Yonezawa Technical High School

Yonezawa Technical High School, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I have one student who attends the Yonezawa Technical High School. Apparently they have an annual "event" which the students refer to as "Jigoku no Oenrenshu" (I'd loosely translate it as "School Cheering Practice from Hell"). It seems that at his school there are four school songs which are essentially yelled out at the top of ones lungs. Freshmen students have a week or so to learn these songs at the beginning of a new school year. If I recall the story correctly, the newbies are assembled and taught the songs en mass. Then the following week they have to learn them off by heart. If it was just a matter of being given a lyric sheet and committing the songs to memory then things would be simple. But no, this is Japan and why make things that easy. I was told that all through the second week of the new term the songs are blared through the school PA system at lunch hour each day. Added to that joyful scene are marauding teams of third year students who patrol the school and ambush freshmen students with demands to perform the songs on cue. The part that got lost in translation was the grand finale. The way I understood it, after enduring this torture (what else could I call it), the first year students are hauled down to Fukushima to perform these songs. I asked my student what he thought of that and he told me his class didn't make that trip to Fukushima on account of the 3/11 earthquake.

Addendum: Another one of my friends attended the same school over a decade ago. The "Jigoku no Oenrenshu" was something she missed out on because she transferred into the school in second year. Nonetheless she confirmed the details of the above story. The additional things she pointed out were; 1) that the songs are belted out with one's hands held behind the back whilst thrusting out the chest and looking upward, 2) in her time the upper class students checked on the progress of the first year students on a one-to-one basis and in close quarters (they'd stand less than arm's length away from their "trainee"). Oh joy...

ほたるまつり

ほたるまつり (Firefly Festival) Poster, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I took this photograph a short while before the "Hotaru Matsuri" (Firefly Festival) opened. I was a bit preoccupied with other things in late June and then the rainy season came on with full vengeance. Taking time off to drive to southern Iwate prefecture and through areas devastated by the 3/11 disaster brought me to July 21st as my first opportunity to go up to Onogawa Onsen.

Onogawa Onsen is a few kilometres south of Yonezawa. It's a small "onsen" (hot spring) resort area with a handful or more ryokan (inns), eateries and souvenir shops. In the winter time the locals make a "kamakura mura" (essentially a collection of snow caves or igloos) to attract visitors. The summer time attraction is the firefly festival.

I think I recall someone saying that in the past it was not uncommon to see fireflies in and around Yonezawa. I can only assume that habitat destruction has led to them only being seen in great numbers out in Onogawa Onsen.

All in all, I saw real fireflies for the first time in my life. Not many of them but enough for me to be happy to say that I've actually seen them.

きゃろらいんちゃろんぷろっぷきゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ...and other stuff.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

Last Saturday I stayed behind after the last class I taught to clean up a few things. My co-worker James was teaching his evening class of junior high school students. At some point in his class I heard exclaim "WHAT!!! Kamyu what?!?" very loudly. I heard one of his students say "Kyary Pamyu Pamyu" in her own defense. I sat there and smiled to myself. Yes, it's the woman whose stage name is so out in left field even the Japanese have trouble getting it out of their mouths. Naturally, when I went to a karaoke shop later that evening and found a life size cut out of the (in)famous woman, I took a photo of it and sent it to James. As for the title of this blog entry, the hiragana spells out Ms. Takemura Kiriko's full stage name: Caroline Charonplop Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. I really want to know what processes are running in her head. That name is either pure brilliance or complete lunacy.

Aside from that silliness, we are now in the midst of a winter which doesn't seem to want to let its grip on this city loosen. Unlike last winter, the temperature range has been wider and we've had days of rain and warm weather in between blizzards, winter wind storms and days upon days of continuous snow. It was amusing counting the dump trucks lined up on a street in the old downtown. They were waiting their turn to haul snow out of the area in preparation for last weekend's annual Yonezawa Snow Lantern Festival. All said there were seven of them.

As luck would have it, this year the snow lantern festival weekend coincided with Chinese New Year. So that limited the venues we could book to have our obligatory Chinese New Year party. We managed to find a place nonetheless in spite of the influx of tourists who flowed into the city. Oh yes, "Thank you" to James for delivering his New Year's toast in his grandparent's dialect of Chinese. Well done.

A friend wrote an entry on her blog about why she doesn't enjoy that almost ubiquitous Japanese furniture item, the kotatsu. I, on the other hand, am seated at mine with it turned on whilst my kerosene heater is blasting away in the background. I suspect, but I haven't checked to confirm, the arrangement I've been using this year to heat my living space is less expensive than what I employed last year. Last year I used the wall mounted heater/air conditioner unit quite a bit (along with the kotatsu). This year I've been using a tag team of the kerosene heater and a floor standing electric heater. So far that combination has worked quite well. As for sitting in one spot for the better part of my time spent at home...it's not much different from what I did back in Canada! Such is life.

A Short Trip Back Home

Tomahawk Restaurant, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I've been back in Japan a bit over a week after visiting family and friends in Vancouver over Christmas and New Years. Things are more or less back to the usual now with the exception of a bit of jet lag which lasted the better part of the week (a cup of coffee wasn't enough to get me through the spells where I wanted to stay awake).

How was it being back at the old homestead? Quite good. It goes without saying I ate a lot of foods which I can't have here in Japan: homemade turkey dinner with all the fixings, North American style pizza, Greek style roast lamb, Cantonese style Chinese food (including yum-cha/dim sum goodies), Indian cuisine, the list goes on...

In a way it was like I had never left. But there was still that lingering feeling that something was amiss. I called it "reverse culture shock". I was doing a lot of things I had done in my past life in Canada but at the end of the day there wasn't a place which I could claim as being "mine", i.e.: home. Yes, I own an apartment in Vancouver but I have tenants renting it out now. Hardly the place I can turn myself in to at the end of busy day of shopping, dining and socializing.

The Tomahawk Restaurant is one place I drove by almost each day (I borrowed my mother's car) during my stay in Canada. It has been a constant throughout all my waking memory. I suppose its exterior has been cleaned up a bit every now and then but aside from that I don't think it has changed in appearance in over half a century. In a way it was a symbol of at once of being back home and yet being a stranger in a familiar place; a place both comfortable and alien at the same time. I can't quite put my finger on it but I know the feeling is real.

All in all the trip back home was a good one. There was a slight pang of sadness when I headed off on my return journey. I'll be back again...can't say when but it will happen.


Post script: Technically my B.C. driver's licence is invalid so I carried my Japanese driver's licence when I drove. It was amusing when I produced it was I.D. at a bank. The teller wasn't quite sure what to make of it. "At least the name is in English" was all she could say... (^_-)\*

Talking About Money...

Earlier this week my co-worker James and I were at the local McDonald's (well, technically it's one of two in this city) for a quick bite to eat between classes. I mentioned in the course of the conversation that one thing I probably won't see when I go back to Canada is the lowly penny. That led to talking about the American one dollar bill (James is from the USA) and the refusal of Americans to replace the bill with a coin as has been done in Canada. James knows of the loonie and toonie and at that point in time he went on like "You guys have what...oh yeah...that loonie and toonie". He stopped right there and his face lit up. "You know, 'toonie' is perfect because it combines the English 'two' with the Japanese 'ni'(二)". That took a second to sink in for me. I've always thought of the two dollar coin name as "toonie" instead of "twonie" which is probably how James thinks it's spelled. So there you go. A little bit of word play based on the name of a coin.

The Yonezawa Textile Museum

Inside the Yonezawa Textile Museum, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I was first introduced to Yonezawa's textile legacy...I don't remember exactly when. Sorry for the jest but now that I think about it I'm not sure when I first was made aware of it. Nonetheless, the creation of the textile industry here was a part of the restoration of the city's fortunes in the late 18th century.

Based on a friend's recollections I presume the old weaving and dyeing shops and factories were active in large numbers up until about 35 years ago. She told of how, as a child, she always heard the sound of the looms clacking away all day and how the river was coloured by dyes discharged by the shops. She was a bit surprised as an adult to find that the natural colour of the water was not the hue she remembered as a child. I'm guessing those small factories and shops were superseded by modern facilities around that time frame. Either that or they modernized their equipment and methods of dealing with effluent.

One thing which surprised me was the location of the museum. It's only a couple of blocks from my home and I've passed the building many times in the past year without being aware of its occupants. The reason why I had checked to find the location of the textile museum was because a friend and his family were visiting from Canada and I was looking for sites to take them to. So it was a pleasant surprise to find the place was "In front of [my] eyes and nose", as some Japanese might say.

Preserving Obon Odori

Obon Odori Musicians Playing and Singing a video by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The video clip for this entry shows members of the Yonezawa Obon Odori Preservation Society performing in the Machi no Hiroba (trans.: open space town square). This was very interesting to me as it featured traditional Japanese musical instruments (shamisen, flute and taiko drums) and a couple of vocalists. Back home in Canada we had the more standard single drummer on a stand in the centre of the rings of dancers with recorded music played over a PA system. I suppose that arrangement can be found in numerous communities in Japan too.

This particular Obon odori was different in that the dances were mixed in with other elements such as ensemble taiko drumming and a recording of an old song played over the PA (with lyrics wondering about what the world would be like in 31 years when the 21st century begins). There was only 1 "yatai"/foodstand unlike the many which can be found at other festivals. As such this event was more about a community association showing what odon odori was like in the days prior to PA systems and recorded music. My co-worker friend who didn't seem to be aware this event was organized by an Obon odori preservation society wasn't impressed by it. I suppose he hasn't been exposed to the modern version.

All in all I found this to be an intriguing event. It was Obon odori with a different agenda: its purpose not just to serve as a means for citizens to go out and have fun but also to educate. While its aims aren't that much different from the Obon odori I've attended in Canada and the USA, the atmosphere of the event was quite different. It wasn't about the descendents of Japanese emigrants abroad laying claim to their ancestral culture, it felt more like the Japanese trying to reach back into their past and make it relevant. In my eyes the ideals and goals are similar but the context was very different.