着物、三味線、お萩、 and Poppin' Tags!

My past weekend was awesome.

It was overwhelmingly filled with so many opportunities to dive into Japanese culture where I hadn't before.

It started with a Saturday afternoon invitation to spend the afternoon with a couple ladies who live in Noto cho. My friend picked me up and drove us to the house of her traditional dance teacher. As soon as we arrived, the teacher and another lady whisked me into the back tatami room to dress me up just like a Japanese doll.

They were eager to dress me, wrapping me in a gorgeous pink, silk kimono, tying an obi around my waist and even expertly and quickly throwing my hair into a simple updo. After I was dressed to their satisfaction we had a little photo shoot. I followed their direction to pose standing, with my feet turned in; sitting in seiza; and then in a dance pose holding a sparkly fan. They exclaimed that I was beautiful and joked that these pictures were going to be my Omiai photos!

After we finished snapping pictures, I redressed in my normal clothes and my friend taught me how to fold the kimono properly. The way to fold kimono is called tatami kata, it is a series of specific steps to keep the kimono flat during storage so that it does not create wrinkles in the garment. The Japanese take great care of their kimono (and everything else for that matter) so you better believe you aren't going to aren't going to put a kimono away without properly folding it first! While folding it, the dance teacher casually said,

"Oh and you can take the kimono home too. It's your souvenir for today."

I was stunned by her generosity! I asked her if it was an old kimono of hers and she informed me that she found it at a recycle shop. While folding the pink one, she pulled out another blue and white one and told me to throw that one in and take it home too!

I asked her if there were such recycle shops purveying kimonos in Ishikawa, and she said,

 "Yes, there is one right here in Ushitsu!"

Then they decided we would go take a look at the store a bit later. I was surprised that there is a recycle shop to buy kimonos here and wondered what it was like. I figured just a few kimonos, this is a small town after all.

Next the teacher took out her shamisen and played for us. A shamisen is a four-stringed Japanese instrument. It is considered absolutely necessary for traditional Japanese folk music. The sound of the shamisen is distinctive and is probably the sound most commonly associated with traditional Japanese music. The dance teacher has also been practicing the shamisen for ten years and it sounded so great! She even handed me the shamisen and let me pluck on it for a few minutes. It was very cool to get to actually play a shamisen (and by play I really mean pluck and listen to the different sounds, because obviously I cannot play any tunes on it).

She explained how it takes many years to perfect your technique on the shamisen. The neck of the instrument does not have any bars or stops to mark the frets like on a guitar, so you simply have to use muscle memory to remember where on the neck your hand should be to play different chords. Also, she said that Japanese musicians do not play while reading music. Only at first do they follow sheet music and but they are expected to quickly memorize it and play with no prompts.

Next we sat down in the living room for some tea and homemade ohagi. Ohagi are mochi cakes that are covered in something for flavor. The most common flavors are kinako, anko, and sesame. She made black and white sesame covered ohagi. It was delicious!

Then, my friend and I waited while the dance teacher donned a kimono to dance. Once she was dressed up we headed back to the tatami room and popped some tapes in the player. She danced two old folk songs for us. Every time I watch old style Japanese dancing I am taken struck by the distinctive way they move their head and neck. I mentioned how much it sticks out to me and they explained that type of movement was considered charming. As odd as it looks to me, I always feel compelled to try to do it myself! If only I had more time, I would learn classic Japanese dance....

After we watched her lovely dancing she changed back to regular clothes and we went off to the recycle shop! I was blown away by this shop. It is pretty big and they have so many things! Not only do they have HUNDREDS of old kimono and obi, but they have dishes, pottery, jewelry, dressers and other various things. I felt like I had walked into a vault of old treasures.

I found a box full of old clutches and was going through them, the lady of the shop noticed my interest in the purses and told me I could have what I liked from there for free. As I was deciding between the two that I particularly liked, she said,

 "Oh take as many as you like!"

The three women continually coaxed me to take as many as I could possibly find use for. I ended up leaving with 8 gorgeous clutches!

We spent a solid couple hours in there combing through the kimono and obi. Most of the kimono ranged in price from 500-3000 yen, a steal! I bought one of the 500 yen ones as well as a 3000 yen one that I absolutely loved. However, the lady only asked 2000 yen for it. Because, she said, she could see that I really liked it.

Sifting through the lovely silk and brocade items I was continually stunned that people were so lightly letting go of these things. Since its no longer widely in fashion to wear kimono people are finding less use for them and take them to recycle shops. However, I look at them and see treasurable pieces of history.

* Interesting side note: I took one of my kimono in for cleaning and was surprised when they told me it would take a little over a month before it would be ready and that it would cost 6400 yen (about 53 USD). Although surprised, I thought it must be because kimono are important silk garments and they must take great care with them. Later, I learned that the traditional method to clean kimono is to pick out the seams, clean each piece separately and then sew it back together.