold the shorts and make sure the holes in the legs were open. Whether this was to teach the kids the proper way to fold clothes or to keep the kids safe from tripping I don't know- it seemed out of place in a fast-paced relay, because some of the kids couldn't get the hang of the folding and sat there for quite a long time trying to figure it out as the other teams were crossing the finish lines. I have to say the cutest event by far involved a mass of itty bitty kids throwing little hacky-sack sized balls into a central net. The team with the most balls in the net won. At first I didn't have my camera out, but as I watched the event I thought, "this is too cute- it would be a crime not to tape this" and pulled out my digital camera. It was almost like a snow globe, with an innumerable number of red balls being thrown into the air and then falling back down to the earth. And the little kids were so cute, scrambling for fallen balls and then throwing them upward with all their might. And also cute was when the number of balls in the net were counted- one by one- and the little children joined in the counting. "Ichi! Ni! San! Shi!"
Unfortunately it started raining pretty hard, so the rest of the events were pushed off to Tuesday. I'm glad I got to see what events I did, though, especially Chi-chan's. My mom had prepared lunch for us- we're talking rice balls (onigiri), vegetables, salads, goya (dumplings), omelette things, fried chicken, fish, etc.- but because of the rain we had to eat at home. I didn't mind, though. I ate with my mom, dad, my mom's friend, and my grandfather. My grandfather is really quiet and hard of hearing, but has a kind face and from what I can tell is very friendly. I talked to him a little bit after the festival- about how fun it was to watch Chihiro's team win the cap-pulling event and how it was a shame it had to rain that day. I wish I could speak and understand Japanese better, because this guy is at least 80 years old and I'd love to hear some of the stories he has about living in Japan before, during, and after World War 2. I bet he's seen some radical changes in his lifetime.
So that was the weekend. Today (Monday) I attended my first practice of the Soran-Bushi dance team. Kansai Gaidai is going to have an international festival in mid-November, and one of the events will be the Soran-Bushi dance. The Soran-Bushi is really exciting because it is very rough- fast-paced with a lot of movement. The dance moves along to a heavy drum beat with worker chants ("Sora, Sora... Dokkoisho, Dokkoisho"), and I think the movements are supposed to resemble Japanese heavy labor from back in the day. Like, we pretend to pull ropes, pick up crates and throw them over our backs, pull a bow an arrow?, etc. There's a lot of bending down, reaching, and crouching down on your legs, so it's really strenuous. I didn't think the dance would take as much out of me as it did- the majority of the time your legs are spread out and you're crouching down, so it takes a LOT out of your thighs- my legs were actually shaking during the dance, it was so strenuous. The other students (about 10 in all- 3 Japanese, the rest exchange students) had been to practice before so they kind of knew the ropes already, but I tried my best. I'm still really shaky on the moves, especially the order, but I think I made good progress. We have practice again on Thursday (if I can even walk up the stairs to the practice room), so hopefully I'll have the basic movements down by then (i.e., what hand to move where and which foot to stomp on), and later I'll work on the sequence. I think on Thursday we are supposed to get CD's with the music on them to help us practice; that will be nice.
So this weekend was very busy, very productive, and very fun. I tried something I never thought I'd do in a million years, saw the Japanese version of a world-wide elementary school event, and connected with my latent dancing side that surfaces every now and again. Oh, and I got my alien registration card finally, so no longer do I have to carry my bulky passport around. Yatta! That's all the news from Japan; Sayonara!