Hyottoko Matsuri

For those who were not aware, I decided to stay in Japan about 10 days after my contract ended.  There were several reasons for this: first, I knew I would need some time after work finished just to get my life in order and to wrap things up.  Secondly, I really wanted to stay for one last Hyottoko Matsuri.  Hyottoko Matsuri was the first festival I attended in Japan and it seemed only fitting that it was also the last.

The festival officially lasts three days, but with the bulk of events happening on the second day, the Saturday, of the festival.  I used the lower-key Friday part of the festival as an excuse to wear my yukata (summer kimono) for what I thought might be the last time.  Anna gave Tahirah and I a ride to the park where we met up with Cameron.  There was not much to do since it was the first night of the festival, but we did walk around.

The next morning was the main event.  Unfortunately, it was rainy and gloomy the whole day, but the show must go on.  We performed the one song in which I know the solo part, specifically so I could show off for my last show.  For the songs in which we wear the drums, the president kept telling me to get in the front, despite the fact that I very much did not want to.  Still, it was very sweet of him to try and make it a special last performance for me.

After the performance, the junior taiko team presented me with flowers and something called a shijiki board (or something close to that).  Basically, it’s a piece of white cardboard/cardstock stuff that people sign and write messages on.  The junior team members have barely spoken to me in three years, but it was really sweet that they all signed.  Most even tried to write their names in English.

I wandered the festival a bit with all of my friends who came to support me/ attend the festival.  After that, I took a break to go to the gym, before I headed back to explore the festival on my own.  It was a nice way for me to say goodbye.  I ran into members of the community who knew me and recognized me.  I also got a bunch of photos of the dancers.

The festival was a nice bookend to my life in Japan.  It helped me open and close that chapter of my life.

Hososhima Matsuri

In the midst of all the farewell partying, I snuck away to the Hososhima festival in the port area of Hyuga City whenever I could.  My friend, Panda (his actual last name and what most people call him) is friends with a lot of the people in that area.  He takes frequent walks in the area because it is a really pretty neighborhood and he ended up talking to the people he saw on his walks.  He was even invited to help build one of the portable shrines for the neighborhood festival, the Hososhima Matsuri.

I originally went to the festival to support him and I ended up volunteering with him.  We ended up doing a lot of different things, from helping set up chairs to sorting garbage to pouring beers.  He occasionally had official shrine-carrying duties to deal with, so I was sometimes on my own.  The strangest part of the whole event was being in a part of Hyuga where no one knew who I was.  I have worked hard to become a part of the community and as a result, a lot of people know me.  Sometimes they just know me as “that one foreigner who is in the taiko group who is probably a teacher,” but they still know me enough to say hello.

Over in the port area, no one knows me.  But they knew Panda, so I stuck with him whenever possible.

Panda and one of his friends

A few of my students in their festival gear

Panda helping with the handmade aquarium

Sorting trash

The second most interesting part of three-day festival was probably having sashimi and beer with a definitely yakuza  interesting group of men.  Chris and Anna were with me when we made friends with the men earlier.  The whole interaction was also a good reminder of how Japan treats foreigners who don’t look like stereotypical image of foreigners.  I, who has dark hair and eyes, was basically ignored while Anna, who has blonde hair, was a magnet for attention.  Whether or not she wanted it was not a factor.  I have been mistaken as a Japanese person by a few Japanese people, so I was fine in my role as semi-invisible.  It was actually pretty funny when Anna was struggling to understand what some of the men were saying and turned to me to translate.  Her struggles weren’t the funny part.  The funny part was the fact that the men both looked surprised that I was there.  Like they hadn’t realized I was sitting there for the entirety of the conversation up until that point.

I also ran into a lot of students at the festival, which was nice.  They all wanted to take pictures with me, which of course inflated my ego which had taken a beating from no one knowing who I was previously.  It wasn’t my favorite festival, but I am glad that I was able to go.  I think it’s probably an important part of the whole, “living in Hyuga,” experience.

Misato Fireworks Festival

Summer is not only the season of farewell parties (for JETs), but also the main festival season in Japan.  And summer festivals often mean fireworks.  After a busy day spent in the capital, I went to the Misato Fireworks Festival with Chris.  We had a fun night watching fireworks and bumping into co-workers and students.  There isn’t much to say about it, but I was really excited to try out some new photo techniques I have been wanting to practice.  Overall, I managed to get some interesting photos.

The Easter Festival

A few weeks before the actual Easter Day, Hyuga held its annual Easter Festival.  That morning I had another 5k in Kadogawa, but I told the organizers of the event that I would be happy to stop by.  That somehow turned into me volunteering, but as that is the easiest event to volunteer at, I figured it would not be a problem.  Anna was sweet enough to give me a ride back to Hyuga from Kadogawa.  I was planning on going straight to the event, but Anna insisted on taking me home so I could have a moment to get properly changed and drop off my things.  She then drove me to the park next to our train station and went back home to Kadogawa.

90 percent of the festival’s non-foreigner volunteers were students from my school, so I had fun walking around and talking to them while they worked and got ready.  My job for the day was the same as my job last year: when little kids come up and say hello in English, give them a sticker.  The kids had to collect 10 stickers and then they got a piece of candy.  I wandered around throughout the afternoon, trying to interact with as many as kids as possible as well as bugging my own students from time to time.

At some point during the afternoon, an old man approached me.  He asked if I was Jodi and then he had a weird request.  From what I could tell, he said he had two granddaughters who lived in other areas of Japan and he was putting together a video of native English speakers reading books for them.  I was in a weird mood, so I said sure, whatever while making sure to make looks at my nearby students and co-workers that said, “If I go missing, remember that this is the last guy you saw me with.  Memorize his face.”

I didn’t really think I was in any danger, but it never hurts to make sure as many as people know where you are as possible in that kind of situation.  We ended up finding a spot nearby to sit down.  I read the book (a really bad English translation of a Japanese folk tale) and he recorded.  Afterwards he thanked me and went on his way.  One of my friends, a woman who owns an English school in town who helped organize the Easter Event later thanked me for taking a hit for the team (so to speak) and dealing with the guy so he did not bother any of the other foreigners (who speak very little English).

It was an interesting overall.  From time to time my co-workers (who were working various booths around the festival) would pull me over to do interpreting for them if they were having trouble understanding some of the foreign university students who were also volunteering/ had brought their children along for the festival.  It definitely made me happy to know that my co-workers regard my Japanese skills highly enough that they felt I could be helpful.

Later in the afternoon, all the visiting foreign students were invited to learn how to do our city’s dance, the Hyottoko dance.  I joined them because I’ve always wanted to learn how to do it properly.  The worker from city hall (another friend of mine) who were instructing the students pulled me up front to help him translate until Cameron, the city’s CIR could come over and help.

Photo taken from the Hyuga Easter Festival Facebook Page

The event finally ended a little after 4, by which point I was absolutely exhausted.  There was a dinner for the volunteers afterwards, but all I wanted to do was take a long bath and sleep.  After saying goodbye to everyone, I headed home.

Hyuga’s Lantern Festival

Every year there is a small lantern festival in Hyuga by the station.  Students from my school spend hours arranging these candles/ lanterns into interesting designs.  The display would have been more interesting for me if I had been walking around with someone.  I quickly realized that the festival is very much a couple’s spot.  Several of the students that I ran into asked me if I was by myself, making that fact even more obvious.  I only stayed for about 20 minutes or so, just long enough to take some pictures, before I headed home.

Neighborhood Festival

Every year, shrines have their own festival which also serves as the surrounding neighborhood’s festival.  This is a chance for all the local elementary schools and various organizations to join together and participate in the parade.  I’ve only actually gone to the festival twice, but I love how it feels to act like a member of the community.  Though my students are too old/ too busy to come to the festival (it’s mostly for the younger kids) and I don’t know many people at the neighborhood festival, I still feel that warm sense of community just as strongly.

The festival day starts with each individual subdivision starting their parade in their respective areas.  Then the parades eventually meet in the southern part of the neighborhood/ region of the city.  Around 8 am, I left my apartment to take pictures of our subdivision’s mini-parade.

I returned to my apartment for lunch and to do some chores since the big parade didn’t start until after 1.  Around 12:45 I headed towards the shrine and eventually ended up running into Chris, Cameron, and Laura.

Part of the grounds around the shrine.

I have no explanation for this.

Sometimes we get random gifts from the people driving the parade floats. Sometimes those gifts are tiny beers.

Waiting on my grilled corn.

One of the shrine’s buildings.

Giant and worth it.

Peach/Sprite drink thing.

A mom trying to convince her kid that the middle of the street isn’t the best place to wait for the parade.

I have no explanation for any of this.

Chris and his students.

Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze a few more festivals into my schedule before I leave.  I think I’ll miss the majority of the summer festivals, but I think there might be one or two spring festivals left.

Cultural Festival, Day 2

The second day of the culture festival is always my favorite.  For the first half of the second day, there is a market set up throughout the school.  The market mostly takes place in the parking lot where the second years have their stalls set up, but there are of activities to see throughout the campus.

Each grade has something they compete in as a homeroom.  For the first years, this year each homeroom made some cool cut-paper art.  The best theme and execution won a prize.  Like last year, my friend/co-worker who sits next to me, Chihiro, pulled an incredibly Japanese, “Jodi, you know how you’re so good at crafts and have such great fine motor skills?  Well, I’ve been so busy lately…” And that’s the story of how I ended up doing her paper cutting piece for her as well as my own, which was an afterthought.  Four years at this school and still no one thinks to involve me in this kind of thing.  I have to know that it’s happening, ask to be involved, and watch their surprised faces when they realize, “Oh yeah, she likes to be involved, doesn’t she?”

Anyway, the cool cut-paper art was hung up outside of the first years’ homerooms, creating a nice gallery.

The second years compete with little stalls.  Each homeroom divides into two teams and choose something to sell.  It can be anything.  The home-ec track students normally sell some handmade things they’ve made throughout the year.  This year, the most interesting stall was the Car-Fe.  One of the teams worked with a local car dealership and brought in some cars offered at a huge discount.  I don’t think anyone bought a car on the spot, but it was definitely different.

The home-ec students in the childcare sub-track have a kids play area in the library.  This year it had a Halloween theme.  The students make everything in the play area, from the games to the toys.

A toy vending machine.

This was a follow-the-directions game. The student working this game would call out one of the sounds that the characters make and the children had to step on the right spot.

Ring toss.

One of the home-ec students decorating her ghost headband.

Throughout this period the rock band members are performing in the gym.

The nurses had a booth with some interesting projects that student in what I think are the elective health course made.  One of the projects was seeing if you were weak or strong against alcohol.  This test involved putting alcohol on a bandage, sticking the bandage on your arm, and waiting for ten minutes.  If you developed a red-spot when you took off the bandage, you were pretty weak when it comes to alcohol.  If there’s no mark, drink away!

When the bandaid came off, the nurse and I searched in vain for a red mark or something on my skin.  She kept pointing to spots where my skin changes color slightly and I had to assure her that no, that’s just what my skin does.  I think I had more of a reaction to the adhesive on the bandaid than the alcohol, honestly.

The nurse had also made a cute and easy to understand poster about germs.

The germ (the black thing) velcros to the poster. The string, when taut, shows you how far germs can travel when you cough or sneeze.

In the afternoon are the performances.  The third years compete in skits that normally involve some sort of song component and getting all nostalgic about their time in high school.

The students did their skit based on the emotions from Inside Out.

This was the best skit, in my opinion. It was really well rehearsed, well written, and had a mix of comedy and serious moments.

This skit featured three of the most well known characters in Japanese folk-lore, of which I can only identify Peach Boy. I just know the other two because I’ve seen the characters a lot.

Though there was no afterparty this time, I had a great day.  Even after four years of basically the same events, they still have their unique and interesting moments.

Culture Festival, Day 1

One of the big events in the Japanese school calendar is the school / culture festival.  This is a great time for students to showcase what they’ve been working on in school and apply what they’ve learned.  Some schools build robots and make games for the people who attend.  At my school there are a few staple events.

We all spend the first day in the gym watching different performances.  This year the opening ceremony was particularly cool as it employed projection mapping.  I didn’t get very good videos or pictures of the projection mapping, but I did manage to get a few.

Then we watched the taiko club.

Then there were a few speeches in English and Japanese followed by a presentation from the calculation club.  That’s right, we had a calculation club.  The club even goes to competitions and there are calculation tournaments.

Our two student MCs provided commentary while we watched students use calculators and abacuses.

The calculation club. Look at them…calculating?

After the girls gave us a demonstration, they chose some volunteers to come up and try to compete against them.  That part, at least, was funny.

Next, the students in the music elective class gave us a handbell performance.

Next was the band.

After that was the dance performance.

Last, but definitely not least, was the fashion show.  All of these dresses are designed and made by the girls wearing them.  The students meet with a model consultant in the weeks leading up to the performance.  The consultant teaches them out to walk down the runway and works with them to figure out the best poses for their dresses.

And that was the end of day one.

Full Moon Festival

One of the big festivals in Hyuga (besides our summer Hyottoko festival) is the October Full Moon Festival for which my taiko group is named.  As such, it’s is normally our biggest event of the year.  The festival is two days long and runs from 12-8pm on Saturday and 10ish-8pm (I think) on Sunday, with our taiko group performing 6 or 7 times during the festival.  From noon to 9pm on Saturday, I either played in or helped with 4 different performances.  I was dead on my feet by the end of it, but it was still pretty fun.

The opening of the festival includes the arrival of the mikoshi, or the portable shrine/ divine palanquin at the festival grounds.  A bunch of guys carry it over from the shrine that is somewhat nearby.  They then do this with it:

After that, there is the throwing of the mochi.  I asked the taiko VP to explain it to me and here’s what I was able to understand: the mochi is red and white because those are lucky colors.  Mochi brings happiness and by throwing it, the hope is that those who catch it will get the luck and happiness too.

During part of the festival our taiko group just provides the beat for the dancers who are the main attraction.  The parade of dancers move around the roundabout in front of the station while various taiko members stand in the middle.  Except, for some reason (who knows why, but I’m sure it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that I’m foreign) I was chose to stand by myself on a little platform while I played.  A few important things to note: one, the majority of the volunteers at the festival were my students.  Two, they all kept yelling my name as I turned progressively more red.  One of the reasons I enjoy taiko is that I can push myself out of my comfort zone by performing on a stage, but the attention is split between (and most likely diverted by) the other (much more skilled) members of the group.

Three, there was a cameraman from the local news who did not get the hint that I had no desire to be on TV.  Especially not from that angle.  (He was on the ground and I was elevated.)  I guess I should be glad that this time I at least saw the camera and had a good idea that it would end up on the news.  Sometimes there’s a camera I don’t even see that manages to find me and I don’t know about it until someone tells me they saw me on the news.  I have been on TV more since coming to Japan than in my whole life previously.  I also have never actually seen myself on TV as I don’t have a TV.

I had a few breaks where I was able to sneak off and take pictures.

Some of my students dancing in the parade.

Elementary school taiko group (using our drums and such, so I helped set up).

One of the lanterns in the festival.

Some of the students from my school work as miko, or assistants to the priests.

One of the rock bands from my school performing.

 

Even though it rained for our last, and biggest, performance of the day and the audience turnout was really small as a result, it was definitely a good day.

Kadogawa Fireworks Festival

For my first Saturday free in nine weeks I decided to take the day off…kind of.  Every year for my school’s sport festival I try and find a way to represent all of the teams since I’m never assigned one.  Last year I made myself a multicolored headband out of scrap fabric I had.  This year I wanted to try something a bit bigger and more complicated: tie dye.  In the US deciding to tie dye is a simple matter of running to Michaels and picking up a kit.

In Japan, it’s a little more difficult.  Tie dying is not really a thing, despite it being a traditional Japanese craft.  For me, tie dying was an annual event.  We always tie dyed shirts at camp and I would proudly wear it until the colors faded, I grew out of it, or my mom made it disappear (I’m like 80% sure that’s what happened).  Since I was already planning on tie dying, I decided to introduce my two remaining conversation group members to what I see as a kind of quintessential American summer vacation experience.  At 10 on Saturday, Tomoko and Izaki-sensei came over with the things they wanted to dye.  I had set up my kitchen table with a plastic bag as a tablecloth, got the dyes ready in some squirt bottles, and pulled up a few examples of tying techniques for them to see.

I think they had a lot of fun.  (The next day I went back to the mall to pick up some different dye because I wanted to see if I could make something a bit better than I had made while with my friends.  I ended up having extra dye that I didn’t want to waste, so I wandered my apartment grabbing almost anything that was white.)  I may have gone a bit overboard.

4 t-shirts (each found for under $5), 4ish pairs of hand-me-down socks from my grandma, a handkerchief, a towel, and a bag.

After we were finished, Tomoko and Izaki-sensei left.  I made a grocery store run and then spent a few hours doing meal prep for the next week.

That evening after dinner, I jumped into my yukata (a summer kimono), and Laura picked me up.  We picked up Andy on the way to Kadogawa and met up with Anna there.  A few of my students (of course) saw me, much to my chagrin.  I don’t normally mind when my students see me outside of school, but I always feel strange when I’m wearing some kind of traditional Japanese garb.  Does it look weird for me to be wearing a yukata?  Do they not like foreigners wearing traditional clothes?  Am I being somehow offensive?

Regardless, I’m pretty proud of how quickly I was able to dress myself and how good it looked.  I was getting compliments all night and no one believed that I had put it on myself.

In Kadogawa, we met up with Andy’s teacher.  We thought she was going to lead us to an area where a bunch of other teachers were hanging out, but instead we ended up hanging out with her personal friends.  I had some great conversations with a few of them and they fed us (the generosity of Miyazakians never ceases to amaze me) some delicious grilled food.

Plus, of course, the fireworks were great.