Japanese festivals and Thanksgiving, oh my! part I

Hello all! By the time you read this, it will be Thanksgiving in America, so Happy Thanksgiving! I wish I could be at home to celebrate with you all, but since I’m not, I wish you all a wonderful and blessed holiday! Please eat an extra slice of pumpkin pie for me! Here’s a catch-up of the week so that I can get on to our Japanese Thanksgiving story.

Saturday:

Ugh. Saturday. I had to work on Saturday since the cultural festival was on Sunday. Everyone was busy running around practicing, working on last minute things, and setting up. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. It was the looooooongest day at work ever. While everyone else was busy, I was the awkward foreigner standing in the background unsure of what to do. It was like starting a new job. Everyone else already knows the moves, and you’re sitting there trying to not look scared. I hate that feeling. The morning was excruciatingly slow, but after lunch time seemed to go by a lot quicker.

Sunday:

Sunday was the cultural festival. I wasn’t exactly sure of what was in store for me, but I knew that it wouldn’t be like Saturday. I could sit back and enjoy watching the students perform without feeling awkward. Ian came with me, and we had to be at school at 8:15AM. A lot of people from the town, parents of students, family members, etc. came to the festival.  The students had displays of their artwork. There were handbags that they had sewn from old clothes, calligraphy of kanji characters, posters that the students had made about each class, poems about each student and his/her picture, drawings, and inkans made from soap stone. (Inkans are personal seal stamps used in Japan. Instead of signing your name on a formal document, you use this stamp.) The inkans were beautiful! At first, I thought they were chess pieces, but one of the teachers turned it over and showed me the Chinese characters engraved into the stone. I never had to work with soap stone in high school art class, but I know how difficult it is to make tiny details, and there are A LOT of details in some kanji.

The festival was basically one long variety show. It started off with a traditional Buddhist ceremony in which girls in kimonos danced around with bells. I’ll post pictures and/or videos sometime soon. There were also taiko drummers and more dancing. The band played a few songs. I don’t want to sound biased, but the Yunomae JHS band is phenomenal. Those kids can play the heck out of their instruments! After the band played, the students who I helped practice English speeches in October gave them, and then it was time for me to embarrass myself. My English teacher told me that all of the teachers had to go on stage to singing a song. She asked me if I knew the song. It was in Japanese, so of course I didn’t. She told me to just move my lips to make it look like I was singing. I’ve heard that mouthing “watermelon” and “strawberry” to any song makes it look like you’re singing. Apparently, that only applies to English songs. That didn’t work for me, so I had to resort to “blah-ditty, blah-ditty, blah-ditty.” Embarrassing moment #98,793,487,594,767 in Japan. I asked Ian how it looked from the audience, and he said it was hilarious. Sometimes, you just have to laugh at yourself! After lunch break, each grade had a sing off. It started with the 1^st graders (really 7^th grade) and progressively got better. The last group to go, 3-2 (really 9^th grade) was AMAZING. They sang in perfect harmony. Every note was spot on. It was a beautiful song. They won. Other groups sung as well. One group sung “Hail Holy Queen” just like they did on Sister Act. It was too funny!

After the singing, there was a play. I’ve seen the kids practice the play, and one scene I’m pretty sure was about the bombing of Hiroshima. The tone of the scene was very somber, the background sounds were of planes, and I heard “Hiroshima” and “America” a couple of times. I know I shouldn’t have, but I felt really awkward during that scene. I know they weren’t, but I felt like everyone in the room was staring at us.  A more cheerful scene in the play was a glow stick performance. Five boys danced to a song with different color glow sticks. I’m not giving it justice with this lame description, but it was really cool. I think Ian really enjoyed the festival, but his favorite part was probably the attention. That was his first event at the JHS. Most people have seen him around town, but that didn’t stop the JHS girls from swooning over the exotic foreign man on Sunday. Whenever we walked around the gym, they would follow behind giggling. Ian said that he made the mistake of smiling at one of them, and she completely stopped in her tracks. LOL!!

Monday:

Since I had to “work” on Sunday, I had Monday off. I was very excited to not have to get out of bed that morning because it was COLD. Last week and this week, it has really turned cold. I think the low has been near freezing. That’s not that big of a deal at home where you go from one heated building to another, but in Japan, it’s not like that. They are VERY energy aware. They don’t have central heating or insulation in Japan. I’ve heard winter is MISERABLE. Our house is small enough that if we wanted to heat the whole thing, we could, but it’s rather expensive. Usually, we close off one or two rooms and only heat the bedroom/living room and office at night. (Needless to say, if we need something outside of those rooms, we quickly dash to whatever we need and back into the warmth.) We have huge black curtains over the windows which radiate the sun’s warmth during the day. At school, I sit in my layers and shiver. I’ve been wearing tights under my pants, and I finally broke out my cuddle duds that my aunt sent me. There are two heaters in the teacher’s room, but they haven’t been turned on yet. The hallways, gym, and non-used classrooms aren’t heated. It’s cold now, and I have absolutely nothing to look forward to. It’s only going to get worse.

Tuesday:

Tuesday was what I like to refer to as a “sandwich” day. It was sandwiched between two days off. As I said, I had off Monday, and then Wednesday was a national holiday. It was Labor Thanksgiving day. I went to my nursery schools that morning and attempted to give a Thanksgiving lesson. We made hand turkeys, but I don’t think they quite grasped what it was. They don’t have turkeys in Japan, so it was difficult to describe what turkey is to five-year-olds in a language they don’t understand. They traced their hands, colored, and cut them out, but none of them looked quite like the example turkey that I had. Oh well. They still had a good time doing it. During lunch at the JHS, usually music is played over the PA system. On Tuesday, I recognized some of it. The first song was the song we sung at the music festival in Hitoyoshi. Only on Tuesday it was in Japanese. It was weird, but I also heard Christmas music in Japanese. My kids laughed at me as I sung the English lyrics of “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” over the Japanese lyrics. During break time, I whipped out my cards, and we played “babanuki,” which is Old Maid. When I got home from work, I don’t know if it was the holiday the next day or what, but I was hyper. I wanted to go for a walk to get rid of the excess energy, but since it’s so cold, it’s so easy to just come home and stay nestled in blankets. Krista came over that night for dinner and to discuss last minute Thanksgiving plans at her house.

I’ll break this into two blogs so that it’s not terribly long. Please read the next one to see how we celebrated Thanksgiving in Japan!