My Neighbor Totoro

Today I went (back) to see Oga Kazuo's artwork at the museum. He's done many of Miyazaki's films, including "Tonari no Totoro" - the one that features this house. I really wanted to see this amazing artwork again, not only because there were over 600 mind-blowing pieces, but also because today is my grandma's birthday (she would have been 93), and I think she would have liked the show, too.

Here are the students stringing together strands of 50 paper cranes. These will be presented to each of the sports teams competing next weekend in the Nagasaki Prefecture High School Sports Competition. Each strand represents so much effort...have you ever folded a crane? If so, you know what it takes just to do ONE!

They're origami cranes

When I walked past this science lab room after school yesterday, I saw a riot of color on the tables. Wondering what experiment they were doing, I wandered in. Too my surprise, the colorful bits turned out to be exquisite Japanese washi papers folded into (thousands of!) tiny cranes. One of the science teachers just lost his daughter, and I learned that before she died, she folded all of these cranes. !!! I don't know why she did. I do know of a belief that they have here associated with folding a 1,000 paper cranes for luck. Her father didn't want all of the cranes to go to waste, so he brought them to school to give to the students.

Top o'the Ev'ning to ya!

Have I mentioned how much I love the teachers here? This guy is GREAT. In the special ed music class, he plays guitar like he's in a mariachi group, and I always tease him by telling him he's not really Japanese - he's Mexican! He's always really outgoing, and he's so good with the kids. He always cracks me up with his antics (as you can see in this photo!). Tuesday night we had an enkai (eating and drinking party to celebrate the middle school graduation) and I brought along some festive accessories so everyone had a chance to celebrate properly. It was great fun explaining (in my FABulous Japanese, of course) the concepts of Ireland's patron saint, St. Patrick's Day parades, shamrocks, rainbows, leprechauns, pot o'gold, and green beer???




Since I don't like beer, I ordered ao ringo chuhai (blue/green apple mixer with shochu), a lovely green cocktail. They ran out of green apple chuhai, though, and since the lime chuhai they brought out looked like engine coolant, I added some food coloring to the drink you see me holding in the other photo here. Cheers!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Since there are a few Irish ALTs, and a large number of people who like to drink beer here, there are usually a few St. Patrick's Day parties in the bars that cater to foreigners. Sadly, conflicting schedules prevented me from attending official parties around the ken, but tomorrow night I have an enkai (eating and drinking party) with my colleagues from the special ed school. I'm hoping there will be enough beer flowing to make them loose enough to don my fabulous St. Patty's hat & smile for a few photos :) Maybe I'll smuggle in some food coloring to make the beer a little more festive...

Here are some of the bigger "cuties" holding their lucky charms in front of the board I did for St. Patrick's Day. It was a lot of fun getting the students' help in translating some of the material for the board. They didn't really know what leprechauns were, but apparently they also believe in there being a treasure at the end of the rainbow.

In honor of the holiday tomorrow, I am making some Irish Soda Bread, but can't find any buttermilk in this country. Has anyone ever tried using milk+lemon or milk+vinegar as a substitute? Either one better than the other?

getting dressed...

Yesterday was National Foundation Day and (woohoo!) a day off from school. Some of the school ladies wanted to play dress up, though, and spent the morning dressing me in different kimono and hakama (they're like pants) and doing my hair. It was their first time dressing a foreigner, and they seemed to have a lot of fun! I felt like I was in a commercial as I stood outside the shop here as they snapped photos.

This red kimono is for very special occasions. And thank goodness. Underneath it were several other layers - including - believe or not - a lot of padding above my derriere and on my chest in an attempt to make me more "flat". Ha! Thank goodness I only had to stand there and smile...it was about all I could do in that get up!

I thought it was nice that they chose to dress me properly in FSU colors, too :)

making nengajo

I have this knack for forgetting either my computer or my power cord lately... (my battery now lasts only about 19 minutes when fully charged...thinking that's probably not a good thing, but ...) and this weekend I had my Japanese test up in Fukuoka, so just now getting to posting the latest -

I'm currently working on my nengajo (New Year's card) in my painting class. This page of Japanese is of kichigo (lit. "lucky language" = good fortune expressions) and the one with the numbers is the one I'm using as part of my nengajo design. I'm using a very old and very primitive style of lettering called kinbun. My design basically expresses the wish for the recipient to enjoy long life and prosperity.


In this photo you can see some of my reference materials and the priliminary sketches of the design, which is composed of four elements to be carved onto a ~5cm x 5cm x 8cm stone. After my teacher ground the stone so that the top was flat, I painted the top orange (it's the same ink teachers use to correct calligraphy students' work) and then, using sumi ink, I painted the characters on the stone backwards (so that when I ink & print it, the design comes out the right way). Backwards? Heck, I can barely write this stuff forwards!


Anyway, I then carved away all the orange bits so that the letters and frame remained. Good thing it's supposed to look primitive :)
If you look closely in this photo, you can see my stone resting on a practice paper from the calligraphy class - do you see the orange swirly lines? That meant that part of the calligraphy character was done well. You can also see my chisels in the upper part of the picture.

My kyoto sensei is an artist!

Wow! I had the neatest experience last week. In my Japanese painting class, I'm working on designing and doing my own nengajo (New Year's card). People send nengajo out at the end of the year and I believe they are all delivered on New Year's Day.
My teacher gave me a list of kichigo ("lucky/good fortune" expressions) and in deciding on which to use for my card, I asked the Japanese teachers here at school for their recommendation. Suddenly they got the kyoto sensei (assistant principal) involved, and he started showing me books he's made of all the inkan (stone/wood carved stamp or seal) he's done!


Here are some of his designs - oh - sorry - I forgot to put in something for a reference to the size of these. They're quite small, these are at most about 5cm long...so that makes them really difficult to carve!


I don't know what these say, but I'll print out this page for Kyoto sensei, and maybe he'll make a response... :)

Happy Halloween!

I ordered some pumpkins for my students & the neighborhood kids this year and they had a great time carving them. Everyone was so surprised that these pumpkins are hollow! So cute! I think they first thought something was wrong with them!



Here are the little ones tasked with the job of finding & cleaning all the seeds, while big brother and sisters were designing their jack-o-lantern faces. If they're lucky, they might even get some of those seeds back roasted...but they're reeeeally tasty, so I don't know! ;-0

Okunchi

One recent Saturday I had to work, so I had the previous Thursday off. My painting teacher had sent me to Nagasaki to buy a stone and carving tool so I can make another inkan (seal to sign my paintings), but it was an exercise in futility. However, the trip wasn't a complete bust, as I was able to attend part of a festival called "Okunchi" in/around/for (?) Suwa Shrine in Nagasaki. It's held every year October 7-9, and since they don't change it to make sure it falls on a weekend, many people have to work and therefore miss out. Here are the torii (archway/gate/s) leading up to Suwa Shrine, where this dance took place. I think there were 2 other locations around the city where representatives from a select 7 machi (towns or sections inside the city).




Groups from the machi do a dance or perform with a large boat-like thing...
Here they are pushing it up the stairs to the very small! stage area in front of the temple.

















Here is a look at the crowd in the stands watching the performance. If you look closely, you can see many people have a cloth over their head to keep the sun off of them...it's still pretty hot in Nagasaki!








Here is a look at the performance - and behind that, a glimpse of downtown Nagasaki. At this part in the performance, the men work together to spin the boat - it really gets the crowd going wild (I think I must be missing something, but it DOES look pretty hard). There are also some guys holding poles with globes on top - I think a combination of percussive music and these pole guys help to direct the guys pushing/pulling the boat. I think this whole thing is a really interesting way to build community spirit :)

Feel free to comment if you've got any experience with the Okunchi festival!

inkan

Here's my first "art" inkan (personal seal ~ my 'signature'). I have another one (that's registered in Japan) that has my full last name on it in katakana, and I have to use it when I "sign" for important things. This inkan, however, only includes part of my first name, "rei" (which is really To-RAY-shi in Japanese). This kanji for rei has to do with beauty. So, since I think beauty is such an important ideal, I thought this would be fitting.
It's carved out of stone, and reeeeeally difficult because of the tiny surface and shape of the stone. I honestly think this is a little kawaisou (pitiful), considering my previous block printing experience, but this uses completely different materials than anything I've tried before. I'm itching to go back in and carve a little bit more to make some of the lines a little stronger/thicker, but my teacher won't let me because it's so much more precious to be "imperfect"...

Music survey

***
On a sad note, I just found out my supervisor
(26 year old Japanese Teacher of English who sits next to me)
lost his father last night. Prayers, onegai shimasu.
***
When I was in Sapporo studying Japanese, one of the things I did for homework was a music survey of the locals. Whereas my classmates primarily hit the beer gardens for their research, I tried to find other colorful subjects as well. Here are some of the ones who weren't too shy to have their photo taken.

These students were just hanging out after class one night, so we had a nice little chat about music and their graphic arts studies.










These cats cracked me up. It seemed like these two men had been friends forever with the rapport they had with each other. The one gesturing really likes Elvis.






This was a really cool little store run by a lady who'd been to Egypt. I was lured here by the sale on skirts...I bought that maroon one I'm wearing in the photo of me with the girls in yukata.










Meet Faye-Faye. S/he performs almost every night in a little restaurant/bar in the arcade. His/her favorite music is old Chinese and, of course, his/her own. :)








Here are the 'yukata girls' I met in the park at the beer garden. They were having a party for all of their nursing colleagues.






I walked up to these guys and told them they were the coolest looking guys I'd seen that night, so I figured they'd be interesting blokes. They were just some students out enjoying themselves. Too bad you can't read the shirt on the guy in the middle. Claaaasic English, but not quite appropriate for my (mostly) "G" rated site here :)

In the US, the "big" high school events seem to be things like Homecoming and Prom, and they are somewhat exclusive (usually the upperclassmen participate more). In Japan, it's been my experience that the "big" school events are the "Bunkasai" (Culture Festival) and "Taikusai" (Sports Festival). These events involve the entire student body in various ways, culminating on the festival days, which happen to be last weekend and this weekend for my school this year.

In this little slide show, you see the drawings the students did of their homeroom teachers. The numbers you see in the pictures are the year & grade of the students - ie: 3-1 = third year, class number 1. Which translates to class 1 (out of 8) of the senior class. I wish you knew the teachers in the pictures - it would make them even funnier. My favorite is the one of the two teachers sitting at a table in a "snack bar" (not like those in the US - Japanese snack bars are basically places where men pay for female employees' (hostesses) drinks so that they'll keep them company).
Note - the teachers in that picture are both male...

You can click on the slide show to see the pictures & comments in my Picassa web album.

Sam here making a few friends with the locals in Hokkaido...

YMC Yea!

Hmmm...can't seem to upload photos at the moment. But I hope you enjoy this very short clip from one of the most amusing performances at our culture festival! This teacher must be the KING at karaoke!

Yea! It works again...Here's a shot of the teacher, now donning a red bow, joined by a few energetic cheerleaders.

You know it's a
good party
when you can barely set foot in the genkan...

(for those of you unfamiliar with a "genkan" - it's the entry way in a Japanese house or building where you leave your shoes.)
Thanks for the pic, B!

would you believe...

...these girls are actually competing against each

other to win an unagi dinner.
What?
The contestants are paired up, and at the signal,
they both try to catch one of the unagi (eels) swimming
around in the little pool here. The first one to catch and throw
one out of the pool (yes, onto the ground for it to start
wriggling in the direction of onlookers!) wins the unagi dinner.
I'm sure that the nearby unagi restaurant sponsored
this event, which was one of the many activities that
was going on during the Kawamatsuri (River Festival).

Can you believe that my town is famous for these things? I mean - as in when you come to Isahaya, you need to eat their trademark dish, unagi. It is usually grilled with a sweet(ish) sauce and served over hot, white rice. It's also popular served as sushi (still grilled).

I think my Japanese painting teacher is part Italian.
It seems that every time I go over to the studio for class, she invariably brings me several treats. Actually, she's not even technically my teacher, her painter son is. She does the Japanese calligraphy classes.
I'm actually a pretty unremarkable painter, but I still like going because it's good to be making some kind of art again in a classroom situation, and taking this class in this setting is "so Japanese". It's called suibokuga (basically ink painting), and I know you've seen examples of it. Very ethereal ink washes of very "Japanese" scenes and objects. When I'm brave enough to show off one of my paintings, I'll put it up.
As for the food here - I know the white stuff is onigiri (rice balls), and the other has something to do with potato. I'll let you know after lunch :)


Here's an example I found on the web of a painting and some of the supplies used in suiboku-ga. In the next class my teacher is going to show me how to make a name stamp (inkan) so I'll be able to 'sign' my paintings.
(sorry to steal the image here without proper acknowledgment of the source, but there are some not so family-friendly images that pop up there - so I thought I should skip it)

Go, Japan!

So I walked into the staff room last week and saw the volleyball coach crouching on a Japanese flag on top of the table....?
Turns out he was writing (in Japanese with a brush) some words of encouragement to a former Isahaya High School student who is going to be in this year's Olympics! Many other people signed the flag, and the school had a big ceremony to present this alumnus with the flag and this "senbatsuru" (1000 cranes) made by the students. Some of you may know that the making of 1,000 paper origami cranes is a kind of good luck charm. Unfortunately, I had a business trip and couldn't go to the ceremony (and so I'm fuzzy on the details of all of this). I even heard about this athlete at my Japanese brush painting class, since this guy was from that little neighborhood, and while I was having class, many of the neighbors were having an enkai (dinner party) in his honor.
The link here takes you to our school's webpage, and if you click on the upper left photo, it will give you a pdf to open so you can read all about the event. Well, that is, if you can read Japanese - but there are a few photos, too :)

Well, once again at Unzen here. A walk around the lake led to this little spot. These arches, "tori" (there's no plural in Japanese - which does make it a little easier... or more difficult to understand, depending on your point of view) - so, these "tori" are all over the place here. It's really neat - they're like appetizers for something delicious up the path from there. OK, well in this case maybe it wasn't so "delicious" - what awaited me was this carving in some rocks. And it was more mossy and mushy up there around the rocks.
Which reminds me - today I tried to see what "mushy" was in Japanese (my shrimp tempura got a little mushy in my soba). After the copy room lady asked the English teacher who consulted the biology teacher, and was then overheard by the two vice principals who joined in, I came to the conclusion that some things really do just get lost in the translation. (the closest I got was "kusaru/kunaru" = go bad, rotten or "bishomere(no)" = soggy)
Anyway, the carving there is of a - alright - you've got me - I've got no idea. But it looked more Incan than Japanese to me. If I figure it out, I'll let you know. At least this "garden feature" was more PG and hopefully none of the corporate filters will be censoring it out...by the way, don't forget to read the comments to the posts!