Believe it or not, it’s been over two months this time. Summer is over and the second rainy season of the year has arrived. This one isn’t as gentle as the first and is aptly called typhoon season. We had one the other day and it was quite an experience. There were about 30 in the year I was here last time and none were more than what I would call a big wind. You know the kind – they really annoy you when you’re trying to ride your bike up a hill and the wind is against you. Nothing particularly special, though school was called off for some of them. Being on the 17th floor gives you a whole new perspective though.
At 11am, an email had gone round telling us to be ready to leave quickly. At 1pm, everyone was moaning in frustration as the P/A system advised us to stay in the building until it all blew over by 7 or 8pm. At about 3pm it finally hit and people would walk past my desk holding their stomachs, determined not to look at the water in my filter jug sloshing about as the building swayed. Outside, the rain was leaving horizontal streaks on the window and was so heavy that we couldn’t see the ground clearly. I was tempted to go up to the 28th floor for a cheap roller coaster ride, but I had too much work to do. It had blown itself out by 5pm and the trains started running again. Very exciting!!
So, what have I been up to? Well, I still can’t say I’ve really experienced culture shock, but over the last couple of months, I’ve come to understand the real meaning of home sickness. I miss the spacious apartments of Sydney. I miss being able to go for a ride through the park on the way to work every day. I miss going rock climbing, to live bands, and to cheap movies on Tuesday night, but most of all, I miss the people. I miss being able to drop in to a friend’s place, and having friends drop in. I miss being around people who are interested in rock climbing or live music. I miss stopping off for a chat with people in the office and going to the pub or out on the weekend with them. I miss my family. I miss you all.
When I was here last, gaijin (foreigners) were a novelty and I got a lot more attention than I’d usually like. This time, everyone at work speaks to gaijin 20 times each day and I’m just another bloody one. Everyone goes home to their families at the end of the day and are not really interested in doing anything active. I’d been hoping to keep away from the other gaijin and join the locals as much as possible, but it’s not enough. That’s not to say I regret coming. I’m just going to have to drop my prejudices and spend more time with gaijin. And maybe head back to Oz for a visit sooner than I was originally planning.
Well, that’s enough griping. I can’t complain too much. After all, my promotion was announced in front of the CIO, the global head of our department, along with a raving review of my last project. On to more exciting things. On to the events of summer – the time of festivals!!!!
Japanese festivals are like Australian festivals in many ways. There are food stalls, junk stalls, music, parades… They also have their own definite tint. People wear kimonos or yuukatas (summer kimonos). The food is usually okonomiyaki or yakisoba, the greasiest food you’ll find around, but still typically Japanese. The dancing is Japanese style, the music is Japanese, and the parades are full of Japanese people. The odd gaijin, or groups of gaijin only make it more typically Japanese as the crowd stare harder.
The first festival I caught this year was Kobe Matsuri (lit. Kobe Festival)
KOBE MATSURI
Who’d have thought that after having a sister with Down Syndrome all my life that I’d underestimate them so thoroughly? I saw my first Japanese Down Syndrome kid on the liner on the way to work. I could tell he was Downs because his eyes didn’t look right and he was singing in public. Um.. that description could easily fit JP when he’s drunk, but you know what I mean. I was quite shocked to hear how fluent his Japanese was. I mean, I’ve studied for 10 years and this guy was twice as good as me. I don’t know why it took me a couple of minutes to realise (through my envy) that he had to be that fluent because it was the only language he knew. My sister speaks English that well, so why shouldn’t he speak Japanese. Very embarrassing. I’m glad no one around was able to read my thoughts.
I’ve seen many since, but none so inspiring as in the parade of the Kobe festival yesterday. It was a public holiday for ‘Ocean Day’ and Kobe, being a port city was going all out to celebrate the ocean. They put on a festival, a series of shows in an amphitheatre and a 4 hour parade. I sat in the amphitheatre for over an hour watching a variety of cultural demonstrations from dancing to comedy to TAIKO. I love taiko and this was enough to make me want to join a group and learn to play myself. These people dance with their drums and put more energy into it than any gymnast at the olympics. I never saw ‘Stomp’ to compare so this is the only real drumming ‘performance’ I’ve seen and I can’t get enough.
When finally I made it over to the parade, I was lucky enough to see it just starting. For one and a half hours I watched school after school go by with lots of little kids banging their drums, playing their keyboards, blowing their trumpets, spinning their batons as hard as they could. And unlike a similar parade in Australia, even the youngest – about 4? – were doing it with some talent and were even quiet between songs. Then I saw a group of Downs kids all playing taiko drums. The rhythms were complex but they didn’t miss a beat. They did it while being carried along on a bumpy truck, and they were dancing around the drums just like the professionals. That was a group I’d be proud to be a member of. But I bet they wouldn’t accept someone as uncoordinated as me.
The only group to top that before I went home for a rest was the youngest group I saw. There were about 6 of them riding a chariot, with a bunch standing around the sides pretending they were carrying it on their shoulders. Another 20 were out the front hanging on to the yokes and dragging it along. All were dressed in kimonos and were looking very serious about their important task.
On the way home I picked up the curtains that had finally arrived. I now have an air conditioner and curtains. The place is much more bearable. Next week I get my stereo cabinet and then I’ll definitely be home. (can you tell I actually wrote this section a couple of months ago?)
In need of dinner, I decided to go back to the festival to get something greasy. The parade was running late so I had about an hour before the final act. Until then all the ‘samba’ clubs were on. I was treated to the sight of 1000 scantily clad women all shaking themselves at me as they went past. An hour very well spent.
The highlight of the day was definitely the final act – the flying spheres. I’d seen them practising at lunch time, but it was nothing to what came now. Four large balloons each carrying a dancer suspended by a waist harness, and held down by 3 muscly guys. They had come out from somewhere in South America for the event and both the Spanish and Japanese were a little beyond me so I don’t know what the dance represented, but the grace of it was enough to satisfy me. The balloons were painted in bright colours with very realistic faces. The dancers were dressed in a single bright colour each and were suspended at their centre of mass so that they could spin or balance with perfect grace. Spotlights lit them so that they filled the sky as they spun, dived, stretched, curled, rose and just flew. Up to about 100 feet high, they floated in zero gravity demonstrating total freedom. I can’t give the sight any justice. I was mesmerised for half an hour. Going home after that was a real drag, but I’d just got my stereo so I couldn’t complain.
FIREWORKS
Not long after (actually, it might have been before – it’s been so long) I went to see some fireworks down at harbourland, the Darling Harbour of Kobe. I always remember Japanese firework displays as putting the Sydney Harbour New Year’s Eve display to shame. The whole hour is as good as the climax in Sydney. This set was still worth seeing, but the same couldn’t be said. Sydney won that round. The problem was that there was no wind so the huge quantity of fireworks created a cloud of smoke that obscured themselves. To address this, they would stop every 5 minutes to let the smoke slowly drift away before letting off a new round. This meant that everyone got distracted in the breaks and missed the first few in each bunch. Then the last set was no more impressive than the previous groups so everyone was still sitting round waiting for 10 more minutes after the show was over. I heard of a few more displays that had up to 20,000 crackers per hour, but I didn’t make it to any of them. Next year.
BON
The next major festival I went to was for the Bon holiday. I’m not exactly sure what this holiday celebrates, but it is the major summer holiday in Japan that sees most companies shut down for a week. The key distinction between this festival and others is the Bon-odori (Bon dance) which is the Japanese equivalent of the ‘bus stop’. There are actually a few different dances, so I guess they cover the ‘nutbush’ and the ‘marcarana’ as well.
A couple of us went down to the harbour to get into the festival and join in the dancing. Unfortunately, through a series of errors, we missed out on joining in, but watching was fun. Those people (only gaijin allowed) who took the right turnoff (one we mistook for the organiser’s entrance) got into a competition where they paired off with Japanese experts and were judged as they were being taught the steps. Best of all, they got to keep the yukata (summer kimono) they wore in the comp.
We missed entering the comp, but that gave us more time to enjoy the taiko. This style of drumming really gets to me. I used to think that the natural music talent of Japanese people compared with caucasians the way caucasians compared with negros. Listening to the warbling enka (sounds like a fish trying to imitate a bird) or pop music gives you this impression, but taiko is entirely different.
LIVE MUSIC
I also had to admit that my bias is outdated when I went to see Murakami-san’s (girl in my department) younger brother play in a band. They played very well, well enough for me to buy the CD. They kept the audience entertained with stories between songs about competitions they’d entered, and songs they’d written when they were still at school. Most of it went over my head, but the laughter was infectious. The most surprising thing about this Friday evening concert was that it was all over at 9pm. Australian support bands don’t start until 10pm.
HIKING
I’ve also spent some time in the mountains, which I’ve found start about 10 minutes walk from my house and very quickly cut off the surrounding city. I’ll write more and send more photos about hiking some other time.
THE GAME
Lastly, a Japanese summer isn’t complete without a trip to the baseball. Jeremy, one of the guys from my team in Australia was out and couldn’t help but play with my camera. This shot doesn’t show the large group from work that defied tradition, leaving on time, ignoring their families and went out for a night on the town. This group was headed by the regional manager for IT who made more noise than anybody (but then, that’s what you expect of Americans) in cheering the home team on. The game was particularly exciting because even though we lost, and it was close, the winning team gained enough points to win the whole comp (don’t ask me how it works) which they hadn’t done in 38 years. This sounds common in Australia, but there are only 6 teams in this comp.
Anyway, I’ll get this off now because if I try and wordsmith it, it will only get delayed again which will make it longer.
Write or call when you can.