A stout man, belly bulging with lunch for two, stared intensely at me as I unfolded a metal chair. The ceremony
had yet to start, but this man was paying close attention to what he apparently thought was the show. He was
wearing a heavy duty weight belt, the kind you might see on a bodybuilder or construction
worker, but he only carried a camera. Unshaven and seemingly unkind, he approached me with hesitation and
said oddly, "Where are you from?" in the most polite form of Japanese. My answer settled him and he waddled away,
leaving me to the dance.
Like staring at foreigners, the Katana Odori (Sword Dance) (sometimes called Hana Odori: Flower Dance) is one of Mima's oldest
traditions, having been performed for over 400 years. This year's was at the Sonne Jinja, in the middle of the
rice paddies on a hot summer day. I arrived with the school principal, having been invited as his guest. We sat
shaded under white tents erected especially for the event. We had first row seats.
The shrine was small: one traditional Japanese building, the distinctive shingled roof shimmering in the sun. Inside,
ornate trinkets dotted the altar, and lucky leaves and auspicious calligraphy too. All of it artwork. On first glance the shrine
seemed old, but a closer look revealed it had been remodeled. Some wood weathered; some wood white.
Surrounding the temple, 360 degrees of rice, yellowed and tall by the summer sun and typhoon rains. A rice paddy begins
bright green buts ends in yellow. It usually points straight to the sky, upstanding like most Japanese themselves.
But a powerful typhoon had damaged many of these paddies, smashing huge craters. The rice could still be eaten, though, I was told.
The katana odori is a summer harvest festival, performed on September 1st, every year. Before calendars, I imagined,
the yellowing rice must have decided the date.
Four or five Japanese cedars peppered the landscape near the stone torii gates, the Japanese landmark entrance for shrines and temples.
Two tall pines bookended the shrine itself. A karaoke stereo sat on the shrine's highest step, and like the remodeled shrine, bespoke a contrast of new with old.
A loud drum boomed but failed to silence the spectators, most noticeably the small kids loitering around the snack bar,
set up especially for this event. From where I was sitting, all I could make out was candy.
The drumming picked up pace and felt less like traditional Japanese taiko than a contemporary beat. A man dressed like a sorcerer kneeled at the
shrines altar and bowed, prayed, bowed, clapped, bowed several times in a row, waved a sakaki tree branch in front of the altar, bowed
to the distinguished guests seated in the shrine, then waved the branch at us, the rest of the audience.
Through this, the chatter continued. What of Japanese manners? I wondered. Cameramen littered the grounds lugging baseball sized lenses. Most looked bored.
Another sorcerer approached the altar, bowed deeper than the first and chanted his prayers slowly. He wore a pinkish purple kimono with a pointy black hat. I
wanted to understand his prayers. I looked around the audience. Most were elderly and male in white short sleeve button downs, others were very young: the
candy kids. Many were my students. Most clinged to their young mothers.
A cell phone rang - amidst the chatter you could barely hear it but the man behind me must have been waiting for it
because he answered it. I looked around again to see if this bothered people, but I saw
no frowns. Instead there was an ambience of anticipation. Men, women and children, waiting for a train.
The second sorcerer finished and set a boombox on the second step, preparing for the girls dance. He got confused, consulted an
elderly man, who in turn consulted a waiting photographer. With the situation finally sorted, the dance began. Four elegantly kimonoed
schoolgirls - some of my Friday students - began swirling their arms and tiptoeing their feet. It was a magical dance, full of colors and
percision.
The cameramen swarmed like scavengers on a corpse. It seemed this was the moment they had been waiting for.
