Greetings from freezing cold Japan! I'm back in Ehime with a bit of spare time on my hands, so I'll try my best to bring this rather heavily slumbering blog out of hibernation. (....although right about now, a few months of hibernation actually doesn't sound like such a bad idea...It's 32 degrees here at the most, with snow, hail, and biting winds that just about rip my face off every time I ride my bicycle home. Also, the heater in my apartment has been making some really strange sounds since yesterday and I'm getting a bit nervous. If it breaks, I will have to resort to...rubbing my poor frostbitten hands together over the warmth of the vents on the sides of my laptop??? ;)
Anyway, for now, I'll take you back to the blissfully warm days of October when the softball team invited Michael and me to this year's autumn festival. You may recall last year's festival from a previous post -- the day-long event where the men carried the huge portable shrine around town to pray for a good harvest. This year's festival was more of the same, only this time I had a digital camera to document the action.
Here's the men of the town dressed in purple happi. Every time they picked up the mikoshi, they lifted it up above their heads and twirled around in circles a few times. Click on the video below and you can see for yourself.
Then they lugged it down the streets....
...past some rice fields...
...and set it down at its next destination. Here's Shinohara-san (the manager of the softball team), me, and our little friend.
Whenever the mikoshi stopped, the shinto priest (a.k.a. jazz pianist) had to sit in front of this little altar and do a ceremony. He was chanting some kind of scripture(??) when I took the video below.
I hope that didn't make you carsick....
This goblin guy was standing around the festival all day waiting to whack people on the head with his bamboo stick. Apparently, if he whacks you, you'll have good health for the next year.
The kids of the town had been practicing traditional dances and drumming for weeks before the festival, and they took turns performing every time the mikoshi stopped. In this dance, an old man and his wife are trying to till their field, but the monkey in the red suit keeps jumping on top of the old man and keeping him from working. Silly monkey.
Here's my student's sister, dancing with a fan, while the shinto priest/jazz pianist drums in the background.
And here are two of my students, Kiko and Hinako, watching the dancing. (On a side note, I had noticed during our English lessons that both of these girls were absolutely mesmerized by my American mechanical pencils, so the last time I went back to the states, I brought back a few pencils for them as a a gift. Last week, I gave them their presents at the lesson, and I have never seen anyone so excited about a pencil before. Kiko, the little girl in the red jacket, told me that her heart was beating so fast that she wasn't sure if she could finish the English lesson. :)
Besides my private students, Michael and I ran into some other kids from town who were really curious about the two of us. They hung around us all day and brought us food and little presents. (The tan blob in Michael's hand is a bit of Silly Putty that they gave us :) We also had some great conversations which were a little reminiscent of last year's festival:
Sayaka: So are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?
Michael: Nope.
Sayaka: Then, you must be married!
Me: Nope, we're just friends. We work in the same office.
Sayaka: (rummaging through Michael's backpack) Well, when are you getting married, then?
Michael: eh.....we're not getting married.... (moves his backpack away from little prying hands)
Sayaka: Ah....then you must be brother and sister....
This is me and Kosaka-san, another guy from the softball team who helps to organize the festival.
And here are the softball guys again a little later on in the evening. They had been carrying the mikoshi around since 4 AM that morning so I think they were a little tired out by this point. Even so, when the festival ended at 10 PM, they insisted on loading me up with extra bottles of tea and walking me back to my apartment. Aren't they the greatest? More on the softball men the next time I get around to posting...
