Naked Men Carrying Torches

are hot. Literally. Though I admit I exaggerate on the naked part. They were almost naked - a loin cloth and a little straw skirt short of naked to be exact. Whoever says that Japanese people are serious business men/women who wear dour business clothing and are workaholics has obviously never seen a Japanese matsuri. Let me just say: Japanese people can turn up the heat when it comes to parties.

Last week, I went with Max, his host dad and Meli to the Kurama Hi Matsuri. It was epic. First of all, I got to experience my first mannin densha, which basically means a train so crowded that even if you aren't holding on to anything, if the train is jolted you will barely move because you are wedged that tightly between one person's shoulder and another person's chest and the clear panes of the train door. Slightly uncomfortable to say the least.

At the actual festival, however, we were one of the lucky few who didn't have to join the herd of futsu *normal* people roped off into narrow sections beside the street; Max's host dad had connections with a family who lived there and so in addition to stuffing ourselves with sushi and soba beforehand at their house (which was on the actual street the procession passed by), we also got these special passes that let us walk wherever we wanted during the festival without being held back by the police. Which meant basically that we got to walk in the middle of the procession.

The Kurama Hi Matsuri is a fire festival and so there was fire EVERYWHERE. It was astounding that a wooden city like Kyoto which is so cautious when it comes to fire would actually have a festival like this. The festival starts at 6:00 when fires called kagaribi are ignited all at once in front of the houses, and the climax (or climakusu in Japanese) is around 9:30 when the mikoshi is carried down the mountain. For those of you who are wondering what a mikoshi is, it's basically little portable shrine for the god because, you know, its rather tough to spend all your days in a stuffy, dusty hall and it's nice to taste a little fresh air once in a while! Throughout the festival - here is where the almost-naked men come in - a procession filled with people holding large and small pine torches (taimatsu) winds up and down the mountain. The pine torches total more than 250 and the huge ones weigh more than 80 kg each. They are held on the shoulders of as many as four men at a time wearing nothing but loin cloths and chanting Saiye! Saiye! Saiyo! Saiyo! and sweating like crazy. Those who are lucky have someone trailing after them, dousing them with water and swiping the sparks from their skin.


Also in the procession were taiko drummers and people carrying these long poles with bells at the top that jangled with each footstep. We got to walk amongst the torch-bearing people and the bells and whatnot and there were several times where I could feel the heat of the torches come alarmingly close to my face. At times, however, the fire felt good as it's getting increasingly colder here in Kyoto, especially in the mountains where the festival was held. Smoke was everywhere, and there were moments when it was so thick that it made my eyes burn. By the end of the night our shoes were black from stepping on all the burnt black heaps where the torches fell. But other than that, the festival was pretty great. At the festival's climakusu as we watched the mikoshi descend through a conflagration of torches cascading down the hillside, I found myself mesmerized by the cinders swirling in bright flecks across the dark, cloudless sky: the sweet scent of burning pine sap: the voices chanting saiye! saiyo! as the mikoshi swayed vigorously on a tight knot of bare shoulders: and the people-packed houses and shops on either side of the street channeling the the light into a bright lasso around the dark mass of the mountain...

Here's the Mikoshi!

Other news:

Last weekend AKP took us on a field trip to Obama - a small town which became famous with President Obama's election - where we visited a chopstick factory and made chopsticks! We also made washi - traditional handmade Japanese paper - at another place.

Basically to make washi you dip these mesh metal boxes into the bins pictured above. The bins are filled with goopy grey material (if you've ever had Chinese egg drop soup, it's kind of like that consistency) which you then swirl around in the mesh boxes until the water drains and the goopy stuff settles to the bottom. Then you decorate with flowers and sparkles and colors to your heart's delight and dry the goop and voila! You have washi.

Ready, set, go!

My Otoosan and I walked out of the house and into the morning sunlight tempered by the shadows of clouds and an autumnal breeze, sweet and refreshing. It was Sunday and the streets were busier than usual - for the weekend - and there was something different about the way people moved. They were all heading in the same direction, toting sports bags and bags with snacks and drinks, and instead of business suits and school uniforms the outfit of the day was was work-out clothes: sweat pants, tennis shoes, towels. It's not everyday Sunday that people bust out the work-out suit (although every Sunday so far it seems that I have for one reason or another - running with my Otoosan, playing bball) and that day was not just any day. In fact, it was a very special day that only comes once a year and sweeps up the neighborhoods with fervent excitement and it's called: undokai.

Now, there's nothing quite like an undokai in America, and the closest thing to an English translation would be "sports festival." In America we may gather together for a sports event - a pro game or a school game - or we may get together at someone's house to watch a game on television while enjoying good conversation and good food, but there's never a time where the WHOLE neighborhood gathers together and EVERYONE (toddlers and the elderly included) participates in a myriad of silly, serious, fun games in which you're competing against another maybe 10-15 other neighborhoods in an all day extravaganza.

In Japan undokais are a big thing. There are undokais for school, neighborhoods and companies, but since colleges (it's only elementary school to high school) usually don't do undokais and sinceI'm not part of a Japanese company, I only got to experience the wonders of the neighborhood undokai


The main event that I was signed up for was the 400 meter relay, but before that, I also did this game where you had to try to get as many balls as you can into a basket lofted into the air on a really tall pole. My Otoosan put me in it expecting that I would be good because I play basketball, but I think I might of gotten only one in. Despite my lack of finesse, however, we still won. =)


After that I did the relay, during which I realized about half way through I had not yet recovered from the weekend in Tokyo (we had just come back the night before and I was still tired/sore from walking around ), but we still got first place and advanced to the finals and got second place overall!

While the 400 meter relay is something one would expect to find at a sports festival, there were many other events that were quite a first for me. Examples:

punt-a-football-through-you-legs-and-run-around-cones relay


Grab-as-many-fruits/veggies-as-you-can-and-drag-them-over-wooden poles-on-a-platter-without-overturning-it relay

And my favorite:



who-can-grab-an-eel-the-fastest-and-put-it-in-a-bucket relay

Some other events that I did not see but heard about were: the bread eating relay, marshmallow eating relay (you have to stick your face into this trough of flour and grab a marshmallow and start running), and a relay where you roll around a huge ball, among many others.

Overall, my neighborhood Makura-cho came in 2nd place, which is farthest they've come in years! After the undokai we had dinner together in this outdoor lot a couple of houses away from my house and celebrated with sushi, this mochi-azuki soup, and other delicious foods and drinks (beer for the older people, calpico for the younger ones;)). It was an exhausting day, but fun nonetheless.

Other than the undokai, here are some other brief updates in my life:

Like I mentioned earlier, the Thursday-Saturday before the undokai was the AKP field trip to Yokohama, Kamakura and Tokyo. Here are some pics:

Daibutsu (Big Buddha) at Kamakura

Hachiman Shrine in Kamakura. Find of the day: An afro Buddha keychain at one of the nearby shops.

Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo

Asakusa, Tokyo - this is the street leading up to the temple. It was packed with people and there are stands selling food and trinkets lining the walkways. We bought these fish-shaped cakes with azuki bean inside (azuki = sweet red bean paste...sorry I hate using the
word "paste" because it sounds so unappetizing when in reality its super good, but I can't think of another word at the moment...I'll work on that)

And finally, this past weekend Kyoto hosted the Japan writer's conference (for English writers) which I got to attend as an intern at Kyoto Journal. It was great being able to attend such lectures on how to create characters through dialogue and how to go about writing children's books...and also we got to hear Vickas Swarap talk about his novel Q&A which was the basis for Slumdog Millionare!!

Bike Culture

So, I meant to put this post up on Wednesday, but then a typhoon struck and I lost the internet at my house and then I went to Tokyo with AKP for our fall field trip. But because it's late and so many things have happened since then and Wednesday, I'm just going to put up this post for now and then update it later with all the adventures of the weekend (Tokyo, Undokai, etc.)!

On Tuesday my bus pass expired, so Wednesday was the first day I rode to school on my bike! Unfortunately,Wednesday was also the first day of the big typhoon that swept from southern Japan up to Nagoya, so I was confronted with the quandry: to ride or not to ride, which was then decided for me when I realized that Wednesday was my early class and I had already missed 30 minutes of it. Ooops. But, fortunately it hadn`t started raining too hard by that time and so I hopped on my bike and zipped to school in a whopping ten minutes, a record that beats the bus by far.

Bike culture is big in Kyoto. And, unlike me, a little bit of rain won't deter the average biker here. Every day at Doshisha, rain or shine, the curbs are jam packed with bikes. Everyone rides bikes. Kids going to school, women in high heels and skirts, and business men in suits are all part of the endless stream of bikers that zoom down the sidewalks. And they`re fearless too! They dodge effortlessly around cars and poles and pedestrians (a skill which I have yet to develop) WHILE doing crazy things like texting on cell phones, smoking cigarettes, texting on cell phones AND smoking cigarrettes, and, on rainy days like Wednesday, holding umbrellas to shield them from the rain (a skill which I`m not even going to try to develop). Speaking of umbrellas, unlike the US where a clear umbrella is few and far between, the clear umbrella is ubiquitous in Japan. Every conbini (convenience store) sells them, and men and women alike (I don`t know how this came about since there are no clear umbrellas in the states, but to Americans clear umbrellas seem to be considered effeminate) tote the clear umbrella faithfully along with their backpacks and briefcases and bikes and whip them out at the slightest hint of rain. After witnessing this phenomenon of widespread clear umbrella use, however, we have since deduced that not only do they provide a lovely view of gray skies if you`re so inclined to look up, but they also allow people to see where they`re going if it`s held low over their eyes, which would be necessary for people biking through the rain. So it's practical and not only a fashion statement.

"But what if you lack the dexterity to ride a bike in the rain and hold an umbrella at the same time? Or what if you're just plain too scared?" You may be wondering. And the answer is: The Rain Suit. As I was walking the other day, a woman (or man?) decked out in a rain suit rode by me. It was dark blue and looked like it was covered in stars and moons. Like pajamas. Rain suit style.

So enough about bikes and rain and umbrellas. Back when it was sunny (the weekend before) I went to Nara with my Buddhist art class to visit at Horyuji and Yakushiji (which are both temples). Nara is a little over an hour away from Kyoto by train and is known for its swarms of deer. And its mascot is a man-baby with antlers on its head...I understand the antler part, but the man baby? Who knows. I didn't ask. While there, we didn't gt to see any deer (we weren't at the right temple), but we did see a lot of interesting art work and afterwards went to a 月見　-Tsukimi (literally, "moon viewing")!

In the US we have nothing similar to a tsukimi (at least as far as I know), which is basically a festival where you gather together and look at the moon. It happens every Autumn on the night that the harvest moon is at its fullest and many shrines and temples will have special activities going on. The tsukimi we went to was at a pond near Kofukuji shrine. There were brightly lit food booths around the perimeter selling things like french fries, beef-kabobs, okonomiyaki (this delicious pancake-like vegetable creation that has egg and meat), squid-kabobs, and fried chicken, and the air was permeated with the sweet smell of these mini sponge cakes that were popping off the griddles by the dozen. As the darkness fell, the red and white paper lanterns strung along the perimeter and bobbing in the little wooden boats on the pond grew brighter, and it was like we were in an old fairy tale or something. By the time the procession reached the lake (there was a procession that starts from the train station full of people who are dressed as the nobility of old), the area around the pond was packed with people. Then, when the two boats filled with the procession participants starting circling around the pond, the darkness beyond the lanterns flared with the bright lights of camera and cell phone flashes.

One boat was full of musicians, and the sound of the shakuhachi (Japanese flute) and koto (stringed instrument) with the occasional solemn drumbbeat sounded somberly across the water. There was also another instrument which I couldn't identify, but sounded kind of like a bagpipe, but was much slower and melancholy.

The funny thing about it was that the two boats circled twice and then that was pretty much it. Max and I were confused because we thought it would last much longer since people were already staking out their spots over two hours before hand. But no, the second time around with the boats and pictures flashed and then the crowds dispersed into the night. Like I said, there's nothing quite like this in the U.S...

Tsukimi photos courtesy of Max!

Boots, Dreams, and Karaoke

As the days go by the weeks seem to get busier and busier, though, thankfully, in a good way. Compared to Midd the schoolwork here is quite light and so we have plenty of opportunities to go out and have fun. This past weekend (which I realize was almost a week ago...I've slacked off, sorry!) Meli and I spent the whole day exploring Shijo and its multitude of shops. There are streets lined with shops and department stores that are filled with levels of more shops, and then there are these random little nooks that look like they're just one store, but once you go in it's as if you've been sucked into another world...of more shops!! And everything is SUPER CUTE. It was like a maze that never ended. The amount of consumption in Japan is incredible and there's something about those department stores that puts you in a daze so that before you know it it's been already almost 9 hours that you've been walking around and you've hardly eaten and you've tried on every boot in almost every store (our mission that day was boots, and I'm super glad we've succeeded because it's gotten really rainy lately!!) and your fingers are sore from pulling zippers! I think it's all the bright lights and colorful clothes and shiny floors that are so bewitching. Warning: If you're a girl and you want to save money, resist the Shijo shopping malls, especially OPA. Guys don't really have to worry, it seems as the shopping malls cater mostly to the women, and out of 7 floors there might be 1 dedicated to guys...

Though I think Japanese clothing is incredible, there's one thing I don't get: Japanese bras. We passed a store and they had these bras on display that were either heavily sequined, festooned with lace and/or encrusted with beads. BEADS. I mean, how are you supposed to wear something like that?

Anyway, on Sunday we went to Kobe, which is about an hour away from Kyoto, for this dream party that Adam's host mom threw. Apparently Kobe is up there with Tokyo for being one of the most "oshare" (fashionable) cities in Japan and before the party we got to tour the city a bit. Our first stop was China town where we stopped for lunch. It was really crowded and colorful and every single stall that we passed was heaped with steaming food like chasubaos (sp?) which are these white fluffy dumplings that have meat inside, gyoza, boba, and these fried something-or-others which looked absolutely terrible for your body but oh so good to eat!

Chinatown in Kobe (notice the boots! ;))

We also went to the harbor and saw where the Kobe earthquake happened and afterwards we went to this shopping center which sold Kobe sweets and trinkets. There Adam bought a chocolate wrench. We called it "the monkey" and ate it the next day.

Yum.

After getting a taste of Kobe sweets we went to this place where there are old-fashioned European buildings. Apparently, a long time ago some Europeans came to Kobe to work and built a little community and now you can take tours of the houses, which admittedly wasn't all that exciting to me (though the area was pretty and had cute houses and tiny stone streets), but I can see how a Japanese person who has never left Japan would find it interesting.

And finally, the party. It was at this gorgeous tea room called Ricardina Real Princess. There were chandeliers everywhere and even the patio was made out of marble floor so shiny you feel as if you can skate on it.


For the party we got this big room with a lot of couches and even a baby grand all to ourselves. There were fourteen people and we were the only foreigners/students there. Everyone else was a friend of Adam's parents. Before the party I have to admit I was a little apprehensive, because part of the requirement was that we had to give a little speech about our dreams in Japanese. But in the end, I'm really glad that I went. It was a lot of fun and not as nerve wracking as I thought it would be and I think it's great to have a kind of party like that - a party that makes you really reflect on what your goals are and to share those dreams with the others around you, making it a little bit more of a reality with each word you pronounce.


Yesterday (Thursday) was Meli's birthday and so we decided to go karaokiing! It was was a blast, and it was especially amusing to sing to Outkast and Black Eyed Peas while the video on the screen showed old footage (like imagine 70s style) of Santa Monica. I guess they need to update their music videos! Highlight: Adam and Max singing to Spice Girls.


I have a video, but I think they'd hate me if I posted it ;).