Heat Seaking Kitties, Bonburi, Taikyoken Mini-Masters, Flying Mutant Ants, or Roomates Really Do Exist?

"I don't think anything too exciting is going to happen today," or so I had thought this morning. HA! Yeah, I was wrong on that one. We set the plans into motion for the role-plays that will be the centerpiece of tomorrow's performances to mark the end of Summer Camp here in Midorigaoka ("green hill," which is, humorously enough localed next to Aoyama, meaning "blue mountain," both of which sound very beautiful when spoken yet are among the simplest of names you'd find anywhere on the planet away from Trees, a town in the deep south, USA.) One role-play that I was supervising today was especially funny. They were doing a play from the book Aladdin. They needed a ring to give Aladdin for the skit, but they couldn't locate one to use as a prop. I told the guy in the group to take off his watch, which he gave to Aladdin (played by a very tiny-handed junior-higher) and Aladdin put this "ring" which could fit without opening up onto her upper arm, probably, was just funny enough to make the skit a comedy by itself. They threw in some lugging motions on the person who was carrying the ring, and that made it all the better! The results will come in tomorrow, and hopefully they perform it well on stage. Stage-coaching, one of my many jobs here apparently, is pretty fun when you have no budget. Like HS but without the drama of fellow actors being as personal when someone stinks or screws up.

I also got to do a PR lesson on our open-campus-time. Gerald headed it, and was hilarious, maniacal really, but did a good job connecting with the many students there and making the University look pretty fun. Which it is. Apparently one of the attractions, as I recently found out, is that our boys Baseball team is very cute. Gerald apparently knew a student that told him this, not all that long ago, and that she had come to this school with the full intent of sleeping with every single one of them! Apparently she managed to "bat a-thousand!" So all I know about our popular boy's baseball team right now is that they are loud at the lunch table, they are our main sport by popular approval, and that the team members are cute and man-slutty. Gerald always has the most interesting information.


Then I went to go home, knowing that their might be some kind of a festival tonight from Maybelle, who I knew from the tourist trip, and who had presented on a Phillipino game involving a can and slipper-throwing (it is not something I would like to try to explain in a small number of words. It was clear that it had one of the COLLEGE students at the camp totally stumped after explanations in 2 languages by about 3 people in clear wording). So I head towards where the festival was supposed to be. I am immediately intercepted by the new woman in my life, Odd-Eye, as I've come to think of her, who had somehow managed to track me down and decide it was time for some cuddling. So I obliged, having a bit of time on my hands before the Bonburi (I think that is about how it would be spelled). I probably petted her and managed to take pictures over about 20 minutes! She was not ready to give up either, not even with putting up with the camera that she was *slightly* more tolerant of this time. I figured out I had to put something like a petting hand or my face directly behind it to make her move towards it. So I took about 5 decent pictures of her. She's not a very healthy cat, I'm not sure what she eats, but she is collared, a bit poorly-cleaned (or she rolls in the dirt alot) and kinda ratty for a cat all-in-all. But come on! A cat that finds you on the street to cuddle you on your way home?? How cool is that! And she's c~u~d~d~l~y! So yep, sorry Brandy, but you've got to share a little bit more of the spotlight again! Finally, when it becomes clear she isn't letting me go away and stop petting her, I try and lead her stumbling along a pet along a low wall (seen left) as she enjoys the pet, while I turn to quickly head the other way. I checked to make sure she wasn't following me, and I never saw her again tonight after that, so she probably just got a little confused and stayed, not knowing where I went (I hope, this time anyways, she IS someone else's cat!)



I get to the Bonbori (dance festival, basically) to see that there are giant concentric and overlapping rough-circles of people dancing around a big Taiko drum playing to the beat of a poor speaker-system with traditional music running. There are around 2000 people in the space the size of about 2 Harrington blocks. Most are not dancing. There are also carnival games "BINGO" (the quotes are because it is more like a lottery where the first person to bring up a single number called out wins the prize, with descending prizes, the best one being a huge beetle (don't ask me, I have no idea what is so great about owning a beetle, no matter how large.)) There are other carnival events as well: simple games with cheap wood and plastic implements used for so many years, just like Fall Fest in Harrington, really. Except these ones are immensely popular. Fireworks begin...and go for a while! I got a few good pictures, the best of which is below. Remember now, I have a free, outdated, cheap by perhaps the cheapest phone-maker in Japan...and of course that means my resolution at night is probably better than most of the best in America. So lucky me. Unlucky is that I can't take the phone with me when it expires. There is some law about it I don't understand yet. Just the same, The dancing begins as the fireworks end! Everyone is dancing in step, perhaps hundreds, and Maybelle, in a kimono from her friend Yumi, and Yumi herself head out to join them, (Maybelle being Phillippina doesn't really know what she is doing, but she is a good sport about it.) I am left with her friend, a perhaps 40 year old teacher of English at a local community center, who is giving me all kinds of wonderful advice about things in the city and the local area. Then she informed me that the walk to the south that I went on for stargazing a few nights back was further than I thought: I was on the edge of Kobe! Maps.google.com might be able to give you an idea about the distance that that is. I think my fast-walk is faster than I thought. Kyoko is her name. She has excellent English skills, and has been a big assistance to Maybelle. She's very helpful about almost any thing that I might need here. Then I am approached by a man and his wife, and their very little one, asking if I am American, where I am from, etc. At first, I was worried at a very cultural event like this one that I might be insulting by being out of place or something, but it wasn't the case here. They were literally just curious about me. They mostly spoke clear Japanese that I could understand but not answer well, but he of course was not expecting much Japanese out of me anyways, so Kyoko translated to some degree, and, his wife even did some translating.

Then Maybelle came and managed to convince me to join the giant circle-dance. How? I have no idea. But Phillipinos are very convincing folk from what I have seen. The next thing I know I am doing this mass-correography, and thinking about how this move here is like Cross-hands, and this move here is representative of nourishment and simultaneously of a punching sequence, and how this move over here is like that of a late 1970's African-American jazz singer's dance. One old woman, about 4'3" came up to me after one of the dances, smiled at me, said some very glad-sounding blessing-like words, and then bowed ever-so-slightly and walked off as soon as I uttered to most polite and thankful thing I could think to say, especially since I was quite thankful! We did a total of 3 dances together, the 3 of us, Yumi, Maybelle and myself, and of course Yumi and at least a few dozen others I would guess got me on tape doing this dance in near-synchronization with the people I was using as cues: Those with precise wrist and foot placement. Like with sword fighters the best practicioners can be picked out by their foot-placement and wrist-position. The dance is symbolic on a number of levels that I am missing still, I think, but it is definitely representative of the flow of life in Japan. The cooperation, the moving to the music, the crowded yet generally happy, busy life, and the communal representation of flow and of sticking together with your immediate group that overlaps with so many others directly or indirectly. "The dance" could be thought of as living in Japan. If one person was to stop, it could be awful, since the dance is an almost constant movement forward with some side and backwards steps. Twice I almost stepped on a little kid that was a bit out-of-step! The parents do not seem to want to prevent children from participating in this cultural event, and I imagine that other than danger of someone being out-of time (even if it might be only to one's own danger) must be worth the risk. Japan is almost more Western than it is Eastern, in not all but many ways. These events, for some, especially the profoundly elderly, seem to be very important. Most that can walk even hunched, dance at some point, and sadly some of the best dancers (through experience and dedication) are over 70, despite lack of limberness.

When I returned from the dancing, I was again met by the couple that were so interested in me before. I compared notes on some of the martial and dance aspects of these dance styles with others, and as I often do, made hand motions to express some of them. The man of the inquiring couple was instantly asking questions to Kyoko-sensei. "Whoops" I thought. Now he's going to go through every Japanese martial art or other custom I might go though. Luckily, I think Kyoko saw this coming, and mentioned that I studied Taikyoken (T'ai Chi Ch'uan, which she knew because I had asked her as a local resource earlier if there were classes around the area, to which she replied that there was one female of many years practice at her own community center but not likely any others) and the initial reaction of the guy was, which I understood but hardly believed my ears: (translated) "Oh, Taikyoken? Yeah, our local master of it is here dancing; would her want to meet her?" Kyoko went to translate the sentence, but I cut her off waving my hand, stunned slightly, knowing it was a bit rude, telling her I understood but wasn't sure if I believed my ears. He took Kyoko and I over to meet the Sifu, who turned about to be a roughly 65 lb. 3'2" very elderly woman, frail looking, yet with a perfect back.

At this point I knew she was dangerous. Most really frail old folk that have been doing this forever are better martial artists than anyone young could hope to be, especially in Taikyoken. She is not only ancient, but carries herself with tremendous confidence. She informed me that classes are Wednesday afternoons, in a very old dialect from who-knows-where/when. Kyoko had to translate almost every word, with a tiny bit of difficulty. I tried to be as respectful as possible, but I still worried I would find some way to accidentally insult such a person, funny, considering I'm nearly twice her height: But that's twice as far for my head to fall when I am knocked down too.

At this juncture, she says that she wishes to move on in one way or another, and leaves us to attend to Maybelle, who has suddenly returned with Yumi and is batting at her kimono somewhat violently. Turns out she got a bug in there that stung/bit her at least 5 times. They fight with it, and the bug seems to be gone. But Maybelle is in pain, from her top-left-side rib under her armpit to her spine. It's a stinging pain. My companions can't likely strip her right then and there, so we are force to walk to a friends house, 4 blocks from my place, surprisingly. The woman there is a gracious host, and gets us ice cream after she manages to get Maybelle fixed up with the help of Kyoko and Yumi, followed by a little tray of wonderful, pretzel-like confections that are more like flaky, bakery-goodness. She talks with me to some length, interested about where I come from, what I am doing in the area, etc. After a while, she begins talking more with Kyoko, her obvious friend for some time, and our connection to the woman, and I hear a familiar-sounding word. "Katoriku" Catholic. But she sounds sad. I wasn't sure what to think. I asked Kyoko, who'd been successful for translating before "what about Catholics?" as innocently as I could, hoping it isn't something that I would have any reason to get defensive over, and to my surprise, it was the woman's husband. He died a few years back. Here this grandmother is taking care of her own mother, single, probably not a big wage-earner, and she has us in to help an almost-complete stranger to fix her up and treat her stinging bites, and treats us to a full dessert! I didn't have to put any effort into the little bit of tears that came, and I thanked her once again for her hospitality. She ushered us out shortly thereafter, and the prognosis, by the way, of Maybelle's stings: "A new, flying breed of ant that stings at people exists in Japan now." Japanese people have been growing with them, so they are not effected expect perhaps for a split second. Maybelle, however, was a very foreign body to these things, and when it got caught in her kimono, it panicked about as much as she did, except her swatting at it in her clothes only got her extra stings. We don't know that that was it for sure, but bees were not around where we were, and no other flying insect besides a mosquito in the area could create an itching sensation: and even those don't make you sting painfully.

I go home, once again expecting no oddities. Did I leave that light on? No. The roommate has returned! He's about 5'11," tall, sports-playing Korean guy. Seems pretty nice, has better English than Ms. Kawada told me. Oh, and my broken washing machine was replaced with a brand new one, free-of charge while I was gone at work! Oh, and my roommate's favorite hobby? RPG's on Playstation 2. And he has Final Fantasy XII which he told me I could play any time, even when he is gone! And now it is tremendously late and I am exhausted. Shawaa O abiru shimasu.

~A~