Flower Power

So if you read about my exploits in Tokyo over xmas you might possibly recall I was not that impressed. A big part of that is because xmas isn't a big deal in Japan and because Tokyo sucks in general. New years is a bit better with people visiting temples and actually celebrating. There is however one event that Japan has that almost compensates for not having a xmas and it may even top New Years. That event is "hanami."

Hanami is an event that occurs with the coming of spring. As the climate gets warmer the cherry blossoms start to bloom. The phenomenon spreads like a wave across japan starting from the south and heading north. If you watch the weather reports they actually start reporting when the cherry blossoms are expected to blossom in the various areas.

I must say that it is pretty cool to walk around and see all the sakura around town in bloom. The crazy juxtaposition between crummy shack like houses and beautiful pink trees is a sight to behold. The cherry blossoms only last a couple of weeks before all the petals drop off so you really do get the feeling that the sakura have come to make their yearly visit.

While it is all very pretty it doesn't seem to justify the amount of attention that the Japanese seem to give it. Weeks before the cherry blossoms appear everyone will be talking about how amazing hanami is going to be. The reason for which quickly became apparent when I discovered that there are actually two kinds of hanami.

The first kind is exactly as the name implies you go looking at flowers. More specifically though the cherry blossoms. Fortunately for me I happen to live fairly close to the one thing in Fukushima that people travel from all over Japan to come see and that's Hanami mountain. Buses came from all over including Tokyo and Osaka. Considering they travelled all the way to a 'one-horse-town' to see a mountain covered in sakura really does tell how much they like cherry blossusm. I will say that Hanamiyama is quite pretty and standing there and looking at it is more like staring at an easel splattered with various pastel colours but I'm really not sure it is worth a huge trip.

For me it was 30mins on a bike. Everywhere you look Japanese people have massive cameras that they don't know how to use (in some peoples opinions at least), and basically invading the private grounds of the poor people that live on the mountain.

Although they probably aren't too concerned when they hang their washing up in green houses for everyone to see.

The second kind of hanami (and probably the more authentic of the two) is where you sit under cherry trees and get absolutely shit faced. People start from as early as 9am and drink through until they run out of alcohol before moving on to an actual bar. Children run wild and free while their parents get plastered. It really is a beautiful sight to behold. You know you've had a good hanami when you don't even remember if the petals were still on the trees or not. I don't even recall looking at the trees once...

Graduations!!!

It was graduation day yesterday for the third year students and like everything else in Japan it was held in a dignified, formal and completely overblown fashion. Starting a month before the actual ceremony, the students practiced it like crazy. Hours are spent learning how to stand in a uniform fashion, how to sit in a uniformed fashion, how to bow in a uniformed fashion. Uniform is clearly the key aspect here. The anal-ness in which everything is performed is mind boggling. If you've never seen a Japanese formal ceremony let me give you an example.

The procedure to follow if you must perform a speech:

1) Stand up and walk out from behind the table.
2) Bow to the important people for which the speech is intended (e.g. if your from the PTA, Board of Education, etc and you've been invited to attend the graduation ceremony you would bow to the principal.) The people you have to bow to may be 80m away from you. Completely disregard the distance and continue to bow.
3) Walk to the stage.
4) Bow to the stairs which you will eventually ascend to reach the stage you will give your speech from.
5) Ascend said stairs and bow to the area you will stand when you actually give your speech.
6) Walk to mic, adjust it to your needs, take a step back and then...
7) Bow to the audience.

Then you actually give your speech which is always written out. Learning a speech apparently takes too much effort after having to learn all the bowing procedures. Although it does have at least one advantage. The speeches tend to be written on long paper that is folded up like a fan (this is probably another 'important' procedure which must be followed) and so as they read their speech you can see the heaped side shift from the right to the left and you can tell how much longer the suffering will continue. Oh and once the speech is over, all the steps are repeated in reverse order.

I attended one of the practices at Ootori junior high school just to see what its like since I wasn't going to be able to attend their graduation as I had to attend Yon chu's. My favourite moment was when one of the teachers was explaining the timing to sit down. After maybe 20mins deliberation, it was decided that the students were to sit as soon as his head began to dip as he descended the stairs. The original plan was to sit the moment his foot touched the first step but the students in the back couldn't see the stairs so that idea was abandoned.


I wish I could have taken pictures of Yon chu's ceremony but it was pretty formal and I didn't want to look stupid and whip out a camera and start taking photos. There was a film crew from NHK news and I really hate stupid looking foreigners on Japanese T.V. so there was no way I was gonna be one of them. If I could have, there would have been lots of pictures of kids crying. The first kid I noticed was when they were getting their certificates. Each student had to stand up, walk on to the stage, after their name was read say 'hai' and then get their certificate from the Principal. And bow a couple of times in-between all that. It took about 40secs to process each kid. And I do mean 'process' cause it really did look like a factory. If people could only speak the truth like Jim Carey did in that horrible movie, the Principal would probably say something like:

"Hey kid here’s your certificate. Despite how cool it looks, it has absolutely no value to it. Yea you finished junior high and have technically graduated but this isn't going to get you into high school. You still need to pass those entrance tests. You did pass them right? Oh well anyway we won't see you again and your no longer our concern. If anything this certificate should really say: 'They managed to get rid of me.' See ya later... chump." - Your old school.

So one kid went to get his marvellous 'certificate' and he was crying his eyes out. And I mean really crying. His eyes were screwed up and there was snot dangling out his nose and his head was jerking back and forth. It really did look like his face had turned inside out. He couldn't even say 'hai' he just said 'eeeeeegggghhh.' I don't even remember if I had a graduation at elementary school. I don't even remember if we had one in high school. I do remember a prize giving at high school and I especially remember not attending and forfeiting some certificate I was supposed to get (which shows how much I didn't care about school) thus making me much cooler than anyone that did go. But I don't remember anything like a graduation. Oh and I'm not a prick. I still see people from high school well after the fact and still enjoy seeing them. I just didn't want to go to some stupid event. Clearly for this kid it was a big deal though. I bet some people were incredible moved but I was busy thinking how it was kinda pathetic. The first thing that popped into my mind was "Oh man this guy is definitely gonna be on the news. Japanese people love this shit." And you know what happened? About 10mins after the ceremony on the 12pm news, there in all his tearful glory was that sad looking kid. I actually thought it was a well contrived ploy to get on the news in the first place and almost congratulated him on it.

After everyone gets their certificates they march around the gym and let all the parents and everyone who came observe them in all their glory followed by more speeches, bowing, sitting, singing, bowing, crying and then everyone gets to go. Finally. It only took about 2 hours for the whole ceremony but I had to be there earlier and it was just flat out boring so it seemed like an eternity.

After the ceremony the third year students go back to their classrooms and the parents pile around to watch something. I'm not entirely sure what because at this point I had retreated back to the teachers’ room. They got flowers and words of wisdom or something.

While all the 3rd year students are doing that everyone else gets ready for the only cool part of the day. The part of the day that actually makes going to the ceremony bearable in the first place.

All the first and second year students form two big lines that weave from the school door way and go all the way to the school gate. Then the third year students leave the school for the last time and walk through the lines of people. Kohei's exchanging presents, words of encouragement, goodbyes and best wishes with their senpai's.

At this point it's an actual farewell event. Millions of pictures with teachers and friends are taken. I think I could bare the ceremony if I knew that something like that was to follow.

Sorry Sorry Sorry..

I've been a combination of sick and just plain ol' to lazy to update anything. It was only till I got some emails that I noticed people actually looked here.

I got stacks of pictures from my trip to Tokyo during Christmas. I delayed putting them up because I went again to Tokyo to watch sumo so I thought I would just write about them at the same time.

I can't be bothered to write about Tokyo though. Tokyo is massive. There is probably a store/place/thing to accommodate any strange interest that you may have so long as you have the money. That being said you pretty much can't walk around Tokyo and see cool things. You have to research what your interested in (probably on the Internet) and then go find it. Being a massive city means more bullshit stores to look through to find the good stuff. On my own with absolutely no agenda I probably found one place in Tokyo that seems really awesome.

I always ask people what there is to do in Tokyo and they always respond shopping. I don't know why. Tokyo is mostly full of overpriced stores and thanks to the Internet even if you do find something really cheap in Tokyo... you can probably order it online and have it delivered. I'm sure there are cheap things in Tokyo but you probably have it in your town unless you live in the middle of nowhere.

So here's some pictures and you can write your own story to go with them...

JLPT

I've haven't written anything lately because I couldn't be bothered to write about Tokyo and then I went to Tokyo again for a second time to watch sumo so I thought I might as well knock them out at the same time. Then of course I got sick so can't be bothered.

So when I can be bothered I'll stick random pictures up of Tokyo but more importantly...

I PASSED MY TEST!!!!!!!!!!!!

So starting with no Japanese and 4 months of studying I got 3級 !!!!!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

School Festivals

Some time ago all junior highs had a chorus festival for their students. So after school all the kids spend their time practicing their singing and making props for their stage plays. Some schools even go to the extreme and drop periods of study so that the students have more time to prepare. One school I went to even took off the last 2 periods for over a week. It's no wonder that all the students have to go to a cram school. Well I'm not complaining cause it was a change from seeing them attend their club activities. For the 3rd year students it tends to be a really important festival because it's the last one they will have while they're at junior high. If it was me personally I wouldn't even care about it. I didn't even go to my final prize giving at high school even though I was supposed to get a certificate on stage.

So anyway something like 60% of the students actually work all day and night on the festival preparations and the other 30% just kind of piss around. When they actually go on stage during the festival you can tell which students don't know the dance steps and which ones are just making shit up on the spot which reminds me of what one teacher said to her class after their final last minute practice...

"Now there are going to be cameras and people watching you. So don't shy away, hide your face or laugh because if you do, you will look like and idiot. And if you look like an idiot everyone will say 'oh look at that idiot! That kid’s parents must be idiots too.' And then you'll cause problems for your parents. So don't look like an idiot."

So over the past two weeks I went to 3 school festivals.

Noda chu.
Yon chu.
Ootori chu.

Sadly Noda chu was the least interesting of the festivals. At one point I was struggling to stay awake. At that school it was a real chorus festival. Every class had to sing about three songs so there ended up being 45ish songs. They also had school plays and some English speeches (which I cringed at since I had to practice those speeches with the students for the English speech contest so hearing them again was painful).


Although that was the most boring festival experience I can't complain too much because the school bought me a lunch (which wasn't exactly to my taste because it was a bento fill of things that have that disgusting 'things from the sea' flavour but the gesture itself was much appreciated) and they also invited me along to drinks after the festival which the Principal paid for. There were lots of moments of impressing the principal by pouring his glass and extrapolating on my vast knowledge of Japanese sake but we can just skip that.

Being invited to go drinking with work is a big thing if you’re a foreigner. It really does mean your part of the team. Japan is a country that drinks. If you don't like alcohol I'm sorry to say that while they will respect your choice you will inevitably be kept even more outside of the circle than being a foreigner already makes you. You can always drive and use that as an excuse since the legal blood alcohol limit in Japan is 0 if you really don’t want to drink.

One of the new JET's clearly came straight out of uni from a 'locked in the library 24/7' environment and he wants to drink all the time now. When he told some Japanese people that he started drinking too much since he came to Japan they said

Wow do you drink every night?!

Every night? Ummm no... but on Fridays and Saturdays.

Then they just kinda looked at him strangely and did the Japanese polite nod and "aaaahhhhhh" thing. I have no idea what an alcoholic looks like in Japan but I'm very curious now.

So alcoholism is important to Japanese. Anyway, Ootori chu is all the way out in Iizaka so it's a 30min train ride. Their festival was probably better than Yon chu's but Yon chu is my second home so I can't rate it higher than Yon chu. This school has a lot more going for it than the others. They have a long history of taiko drumming and kenbu (sword dancing) since their students participate in the Iizaka festival.



That alone was enough to make it better than the others. One of my favourite students wasn't there because he had an important soccer match to play and he's being scouted. But the school gave him a little tribute since he couldn't be there which was pretty cool. This also had this really cool piece of art that they had made by getting a picture and cutting it up into segments and each student got to paint their segment on an A3 sheet and they connected them up again. They did a huge unveiling thing and had Metal Gear Solid 2 music cranking. After that there was just more singing and school plays.


Yon chu was probably the most fun. At that school I like all the teachers and there are lots of students that come up to me and talk to me about all kinds of things. “When would you like to get married” has been a recent topic for discussion. Most girls seem to want to get married around the 21-25 mark in case you were wondering (cause I know you were). You know when you were young and you were asked “what you want to be,” the normal things were doctor, fireman, astronaut, veterinarian, etc. Well in Japan housewife is a heavily sort after 'profession'. That and to work at McDonalds. That’s right some kid's life ambition was to work at McDonalds. I didn't bother to enquire any further.


At Yon chu there was a section where the 2nd year students got to do a dance on stage. One class choose to do a dance to Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend. That was incredibly painful. For 2 weeks solid I heard that song everyday while they were practicing. I have heard that song more times in Japan in 2 weeks than I had when I was in New Zealand and I had C4 on all the time...
I would say the highlight for me at Yon chu's festival was when I went on stage and screamed into the mic to introduce the 3rd year students act. When the curtains were raised and I was standing on stage wearing a kimono the kids went mental. After I screamed a few words into the mic they transgressed mental and went completely ape shit. It was pretty cool to see.

One thing that pissed me off about the festivals was the parents. I asked one of the teachers at Yon chu how many parents they were expecting, he said "10 people have said they would be coming." Seriously WTF!!! 500 odd kids and only 10 parents said they would come. Naturally more did show up but everyone strolled in at the leisurely time of 12. I on the other hand had to get up at 5:30, get ready and walk to school IN THE RAIN to watch their kids do things which I can't even fully understand. It seems in Japan that if you pop a kid out. Once they're about 6 and going to elementary school. You don't have to see or worry about them every again. I mean they don't even feed their kids. At lunch they have school lunch (which for the millionth time is awful) and for breakfast and dinner the kids eat rice and miso soup. Thats it. Rice and miso soup. Rice you put in the rice cooker and BAM you got rice. To make miso soup you take your packet of miso soup and add boiling water BAM miso soup. That does sort of explain why in Japan it’s perfectly normal to pop a kid out at 20 or so. After 5 years or so you don’t have to worry about them and life continues as if it didn't even happen.

I’m glad I went to their festivals but I’m possibly gladder that they’re all over. Maybe next year some festivals will clash so I don’t have to go to all of them again.

FIRE!!!!!!

So some time ago I took the chance to see the Sukugawa fire festival. There was a whole heap of the usual assortment of festival booths selling takoyaki, yakisoba, yakitori etc. So we pigged out a bit and headed to the event area.

There isn't much that can be said about the festival except it has fire. They set up 20 or so of these giant pillars that are about 60ft high and then set them on fire. Thats about all there is to it. For an hour or so you just stand there and watch a blazing inferno. It was awesome. I'm sure there is some real significance behind it all (I hear they're trying to recreate some war scene) but in my eyes it was just pure chaos. Crazy Japanese people climbing up ladders with torches in their mouths, fire, junior high school kids chanting, intense taiko drumming, fire, people getting thrown up into the air, shit loads of smoke and fire. It was definetly a step up from hanging out in Steves backyard with a fire on the old bbq.

YAY!!!!

YAY SNOW!!!!!!!!!