BUNKASAI - School Cultural Festival.

This is a BIG deal here. Kids spend pretty much a whole year preparing for this and the last few weeks have been intensive practices after school for the various "acts". Among these are performances by the chorus club (choir), computer club (anime video and sports club highlight reel), drama club (do a play), and my personal favourite, the brass band. Sincerely, the junior high brass bands here are unbelievable. In fact most kids at most activities are unbelievable good because they do it every day, all year. Unlike in Canada where kids can do mulitiple activities at a time and cycle through 2 or 3 sports in a school year, here in Japan, kids pick ONE thing and they do it to death. So the end product are 12-14 year olds who are really good at what they do.


Here is the Kudamatsu brass band performing. Quite an experience. First of all, as I think I've mentioned, the band is really good. I'm talking full band here, including a complete percussion section with gong, timpani, xylophone, MARIMBA for cryin' out loud. Secondly, the 1.5 hour performance included dramatized skits (acted by some teachers, which the kids went NUTS over...the girls were screaming like it was Ricky whatsisname who sang those songs) in between movements so that the whole thing was like a soundtrack kind of. And to complete my day, if not my life, they played a DEEP PURPLE medley at the end, including "Smoke On the Water", which rocked.


This is the handicapped kids class at Suetake performing with their bells. I love these kids; left to right Sota, Yuya, and Yuka (with an eyepatch over her fake eye so it wouldn't fall out during the performance, I was told later by their teacher). And I like to think they love me too. They performed this for me at the end of class I had with them one time and it was soooo cute...and actually, very difficult, if anyone has every done bells. Yuya in the middle loves music and really got into it; a few times for emphasis he would raise his hands above his head and throw his head right back like this was the best thing in the world. Everyone in the gym (all 700 students, plus parents) was clapping to their song and at the end, a big chant of "encore encore!"

* just an aside about encore, because I heard it a lot this weekend. It sounds, to the western ear, like they are all chanting "Un-cle Ray! Un-cle Ray!" and you may wonder, "who is Uncle Ray, and why is he so popular? And how can he be at three different schools at the same time?". In fact, they are just pronouncing the word 'encore' phonetically, as it would be read in Japanese. En-co-re.


Here are some Suetake 7th graders practicing. Each class performed a song and at the end, the best class out of each grade were given prizes. Each class had an accompanist and a conductor. The conductors were so amazing and cute. They would walk out onto stage. Stop. Face the audience. Bow. Face the choir. Raise his/her hand (choir would then assume the relaxed position, legs slightly more apart from the 'attention' stance). Count off one bar at which point the pianist would start. Then conductor would conduct another bar with BOTH arms, and THEN the choir would start.


This is a massive mosaic-type mural made of thousands of little coloured squares of paper. This is Kubo's mural, depicting this year's national high-school baseball hero, Saitou (of WASEDA, who led his team to victory by pitching 22 innings in the final two days) and Tanaka (who pitched just as hard for the losing team). These guys are honestly nation-wide celebrities now.

HOSHI DAIKO - Hiroshima gig.

Our taiko group, Hoshi Daiko, went to Hiroshima this past Sunday for two performances at an outdoor cultural thing. I was really worried that I didn't have enough cash to get me there and back, plus food, but it turns out the entire trip was FREE. Free private bus ride, free lunches, drinks, and snacks provided for us... And it was sooooo fun to take this trip with the group! Yoshie, the girl nearest to my age (she's 20) noted that this group is made of "kodomo to ogisan" ("kids and old men"), but I dont' really miss not having agemates around. I love the kids and the others are really nice, and fun too, so it's all good. Great great day.


Nagisa (8th grade at Kubo - I mis-printed her name as Nagesachi before. My bad) doing the X and 4th grader Akana (I think) beside her. In the background is 5th grader Saia playing her gameboy. These kids, young as they are, have all mastered some incredibly long and complicated songs. So impressive.


Saia and Nagisa smile.


The front row in the ready-position before they spring into action! Those uniforms are so cool-looking. The wristbands, the shirts, the ninja-pants, the "tabi" shoes (if you enlarge the pic, you can see the girls wearing them). These shoes are worn more like those water-shoes with rubber soles. They are wrapped onto your foot a certain way so that it fits your foot like a glove and grips the ground very well. It is also the standard footware of construction workers in Japan; quite the opposite of the clunky steel-toed boots of Canadian construction workers.


Far left is Nagisa and Chika beside her. I asked Chika one time how long she's be playing taiko. NINE YEARS she said. No wonder she's so good. You can also see the massive bass drum in the background.



Yoshie playing the flute for a piece called "Ibuki" which is long, but one that I've nearly learned. I actually did not drum today because I didn't feel I knew it well enough, but they said everyone makes a few mistakes through every performance and nobody notices anyways, so I probably could've done it. They are all very supportive.




This guy and his monkey were one of the acts of the festival.

AKIYOSHIDAI - Limestone Caves Adventure.

Brett, Jennifer, their supervisor/awesome-cool-gal Shoko and I made a day trip to Akiyoshidai for some serious underground cave exploring (as opposed to above-ground cave exploring). Shoko drove us in her red-hot Mazda blaring Foo Fighters and Christina Aguilara. We went to two caves actually, one was really touristy and had lights everywhere and automated speakerboxxxes talking to us...but the second one was awesome b/c we got headlamps and rubber boots and after a point, there was no lighting so it was up to our headlamps and flashlight.


I cannot look at this picture of Brett without laughing to the point of being awkward. He was trying to buckle up his helmet strap.


Shoko, Brett, Jennifer.



Certain rock formations had names based on their shapes and such. This blue-green formation in the middle was a king or something, I forget.


Bizarre. Looked like a waterfall.


This is, to me, the side of a massive dinosaur. See its skin.


I'm not sure how these colours came about, but I do remember when I took this picture I couldn't see anything; this is just the way the pic turned out. Pretty sweet.


We took an elevator from the depths of the caves to the top of a hill and from there we could walk around on this beautiful, rocky, UNDEVELOPED land. It reminded me of my dad's pictures of Scotland. No sheep though.

Oct. 7-8 - UNESCO English Camp.

This camp, held by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was for adults, which was cool because they people actually really wanted to participate and were willing to make fools of themselves speaking English, which is an effort rarely exerted by jr. high schoolers. Most of the 50 or so participants were young, and a number of them were from the local Self-Defense Force (SDF - Japan's army). I've never met such pleasant, good-humoured, and good-looking army people before!

As we got to know each other more, some of the Japanese participants told me, with laughter, that they didn't know if I was a participant or instructor; one guy, while we were gathered around a bbq for supper, said to me, (in Japanese), "man, you're English is really good, isn't it?".



This cute couple are both SDF veterans... how old do you think she is? She's THIRTY-ONE! And he's thirty-two. I thought she was my age! And their two-year-old son is adorable.



There was a "cultural" thing - a kodo concert, and it was amazing. A kodo is a long wooden 12-stringed instrument that is plucked with one's fingers. The synchronization of these four women playing was incredible.


This was breakfast. Common Japanese breakfasts include a bowl of rice, miso soup, and maybe "natto", a nasty, slimy dish of fermented soybeans that most foreigners balk at (and most Japanese love).


Two of the most unlikely girls in the army - Hiroko and "Yachan" (I forget her real name, but this is her nickname). So cute.


Kana and I drinking tea that was presented to us in the tea ceremony. The tea is like an expresso version of regular green tea - intense.

BIG NEWS!!
If you'll recall, Mizuki and Kento both went on to the prefectural speech contest. We got the astounding news last week that Mizuki had taken FIRST PLACE again!! And Kento had taken 4th again, but only the top 3 go on to Tokyo, so unfortunately, he doesn't move on. However, we were all ecstatic with Kento's performance and he said he got even more laughs and response this time around. So Mizuki is moving on to TOKYOOO...! It's next month, and it's a 3-day tournament - all the students are put up in a nice hotel all expenses paid, and their teacher/coach gets half expenses paid. But seriously, Mizuki is awesome.

This is the speech that one of my students, Okuda Kento (age 14), submitted for the speech contest. You might wonder, at first reading, why Kento was so insensitive as to say this speech in front of so many people so many times; how would his mother feel?? But in fact this speech is written with good humour, and is actually very unique among student speeches because of its funniness and drama. Most students write about lessons learned from baseball, or music, or how to better improve the natural environment around us…which are all very excellent topics, but there are so many of them, its quite exciting when you get a truly original speech like this one. Enjoy!

OKUDA KENTO's SPEECH:

Are you really so fat?

My mother is an ordinary housewife. But I think she is a little strange and unique. I want to tell you why.

One day, my mother said to me suddenly, “I am putting on weight so I have decided to diet from now on!”. She started her diet from that night. She started to exercise with dumbbells and a walking machine. But I found my chocolate cake disappearing from the refrigerator. I shouted, “What happened?! What happened to my chocolate cake?!” I asked my mother about the cake the next day. I wanted to believe that she didn't eat my cake. So I asked her, “You are on your diet now, so you didn’t eat my cake, right?” She replied casually, “I was very hungry at midnight, so I ate your cake.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was very surprised at her words and repeated them in my mind again and again. But my mother didn't care about breaking her diet.

She continued to buy many things from TV shopping programs that advertised, “Lose weight quickly!” and now there are too many weight-loss products in my house. Her current favourite is her ab-belt, but some just end up in the closet. She believes that she is losing weight, but I know she still eats takoyaki at night. She is fighting a losing battle against herself. She says, “I want to lose weight,” but she still eats late at night.

After hearing all this, you may think my mother is a very large woman. But on the contrary, she is not. She only wants to lose two or three kilograms and this is why she is trying these diet fads. Honestly, there really isn’t any difference between two or three kilograms. Many people, especially men, don’t worry about losing a few kilograms and would find her efforts to be meaningless. I also began to ask myself, “Is being fat really so bad?” “Should people judge each other solely on looks?” My mother is my mother whether she is fat or not. I will always love my mother no matter how she looks. I love her because of her personality, the way she thinks, and her other good attributes. I just want her to love herself because I love her even if she is a little big.

She is still on her diet now. I would like to see her succeed in her diet, but I think her goals will never come true. I hope she will accept herself for who she is. If anyone is thinking about dieting in the future, please think about whether it is for yourself or for others. And remember this question: “Are you really so fat?”.

OK I have to post this picture. This is Mizuki for you. She has a wonderful swagger that is very rare in Japanese girls. She likes English, Music, and Phys. Ed and could care less for everything else. When Mizuki tells me this, Yamanshita-sensei, who is her English teacher and speech coach, reacts with visible anguish. "Don't say those things, Mizuki!", she says, "You won't be able to get into high school with that attitude!". And Mizuki laughs; clearly she enjoys tormenting Yamashita-sensei like this ("Sensei, I like that face you make, it's so funny!")... they have something of a mother-daughter relationship...:) All you parents know your kids know best how to bug you where it bugs you.

SPEECH CONTEST.
English speech contest is a big deal here. Like club sports, they have district, prefectural, and national level competitions. Basically, there are two categories "Speech" and "Recitation". For those competing in the Speech category, students write their own original speech; it can be a story, a "lesson learned" type of thing, or just speaking about something that interests them. For the Recitation category, students simply memorize a passage or story from the textbook or some school literature. I had students from my 3 schools (Kubo, Kudamatsu, and Suetake) competing. These kids practice EVERY DAY for hours on this, some started as early as May of this year, if you can imagine. So much effort. And it sucks because only 4 out of 35 students in each region make the cut to the prefectural competition. I worked a bunch of overtime after school coaching these girls on their pronounciation, intonation, delivery, and so on. Most of them don't really know what they're saying, because they wrote it in Japanese and often their teachers translated it into English for them.



Team Kubo: Saori, Mio, and Mikiko. Honestly, Mikiko is about the cutest kid I've ever seen in my life. She says in her speech, "my smile is the barometer of my heart" and if this is true, she must have a heart of gold. I had to leave before I heard Saori do her speech, but both Mio and Mikiko spoke very well.



Team Kudamatsu: Maya, Chie, and Mami. OK, maybe Mami is the cutest kid I've ever seen. In any case, they all worked really hard. Chie is one of my favourite kids; she was the one who did The Todd high-five with me at the Karyo English Camp.


From Team Suetake: Mizuki, the reigning district champion! She is half-Brazilian and half Japanese, but totally Japanese at school. She's really good. As you'll see in the next few pics...


This is the venue for the speech contest. A grand ol' concert hall. It made the kids nervous.



Annnd the results?? Mizuki took FIRST PRIZE... again!! And Kento, the other Suetake student, took 4th which means he qualifies for the prefectural competition. I will post Kento's speech sometime; it's absolutely hilarious. Congrats to Mizuki and Kento! Good luck at the prefecturals, AIIIGHT~

MIYAJIMA - World Heritage Site.
Brett and I made a day trip to Miyajima, outside Hiroshima, to the famous floating shrine and arch of Miyajima island. The weather was gorgeous. I cannot stress this enough. We were both in such good spirits even before we got to the island just because the weather was so perfect. If you want to visit Japan, COME IN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER. Anyways.




The first thing we saw as we got off the ferry was: tourists. And then, scampering between the tourists, and sometimes assaulting the tourists, were DEER. Of all sizes and temperaments. There were little DEER FOOD stands (like hot dog carts, but with packets of biscuits for the deer) all over the place. The biscuits aren't that tasty though, I don't see why it's such a big seller.


A huge old shrine sits atop a hill. The massive woodwork, worn down to a dark brown…floorboards polished from centuries worth of footsteps…old old faded artwork painted on boards were suspended from the ceiling (see next pic). Everyone was quiet and spoke in hushed tones. We sat on mats and were treated to a performance by a woman (cultural interpreter?) dressed in traditional kimono who played a thingey (like a Japanese guitar with a piece of flat wood instead of a pick) and sang too. When she first spoke to introduce the piece, her voice was soft and gentle and barely audible, but when she sang, it took on a new power. It was haunting, spacious, and altogether beautiful music. Behind her, you could see the mountains of Miyajima covered in trees rising up behind her while a hawk circled and soared...




These are, for lack of a better term, sake kegs. It puts the Canadian kegs to shame, doesn't it. You almost don't even want to tap it, it's so beautiful.



Here is a bit of the inside of the floating shrine. It was low tide today so you could see the gravelly sand a few feet beneath the boards. The shrine was first built 1600 years ago...whoaaaa...


This is me doing a lame pose beside the famous arch which is waaaay bigger than it looks from the ferry ride to the island. The bottoms of the posts look like tree roots are reaching into it; it looks as if they built the arches out of trees that grew there...

Jr. High Sports Festival! ("Undokai") (oon-DOUGH-kah-ee)

Every junior and senior high school has what is called a sports festival at the beginning of the fall term. The kids practice their routines, their games, their competitions for a solid WEEK and then "present" to their parents, family, community, etc. in a day of games and stuff. I decided to go to the Kudamatsu jr. highschool one because it's closest. Amazing! The creativity of the games were unreal...like camp games or something. And all the families out to support, despite the rain in the morning...the field was all sandy muck. The kids went barefoot and most were splattered with mud by the end.


Here a group of boys perform various feats of strength, each manoever is cued by the banging of a huge taiko drum.


A bunch of girls did a dance to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". Seriously. Queen is big here.


There were three teams: White, Blue, and Red. Each had a flag that was flown mightily by these boys during the various games.


This was fun. It's hard to get the scope of this tug of war, but it was epic. The rope was at least 150m long. Before it started, groups of kids from each colour ran around the perimeter of the field to the spectators and were yelling and cheering ...at first I thought they were beseeching the crowds to cheer for their respective colours...but then I realized they were asking spectators to join their team for the tug! I'm not sure why, but this tug of war thing made an impact on me. The day was rainy, the field was mud, and yet parents and siblings and aunts/uncles, grandparents all came out to support their kids. It was great to see them out their mucking about in their nice clothes and shoes, coming back all sweating and splashed with mud. It was an eye-opening experience...the way families are with each other, how the community is together.

KARAOKE night out...
Machi (girl I work with at the office) organized a little karaoke night with some of our fellow JETs in the area....fun times!
Machi is the only Japanese person my age that I've met so far in Yamaguchi, so hopefully she's a gateway to some more Japanese friends....


Mark and Brett.


Daihachi (who dropped his pose when the first flash went so he looks unprepared when the photo actually took) and Machi working the mic. Daihachi has been to Canada before and speaks good English; he also likes to challenge himself by singing Red Hot Chili Peppers at karaoke...which most native-English speakers would have trouble with, let's be honest.


Sherona sings. Marko to her right, is a second year JET, along with Tammy on Sherona's right. Marko's a cool guy, willing to chill with we young ones (he's 36 i think)...Tammy's from Alberta and she's a karaoke machiiiine.

Hiroshima con'td.


Castle from a distance.


The oddness of this picture speaks for itself. Why would someone lock a bike rim to a garbage can? Unless there was a bike attached to the rim long ago...


A lady reads in the lobby of the Hiroshima Museum of Art.


When we were walking along the path I saw a single turtle swimming and I got all excited: "Look, guys! A turtle!". I turned around and Brett was down by "shore" of the pond with like 30 turtles all in front of him. You can see his hands and camera at the bottom of the pic.

HIROSHIMA. Brett, Katie, Ashley and I took a day trip to Hiroshima this past Saturday. We didn't visit the Peace Park this time (I'll do that another day), but we did see some amazing stuff. It's quite a city.... and if you stop to think that it's basically a young city (at least physically, if not historically and culturally) so few years after being scorched to the ground, it's even more remarkable.


This is a beautiful old Catholic church...


...and these are the front doors.


In front of the church was a huge stone block with the inscription: "UNKNOWN CIVILIANS KILLED IN WAR". This is the story of the Memorial Stone.


A beautiful little oasis in the middle of the city, it was first built in 1620...it's a "mini-landscape", that is, a smaller version of what could be miles and miles of land...the little chunks of land are islands...the pond is a great lake. Tons of turtles and fish in there...


Kids posing in front of a massive old castle (sadly, a rebuilt version) with their ma taking the pic.