山祭り

It's festival season and I couldn't be happier about it! I have been waiting for the festivals to start again since last August. Summertime is when the countryside of Japan gets really busy with various festivals held in different towns almost every weekend, but even in Spring there are a few festivals held, such as this one that I am going to tell you about.

This past weekend one of the villages in my town had their Yama Festival. A yama is a two-story wagon that the yama teams spend a month building by hand. Also yama means mountain in Japanese. During the festival crowds of people come out to pull the wagons up and down the streets of town with much yelling and singing, the whole time the yamas are crowded full of children along for the ride. There are two yama teams for this village, and membership is based on the district you live in. Festivals have such a fun atmosphere because everyone works together as team to pull their yama around. I wonder sometimes why they do this. Why get drunk, forego sleep, and pull a monstrously huge and heavy structure around town for two days? But it's for the joy of community spirit, and also traditionally it has religious reasons. I even asked my friend if there is a meaning behind the festival, and she who grew up here was not even sure of a specific meaning!

At 3 p.m. I headed into town, my excitement for the festival building each moment. I met up with my friend and we headed out to see the progress of the yamas, then on their first run of the festival. After stepping outside of the house, we merely had to listen for the sounds of yelling, singing, and beating drums and follow them to the yamas parading down the streets. We spent the evening walking around with the yama and chatting with people who had come out to participate or watch the festival. Small town festivals are so much fun, because everyone knows each other and everyone turns out for the event. 

At 9 p.m. the yamas were stopped so everyone could take a break. I returned home with my friend's family to eat dinner and sleep for a couple of hours before asa yama (morning yama) began at 2:00 a.m. The teams gathered again and departed towing their yamas down the streets. My friend and I joined at 3:00 a.m. after waking up to the sounds of their drumming and yelling- two or three streets away from the house! This time my friend gave me a team hapi coat to wear and I joined in- yelling and tugging on the huge rope to help pull the yama along for the next four hours!

At the halfway point of that run, both teams stopped their yama and circled up for some nourishment. One team had prepared huge pots of miso soup for everyone to eat. Eating the hot soup was a great break since it is still quite cold here at night. After a 30 minute break, we picked up the ropes again and heaved on down the road. Even though it was around 3 degrees Celsius and well before dawn everyone was full of energy and excitement- laughing, joking, and passing around beers and sake!

4 a.m. break, eating soup and standing around a fire to keep warm, next to the wharf and fish market.

Turning onto the main street of town, just after sunrise.

They stopped for a ten minute break, right on main street! When it's festival time- the yamas have right of way!

Every year the decorations on the yamas change, but they always depict a scene from an old Japanese tale or historical event.

At 7:00 a.m. the yamas finished that run and came to their next stopping point. This time, the other team had food prepared- steaming hot bowls of udon noodles ready as soon as the yamas arrived. Everyone filed into the tent to get a bowl of food and after eating and chatting for a bit, most people went home to recover before the last segment of the festival began later on Sunday afternoon. 

I returned to my friend's house with the intent to sleep, but her four year old daughter had just woken up from a solid night of sleep and was ready for the day. I tried to convince her that it was night time- but she said no and yanked open the curtains to exclaim "It's morning, it's playtime now!" So we cleaned up, ate breakfast, lounged around, and played with the kids for a couple hours before walking back to the place the yamas were stopped. We were early so I took the chance to climb the yamas and beat on the taiko drum nestled inside. 

Soon the crowds started to gather again so departure preparations could be made. Promptly at 2 the singing, and drumming started and off we went for the final segment of yama matsuri. I helped pull the yama as we started off, but then broke off after about 30 minutes so I could prepare for my taiko performance. I met up with my taiko team and we waited for the yamas to arrive outside of the city hall where we would play. As soon as the yamas arrived we set up our taiko drums, hundreds of people gathering around to watch.

Performing taiko for the hundreds of festival-goers, the huge yama stopped behind us

After we finished playing, the yama teams rested for about 15 minutes before taking off again. Finally free from my pre-performance nerves, I downed a corn dog and a crepe from the festival vendors and then ran off to rejoin the festival! I continued to help them pull the yamas the rest of the day until about 9:30, an hour before they reached the end of their routes and the festival ended. 

Departure for the final yama run.

My friend's husband- tuckered out from no sleep!

Over the weekend I spent time with both teams. Team Hakusan had several people I know on it, from work and Judo. I had only a few acquaintances on the other team, but it had more people and were much rowdier than team Hakusan. Every time my friend and I walked over to the second team we had a blast with people coming up to talk to us and make jokes. The two teams were even good-naturedly squabbling this weekend over who I would pull with! For Asa yama, I had joined the Hakusan team (with all the people I know) and wore a team hapi coat the whole night. So before the 2 p.m. Sunday departure, the men from the second team (who I had met the previous day) demanded to know why I joined team Hakusan instead of theirs! They told me I may have "friends" on the other team, but their team would be family! During the last run on Sunday when Nahoko and I joined the second team again, one of the men said that they had been later informed by somebody that I was only allowed to pull with Hakusan! It was so hilarious!

I'm so happy I was able to spend time celebrating the festival with my friends as well as meet so many new people from my town. It was a great weekend and a great way to start off the festival season for the year! 

桜

Spring is arriving here in Japan, heralded by the blooming cherry blossom trees! Cherry blossom trees really are everywhere here. I had no idea that so many of the trees in Japan are indeed cherry blossom trees, going incognito with their plain green leaves for 11 months out of the year. There are many gorgeous parks that are all cherry blossom trees which are quite spectacular to walk through. But even just driving around, so many of the roads are lined with cherry blossom trees, they are also dispersed throughout neighborhoods and even in the woods. It has been really neat this week to see (at every turn!) trees full of white blooms that I used to think were just regular green trees!

Last weekend, I joined some friends in another town to go to a little community hanami. We arrived to find long low tables set up on top of bamboo mats which were spread out in the yard, with a single cherry blossom tree on the side. They had grills set up where they were preparing yakisoba, takoyaki, yakitori, and miso soup. Upon sitting down we were brought several plates of food to share among the people sitting around us.

After eating lunch, one of my friends joined his taiko group to give the entertainment for the afternoon. The group members took turns beating on a single drum for their carefully choreographed set which they closed by coming together to play on the drum all at once. It was really neat to watch since it is a much more casual and playful style than what my taiko group does. 

In the evening we headed over to a local park to enjoy more cherry blossoms! This park is on top of a small hill and is covered in cherry blossom trees. Walking along the paths is so lovely because you are walking under a gorgeous, thick canopy of white blossoms. 

生花

My latest creation! I really enjoy the colors on this one!

Spring Break

Time to say "Goodbye," time to say "Welcome!"

It is now spring break, the two week off period that also serves as the transition between school years in Japan. Here the school year starts in April and ends with graduation in March. Even though school is out teachers in Japan (including myself) still work every day. Our only vacation time is the vacation days we take out of our yearly allotment.

I have noticed that the teaching staffs really prepare for the new class of first year students at the junior high level. A couple months ago, groups of the junior high teachers would visit the elementary schools to observe the sixth grade classes to get a feel for the class personality and how to prepare for them. Also, the week before school starts, the sixth grade home room teachers visit the junior high to have a meeting with the whole staff to tell them all about the sixth grade (soon to be JH first year) class. For the last couple months the incoming first years have been a frequent topic of discussion in the junior high staff room. It really impresses me how much the teachers prepare for the new class. The teachers seem very invested in creating an education experience that is tailored to helping the students succeed at their junior high.

These couple weeks have brought big changes at the schools. The Japanese school system has a practice of transferring teachers around to different schools in the area (I heard this practice may also be common in corporate and other contexts as well).  I have been told this is to keep the teaching styles and ideas fresh within the schools. Generally the teachers are placed at a school within an hour of where they live, so here our teachers bounce around the four towns of the deep Noto. However, a few teachers were transferred all the way to Kanazawa, the capitol of our prefecture which is two and a half hours away. So, shocking and sad for me at times, I have had about three or four teachers change at each of my schools. I was sad to say goodbye to teachers that I was friendly with, but like everyone said it would be, many of the new faces are fun people too!

Accordingly this has been a time of farewell parties for old staff members as well as welcome parties for the new.  They have wonderful Japanese style banquet parties with lavish arrangements of fine food and there are many speeches in honor of the leaving teachers and of course those teachers give their own remarks as well. There are always many tears and chats about fond memories of their time working together.

This morning, at one of my junior high schools, we had the introduction of the new teachers to the (now) second and third year students. It was a little assembly in the gym and fairly ceremonial with much standing at attention and bowing when appropriate. The new teachers gave their short speeches to introduce themselves and a representative of the students also gave a speech of welcome to the new teachers. During the ceremony I was thinking about how many foreigners miss the opportunity to appreciate the meaning behind Japanese ceremonial functions.

Certainly, there is lots of ceremony but I think its full of underlying meaning. For example, the welcome parties, like the introduction ceremonies, certainly have their ceremonial aspects but they are also an integral custom in Japanese culture that I count myself lucky to have participated in. The purpose of welcome parties is to establish the importance of welcoming their new members, which they successfully do.

Japan is a group based society, so of course membership in a group is very important. That is the reason they have such lavish welcome and farewell parties. At the farewell party, they are telling their leaving members that they appreciate that person's membership in the group and will miss them. Then at the welcome ceremonies they are extending a warm acceptance of their new group members. The welcome party is always held very soon upon the new member's coming, even as soon as the first night after their first day of work.

The welcome party is a chance for the staff to sit down for a merry dinner together, to chat, have a few drinks, and get to know each other. I have noticed in the staff rooms, after introductions have been made and certainly after the welcome party has been held, the staff interacts with the new members just as frequently as the old members interact with each other. There is no awkward "this is the new person and they don't know anybody yet" period that is so frequent in other cultural contexts, like America for example. Not to say that there is anything wrong with America, but I would definitely say the warm welcome and goodbye parties that are customary here are certainly something that Japan gets right!

Even in my own personal experience the welcome and goodbye parties  I have received made me feel much more accepted in the Japanese groups of which I have had the privilege to become a member. Last year when I interned with Toshiba I was treated to multiple welcome and farewell parties with differing groups within the company. The welcome parties helped me feel like it was important to them to accept me into their department, even though I was only to be there for a short time.

By the time my farewell came upon us, I knew that they valued the time I spent with them and wished me the best in my future and how much they hoped to meet me again. Upon coming to Japan the second time to work as an English teacher, my Board of Education took me out for a welcome dinner. Everyone on staff made the effort to pour me a drink and spend some time talking to me and getting to know me.

These welcome parties certainly help lay the groundwork to establish good relationships among the people who will be working together. It's a "ceremonial" excuse to give everyone the opportunity to get to know each other, removing the hindrance of personal inhibition that can hold everyone back and slow the process of creating a staff with good relations.

A throwback to my farewell dinner with Toshiba- I miss them!