22 September 2005
16 September 2005
The 文化祭 at my old 高校
なんか、ちょっと日本人の友達と話して、みんな｢ブログは英語ばかしやから読まれへん」って言っているからこれから毎回英語も日本語も書くことにする。下手やけどなんとか頑張るわ。
Hey, so it's been a little while since I've written. I'll chalk that up to being too busy for my own good, and to not having time to upload photos (currently #1 on the "How Can I Improve My Blog" poll). I promise I'll put up some pictures soon!
ちょっとお久しぶりですね。右のアンケートの一番皆が見たいって言っている物は写真なのに、最近忙しくて、写真をアップする時間がなかなか時間出来なくてさ。でももうすぐ載せる、約束する！
Last weekend was the culture festival at the high school where I used to teach. It was great. I haven't been there in a long time, and I only knew the 3rd year students, but it was so cool to be there. At these festivals, each class puts on some sort of production - usually the seniors do plays, and the other students do either performances like dances and taiko drumming, or they set up a room in the school to be a cafeteria, nail art salon, horror movie special effects studio, movie theater (showing a movie they made, of course), house of horrors, costume play photo studio, or anything else they can imagine. I wish we had such cool events back when I was in high school! By the way, this particular school always does an outstanding job with their school festivals (the cultural festival, the music festival, the athletic festival) - they are all pretty standard events, but I've taught at other schools and wasn't nearly as impressed. The scale of the projects, the quality of the work, and the passion these kids put into what they do is extraordinary.
先週末前の教えていた学校の文化祭に行った。チョー懐かしかった！なんか、今の三年生しか会った事ないけどそれでも、文化祭に行くのは懐かしかった。劇とかダンスとか和太鼓とかを見て、いつもちょっとうらやましい。アメリカの高校ではこう言う事見た事ない。しかも、特にこの高校は文化祭や音楽界や体育祭は毎年すごく頑張る！ほかの学校でも教えたことがあるけどぜんぜん違う、雰囲気が。この学校にめちゃあたまええ子いっぱいおるし、みんな毎日一生懸命夜遅くまで頑張るし！
I noticed one thing, though, and this wasn't just an artifact of this year's festival, but this year I particularly noticed it. I saw two plays and two dances, and all of them involved guys cross-dressing as girls (and sometimes vice versa too). I guess this was the first time I realized it was sort of a standard thing here. That must say something about Japanese culture, and the role that costume plays in defining identity or something, but that's the sort of thing that humanities majors write about so I don't think I can come up with anything too deep. I think it says something about the flip side of conservative Japanese society, and it also shows, I think, how much they lack the homophobic undercurrents here that flow through American culture.
そのとき、一つの気付いた事がありました。今年だけの事じゃなかったけどただ今週初めて気付いただけ。劇を二つ見て、ダンスも二つ見て、その中で女の服着ている男性やたまにその逆も多かった。そして思い出して、確かに毎年なんかおかまのことが多かった。それは、何か日本の文化の深いことかも知れへんけど、それは文系の人の書きそうな論文。理系だから深い結論はできないけどなんと言うか、日本の控え目な文化の裏側の一部だし、比べるとアメリカの文化の方の同性愛をの嫌われている事をはっきり分かるって感じ。
It was great to see my old students and coworkers again. A number of alums were there, too, who had been students back when I first started teaching. It was great to catch up with them, although it also made me realize that I really need to keep studying Japanese - there was like a 20-minute stretch of conversation about politics that I couldn't follow at all!
I actually started Japanese class this Tuesday, so hopefully I'll be able to work up to that point. Anyway, like I said, I'll post pics soon. Right now I'm busy getting ready for our big camping trip this weekend!
元生徒と元同僚に久しぶりに会ってよかった。卒業生も数人いたし、最初に日本に来た時からの友達もいました。いろいろ話してすごく楽しかったけど、やっぱり20分ぐらいの政治的な会話をまったく理解できへんかった。勉強がんばる！
実は、火曜日日本語の授業が始まったからそのレベルまで上がれるかも。わかんないけど頑張る。兎に角、もちょっとしてからまたブログにいろいろ写真貼ると思いますから楽しみにしていて。今は今週末のキャンプの準備しているからその後でまた何か書くね！
Hey, so it's been a little while since I've written. I'll chalk that up to being too busy for my own good, and to not having time to upload photos (currently #1 on the "How Can I Improve My Blog" poll). I promise I'll put up some pictures soon!
ちょっとお久しぶりですね。右のアンケートの一番皆が見たいって言っている物は写真なのに、最近忙しくて、写真をアップする時間がなかなか時間出来なくてさ。でももうすぐ載せる、約束する！
Last weekend was the culture festival at the high school where I used to teach. It was great. I haven't been there in a long time, and I only knew the 3rd year students, but it was so cool to be there. At these festivals, each class puts on some sort of production - usually the seniors do plays, and the other students do either performances like dances and taiko drumming, or they set up a room in the school to be a cafeteria, nail art salon, horror movie special effects studio, movie theater (showing a movie they made, of course), house of horrors, costume play photo studio, or anything else they can imagine. I wish we had such cool events back when I was in high school! By the way, this particular school always does an outstanding job with their school festivals (the cultural festival, the music festival, the athletic festival) - they are all pretty standard events, but I've taught at other schools and wasn't nearly as impressed. The scale of the projects, the quality of the work, and the passion these kids put into what they do is extraordinary.
先週末前の教えていた学校の文化祭に行った。チョー懐かしかった！なんか、今の三年生しか会った事ないけどそれでも、文化祭に行くのは懐かしかった。劇とかダンスとか和太鼓とかを見て、いつもちょっとうらやましい。アメリカの高校ではこう言う事見た事ない。しかも、特にこの高校は文化祭や音楽界や体育祭は毎年すごく頑張る！ほかの学校でも教えたことがあるけどぜんぜん違う、雰囲気が。この学校にめちゃあたまええ子いっぱいおるし、みんな毎日一生懸命夜遅くまで頑張るし！
I noticed one thing, though, and this wasn't just an artifact of this year's festival, but this year I particularly noticed it. I saw two plays and two dances, and all of them involved guys cross-dressing as girls (and sometimes vice versa too). I guess this was the first time I realized it was sort of a standard thing here. That must say something about Japanese culture, and the role that costume plays in defining identity or something, but that's the sort of thing that humanities majors write about so I don't think I can come up with anything too deep. I think it says something about the flip side of conservative Japanese society, and it also shows, I think, how much they lack the homophobic undercurrents here that flow through American culture.
そのとき、一つの気付いた事がありました。今年だけの事じゃなかったけどただ今週初めて気付いただけ。劇を二つ見て、ダンスも二つ見て、その中で女の服着ている男性やたまにその逆も多かった。そして思い出して、確かに毎年なんかおかまのことが多かった。それは、何か日本の文化の深いことかも知れへんけど、それは文系の人の書きそうな論文。理系だから深い結論はできないけどなんと言うか、日本の控え目な文化の裏側の一部だし、比べるとアメリカの文化の方の同性愛をの嫌われている事をはっきり分かるって感じ。
It was great to see my old students and coworkers again. A number of alums were there, too, who had been students back when I first started teaching. It was great to catch up with them, although it also made me realize that I really need to keep studying Japanese - there was like a 20-minute stretch of conversation about politics that I couldn't follow at all!
I actually started Japanese class this Tuesday, so hopefully I'll be able to work up to that point. Anyway, like I said, I'll post pics soon. Right now I'm busy getting ready for our big camping trip this weekend!
元生徒と元同僚に久しぶりに会ってよかった。卒業生も数人いたし、最初に日本に来た時からの友達もいました。いろいろ話してすごく楽しかったけど、やっぱり20分ぐらいの政治的な会話をまったく理解できへんかった。勉強がんばる！
実は、火曜日日本語の授業が始まったからそのレベルまで上がれるかも。わかんないけど頑張る。兎に角、もちょっとしてからまたブログにいろいろ写真貼ると思いますから楽しみにしていて。今は今週末のキャンプの準備しているからその後でまた何か書くね！
12 September 2005
Breaking up is hard to do...
これをブログに書くかどうか最初は悩んでいたけどやっぱり自分の人生の大きい事だし、みんなにどせい知らせなきゃならないし。日本語がうまくないけど言いたい事は、先週すみちゃんとお別れでした。三年半一緒に過ごしてたので、別れたくても別れたくなくてもつらい事です。あまり言えることはないと思う。楽しい事たくさんあったし、大変な事もあったし。思い出を山盛り一緒に作りました。アルバムにも写真いっぱい。
真ん中の文節は英語で読んで下さい。難しくて翻訳しない。
つまり、寂しがる。っていうか、寂しがっている。ほんまに。しかもすみちゃんには今別れの事意外にも色んな大変な事があるから特に今は友達からのサポートがとっても大事。（もう、まったくうまく日本語かけへんな。こんなに真面目な事ならもっとスムーズな言い方で言いたい！）しかし、僕の方は、まぁ、最初の数週間大変やと思うけど取り合えず一歩一歩で人生を進めるように。恰もよし、ここでサポートしてくれるいい友達も出来たし。
たまに人生に荒波がありますが、そのとき必死になって船具を持って、風波を通るまでに歯を食いしばる事しかない。
So, I wasn't sure whether to put this in my blog or not, but it's a pretty major event in my life, and I'll have to tell everybody sooner or later. For those who don't know yet, Sumiko and I broke up last week, after 3 1/2 years together. I don't know if there's much to say. We had some great times together, we had some difficult times together. Lots of memories, lots of photos in the album.
All the parties we had at her place in Tsuruhashi, potluck smorgasbords served on cardboard boxes in her tatami room; fancy romantic dinners overlooking the city lights; not-so-romantic cheap ramen dinners when we just couldn't agree on where to eat before all the restaurants closed; exciting adventures seeking out ancient temples and castles; badly-planned adventures that ended in confusion and tears; all the a cappella concerts and nights of karaoke; all the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars movies we had to go out to the countryside to see because they were sold out in Osaka; frozen toes in the cold of winter and dripping sweat in the heat of summer; the countless cups of green tea at her little kitchen table, and the countless games of go on my little coffee table; the Chinatown bus; the trips up to Camp Bob. That just barely scratches the surface.
I will miss her a lot. I already do. Any of you who know her, she's going through a lot at the moment (not just our breakup) and I know she could really use your support and friendship right now. As for me, well... the first few weeks will be pretty rough, but I'm doing my best to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I've been fortunate to make some great friends here who are really supportive.
Sometimes you have to cross some tumultuous seas in life, and you've just gotta grab onto the rigging, hold on with your teeth, and sail on through it.
真ん中の文節は英語で読んで下さい。難しくて翻訳しない。
つまり、寂しがる。っていうか、寂しがっている。ほんまに。しかもすみちゃんには今別れの事意外にも色んな大変な事があるから特に今は友達からのサポートがとっても大事。（もう、まったくうまく日本語かけへんな。こんなに真面目な事ならもっとスムーズな言い方で言いたい！）しかし、僕の方は、まぁ、最初の数週間大変やと思うけど取り合えず一歩一歩で人生を進めるように。恰もよし、ここでサポートしてくれるいい友達も出来たし。
たまに人生に荒波がありますが、そのとき必死になって船具を持って、風波を通るまでに歯を食いしばる事しかない。
So, I wasn't sure whether to put this in my blog or not, but it's a pretty major event in my life, and I'll have to tell everybody sooner or later. For those who don't know yet, Sumiko and I broke up last week, after 3 1/2 years together. I don't know if there's much to say. We had some great times together, we had some difficult times together. Lots of memories, lots of photos in the album.
All the parties we had at her place in Tsuruhashi, potluck smorgasbords served on cardboard boxes in her tatami room; fancy romantic dinners overlooking the city lights; not-so-romantic cheap ramen dinners when we just couldn't agree on where to eat before all the restaurants closed; exciting adventures seeking out ancient temples and castles; badly-planned adventures that ended in confusion and tears; all the a cappella concerts and nights of karaoke; all the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars movies we had to go out to the countryside to see because they were sold out in Osaka; frozen toes in the cold of winter and dripping sweat in the heat of summer; the countless cups of green tea at her little kitchen table, and the countless games of go on my little coffee table; the Chinatown bus; the trips up to Camp Bob. That just barely scratches the surface.
I will miss her a lot. I already do. Any of you who know her, she's going through a lot at the moment (not just our breakup) and I know she could really use your support and friendship right now. As for me, well... the first few weeks will be pretty rough, but I'm doing my best to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I've been fortunate to make some great friends here who are really supportive.
Sometimes you have to cross some tumultuous seas in life, and you've just gotta grab onto the rigging, hold on with your teeth, and sail on through it.
08 September 2005
Typhoon 14
So for the second time since I got here this summer, a typhoon hit Japan. Once again, corporate emails trickled down from the top, announcing that tomorrow might be a "special holiday" if public transportation were shut down. Once again, plans were rescheduled. Hatches were battened down. My long-awaited first Japanese class was canceled. We clenched our fists and gritted our teeth and cowered in the corners of our waribashi houses, fearing the worst...
and ...
...
nothing. No wind, just a little rain. One of my friends down in eki-nishi claims that the wind blew a flowerpot off her windowsill, but up where I live the air was still and the crickets were singing. Just like the last typhoon, it was a bit disappointing after all the build-up.
But although it was a bit of a let-down, we were fortunate that it didn't come our way. Reading the news (and friends' emails) later, it sounds like Kyushu and western Japan got hit pretty hard - 40 inches of rain, 110,000 evacuated, 9 people dead, flooding, landslides, homes destroyed - but the storm veered away to the north after that. By the way, it's interesting - CNN.com keeps referring to it as Typhoon Nabi, but the Japanese don't name their typhoons. They give them numbers (then again, they give people numbers here too), so this was Typhoon 14. Nabi is the Korean name.
The sunset last night was incredible, though, and I think we owe it to the typhoon's atmospheric churning. A jumble of every sort of cloud imaginable - long, narrow, heavy, low cumulus clouds shorn apart by crosswinds, tiny puffy white clouds scudding along under big, lumpy stratocumulus sheets of grey... and as I left work, the setting sun lit it all up, like a spotlight stabbing through the dark to light up a stage! The sky exploded into a psychedelic light show, ragged, twisting snarls of clouds bathed in gold and red, the sky behind them radiant in every color of the spectrum! Higher up, two clouds parted to reveal a sliver of a crescent moon, escorted by two brilliant pinpoint stars. But the most surreal part was the eastern half of the sky, which was taken up by huge, looming, low-hanging clouds lit up with a rich glowing orange, casting the world below in an unnatural light, an eerie twist on the familiar, like wearing ski goggles in summer.
I scrambled home to grab my camera, but by the time it was in my hand, the colors had all dripped down and settled in a deep pool on the horizon. In futility I snapped a few pictures of the place where the sunset had been, but it had somehow lost its magic, like an apartment the day after a party, with its piles of half-empty plastic cups, crushed nachos, and sticky pools of unidentifiable crud on the floor.
and ...
...
nothing. No wind, just a little rain. One of my friends down in eki-nishi claims that the wind blew a flowerpot off her windowsill, but up where I live the air was still and the crickets were singing. Just like the last typhoon, it was a bit disappointing after all the build-up.
But although it was a bit of a let-down, we were fortunate that it didn't come our way. Reading the news (and friends' emails) later, it sounds like Kyushu and western Japan got hit pretty hard - 40 inches of rain, 110,000 evacuated, 9 people dead, flooding, landslides, homes destroyed - but the storm veered away to the north after that. By the way, it's interesting - CNN.com keeps referring to it as Typhoon Nabi, but the Japanese don't name their typhoons. They give them numbers (then again, they give people numbers here too), so this was Typhoon 14. Nabi is the Korean name.
The sunset last night was incredible, though, and I think we owe it to the typhoon's atmospheric churning. A jumble of every sort of cloud imaginable - long, narrow, heavy, low cumulus clouds shorn apart by crosswinds, tiny puffy white clouds scudding along under big, lumpy stratocumulus sheets of grey... and as I left work, the setting sun lit it all up, like a spotlight stabbing through the dark to light up a stage! The sky exploded into a psychedelic light show, ragged, twisting snarls of clouds bathed in gold and red, the sky behind them radiant in every color of the spectrum! Higher up, two clouds parted to reveal a sliver of a crescent moon, escorted by two brilliant pinpoint stars. But the most surreal part was the eastern half of the sky, which was taken up by huge, looming, low-hanging clouds lit up with a rich glowing orange, casting the world below in an unnatural light, an eerie twist on the familiar, like wearing ski goggles in summer.
I scrambled home to grab my camera, but by the time it was in my hand, the colors had all dripped down and settled in a deep pool on the horizon. In futility I snapped a few pictures of the place where the sunset had been, but it had somehow lost its magic, like an apartment the day after a party, with its piles of half-empty plastic cups, crushed nachos, and sticky pools of unidentifiable crud on the floor.
05 September 2005
The 関ジャニ∞ Boy Band Experience!
So as fate would have it, a friend of mine managed to get free tickets to see Kan-Jani-8 (Kan-Johnny-8?) in Osaka yesterday! I'd never heard of the group before, but they're apparently a pretty well-known 8-member teenage-heartthrob manufactured boy band. My friend Kern is quite knowledgeable about these things, and I learned a lot about this industry from him.
First, there are apparently two huge "talent" agencies that mass-produce these manufactured bands - one does only girls (Tsunku's operation, with Morning Musume, Aya Matsuura, Melon Kinenbi, etc.) and the other does only boys (I think it's called "Johnny's", and they produce bands like Arashi, SMAP, Kinki Kids, and this one).
So apparently their audition criteria when recruiting members for these bands is as follows: (1) Height, (2) Looks, (3) Coordination (dancing ability). Note that "singing" is not one of these criteria. Apparently singing is considered to be a "nice bonus", but since almost every song these guys do is sung completely in unison, it's no problem to discreetly fade out a mic or two.
The show was an interesting production - it had a bon-odori (summer festival dancing) theme, and the stage in the center of Osaka-jo hall was decorated with paper lanterns and surrounded by a crowd of probably 500 girls dressed in colorful yukata. The crowd was an interesting mix, too. Out of probably 10,000 people in the audience, I believe there were exactly 2 guys, Kern and me, surrounded by a sea of starry-eyed screaming girls with a median age of about 15, carrying their homemade uchiwa (Japanese fans) covered with glitter and declaring, in brilliant neon colors, their love for band member X or asking him to blow them a kiss.
So we were sitting there, waiting for the show to start, and suddenly a chorus of high-pitched screams came reeling through the crowd, building in volume like a jet engine warming up for takeoff! The hysteric fervor around us was reminiscent of Beatles or Elvis concerts, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see some girl pass out next to me. Assuming the band had come in, I looked around but couldn't find them... Then I saw what the screaming was about - On a video screen in the corner of the arena, they were showing a ramen commercial starring some of the members of the group... This much reaction for a ramen commercial? I shuddered to think of what might be coming next.
Then the lights went out. Across the arena, little colored lights came on, as all the girls broke out their electric glowsticks. The thousands of little colored lights were really quite beautiful, like looking at a Christmas tree from the inside. Anyway, soon the inevitable came. The music came on, spotlights stabbed through the dark, highlighting the band members standing in the crowd around the stadium, and the girls erupted into a frantic cheer that, well... I'd imagine that if a fleet of alien spacecraft had just energized demolition beams to tear apart the Earth, it would sound something like that.
So they sang a couple songs, and then the show settled into a pattern that seemed like a TV program. There was a girl acting as MC, asking questions to the different band members, and then they had several groups come up to do different dances. At first, they had all the yukata girls on the floor walking around the stage doing an obon dance while some guy from Kawachi sang some traditional Japanese song for the occasion. The various dances for the evening were diagrammed out in our programs, so a lot of the people in the audience were following along. It was kind of interesting because the rhythm was based on 10, not a multiple of 4.
After that, there were six different dancing groups. Elementary school, junior high, and high school kids came on stage and did different kinds of dances while the guys in the band stood in the raised center of the stage behind them. Occasionally one of the guys would pout and a whole section of girls would scream until they went sterile. Sometimes the guys went down and danced with the little kids for a bit. Some of the dancing groups were a little -yawn- and some of them were pretty good. The last group was from Kyoto, and they were billed as the "best amateur dancing group in Japan" - The Kan-jani-8 guys left the stage when they came on, and they put on quite a show - huge musclebound guys waving enormous billowing flags covered with Chinese characters, scantily-clad girls dancing in outfits that defied categorization - sort of a cowgirl thing meets 80's fashion but with Chinese-looking embroidered silk dragon capes. The music was reminiscent of a Dream Theater rock ballad, and the singer had this awesome grinding voice that sounded like he was born to be in a heavy metal band. It was great - halfway through, he announced that he actually teaches third grade at an elementary school!
That group is called "Kansai Kyoto Imamuragumi". Here's a pic from their website (the URL on the picture is the group's blog)
That group was really good, but it was actually the act before them that stuck in my mind. After all these high school kids dancing around on stage with their hip-hop moves and whatnot, this group of mostly older women (hard to tell - upper 40's / 50's? It's "oba-chan" in Japanese.) and a few older men came on stage. Before the show had started there had been a group of older women on stage in kimono, doing a traditional obon dance, and I was expecting something similar, but then the electric guitars kicked in... The song went something like "Osaka no obachan, rock! rock!" and indeed, they were gettin' down! It was sooo awesome to see these old ladies (and guys) shakin their thing and putting the youngsters in their place! めちゃ感動した！
So finally the band came on - not too much to say about that, it was about what you'd expect. Kinda funny, though, there were some guys who sang most of the time, and there were a couple guys who hardly ever sang. One of them only chimed in when they needed a blood-curdling "Yeah!!!" It was entertaining to watch. For one song, there were all these complicated hand motions that the guys were doing, and as I looked around, I realized that the backdrop of glowsticks around the arena was whirling and pulsating to the dance, in exact unison! さすが日本と思った！
Anyway, I had never thought I'd go to a show like this, and it was definitely a unique experience. :)
First, there are apparently two huge "talent" agencies that mass-produce these manufactured bands - one does only girls (Tsunku's operation, with Morning Musume, Aya Matsuura, Melon Kinenbi, etc.) and the other does only boys (I think it's called "Johnny's", and they produce bands like Arashi, SMAP, Kinki Kids, and this one).
So apparently their audition criteria when recruiting members for these bands is as follows: (1) Height, (2) Looks, (3) Coordination (dancing ability). Note that "singing" is not one of these criteria. Apparently singing is considered to be a "nice bonus", but since almost every song these guys do is sung completely in unison, it's no problem to discreetly fade out a mic or two.
The show was an interesting production - it had a bon-odori (summer festival dancing) theme, and the stage in the center of Osaka-jo hall was decorated with paper lanterns and surrounded by a crowd of probably 500 girls dressed in colorful yukata. The crowd was an interesting mix, too. Out of probably 10,000 people in the audience, I believe there were exactly 2 guys, Kern and me, surrounded by a sea of starry-eyed screaming girls with a median age of about 15, carrying their homemade uchiwa (Japanese fans) covered with glitter and declaring, in brilliant neon colors, their love for band member X or asking him to blow them a kiss.
So we were sitting there, waiting for the show to start, and suddenly a chorus of high-pitched screams came reeling through the crowd, building in volume like a jet engine warming up for takeoff! The hysteric fervor around us was reminiscent of Beatles or Elvis concerts, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see some girl pass out next to me. Assuming the band had come in, I looked around but couldn't find them... Then I saw what the screaming was about - On a video screen in the corner of the arena, they were showing a ramen commercial starring some of the members of the group... This much reaction for a ramen commercial? I shuddered to think of what might be coming next.
Then the lights went out. Across the arena, little colored lights came on, as all the girls broke out their electric glowsticks. The thousands of little colored lights were really quite beautiful, like looking at a Christmas tree from the inside. Anyway, soon the inevitable came. The music came on, spotlights stabbed through the dark, highlighting the band members standing in the crowd around the stadium, and the girls erupted into a frantic cheer that, well... I'd imagine that if a fleet of alien spacecraft had just energized demolition beams to tear apart the Earth, it would sound something like that.
So they sang a couple songs, and then the show settled into a pattern that seemed like a TV program. There was a girl acting as MC, asking questions to the different band members, and then they had several groups come up to do different dances. At first, they had all the yukata girls on the floor walking around the stage doing an obon dance while some guy from Kawachi sang some traditional Japanese song for the occasion. The various dances for the evening were diagrammed out in our programs, so a lot of the people in the audience were following along. It was kind of interesting because the rhythm was based on 10, not a multiple of 4.
After that, there were six different dancing groups. Elementary school, junior high, and high school kids came on stage and did different kinds of dances while the guys in the band stood in the raised center of the stage behind them. Occasionally one of the guys would pout and a whole section of girls would scream until they went sterile. Sometimes the guys went down and danced with the little kids for a bit. Some of the dancing groups were a little -yawn- and some of them were pretty good. The last group was from Kyoto, and they were billed as the "best amateur dancing group in Japan" - The Kan-jani-8 guys left the stage when they came on, and they put on quite a show - huge musclebound guys waving enormous billowing flags covered with Chinese characters, scantily-clad girls dancing in outfits that defied categorization - sort of a cowgirl thing meets 80's fashion but with Chinese-looking embroidered silk dragon capes. The music was reminiscent of a Dream Theater rock ballad, and the singer had this awesome grinding voice that sounded like he was born to be in a heavy metal band. It was great - halfway through, he announced that he actually teaches third grade at an elementary school!
That group is called "Kansai Kyoto Imamuragumi". Here's a pic from their website (the URL on the picture is the group's blog)
That group was really good, but it was actually the act before them that stuck in my mind. After all these high school kids dancing around on stage with their hip-hop moves and whatnot, this group of mostly older women (hard to tell - upper 40's / 50's? It's "oba-chan" in Japanese.) and a few older men came on stage. Before the show had started there had been a group of older women on stage in kimono, doing a traditional obon dance, and I was expecting something similar, but then the electric guitars kicked in... The song went something like "Osaka no obachan, rock! rock!" and indeed, they were gettin' down! It was sooo awesome to see these old ladies (and guys) shakin their thing and putting the youngsters in their place! めちゃ感動した！
So finally the band came on - not too much to say about that, it was about what you'd expect. Kinda funny, though, there were some guys who sang most of the time, and there were a couple guys who hardly ever sang. One of them only chimed in when they needed a blood-curdling "Yeah!!!" It was entertaining to watch. For one song, there were all these complicated hand motions that the guys were doing, and as I looked around, I realized that the backdrop of glowsticks around the arena was whirling and pulsating to the dance, in exact unison! さすが日本と思った！
Anyway, I had never thought I'd go to a show like this, and it was definitely a unique experience. :)
02 September 2005
Farewell to the colors of summer
the stale, hot wind of a late summer's eve
cuts off the song of the crickets and cicadas
colorful memories
the vivid reds and blues, yukata bijin
crowding to the bridge
keitais in hand, reaching through the crush of the crowd
capturing the moment, the brilliant flower-fire, yellow and violet
the orange sun
burns through the evening clouds
orange cones
marking the endzones
the thrum of the taiko, the dancing of obon, the frisbees wheeling through the sky
footprints in the earth tell the story
footprints melting away in the september rain
cuts off the song of the crickets and cicadas
colorful memories
the vivid reds and blues, yukata bijin
crowding to the bridge
keitais in hand, reaching through the crush of the crowd
capturing the moment, the brilliant flower-fire, yellow and violet
the orange sun
burns through the evening clouds
orange cones
marking the endzones
the thrum of the taiko, the dancing of obon, the frisbees wheeling through the sky
footprints in the earth tell the story
footprints melting away in the september rain
01 September 2005
Half a world away from Katrina
And so, just as I had been talking about the thin veil of civilization... wow. It's sobering to realize how one rush of wind and water can overturn the foundation of the world for thousands of families. Following the hurricane disaster news from here evokes the same emotions that I felt while following the 9/11 news from my old high school in Japan four years ago. The same sort of detached disbelief and struggle to gauge the sheer size of the event compared with, say, the big earthquakes a few years back in India or Iran, or with the war in Iraq, or the 1918 flu epidemic that killed 20 million people. All of these things are on such a huge scale compared with most of the things I think about in my daily life - do I need to buy bread tonight, do I have my train card with me, where did I put my watch, which shirt should I wear today? And then something like this blows away my sense of scale. It's kind of an irrational feeling, but I feel like I should be home taking care of my country or something. Not that I would be involved in the relief effort if I were back in the States (although a part of me has always wanted to do that sort of work). It's just a sort of general feeling of irresponsibility - what am I doing enjoying myself in Japan when something like this is going on back in the US?
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