Festivals

Cultural, Spiritual, Athletic...

The rain dropped like pellets on the crowds gaiting around the Mima school grounds. I watched from the shelter of the teacher's lounge as groupS of gentle old women fuddled with their umbrellas as the rain began to pour harder. But weather did not spoil the grandeur of my small village's bunkasai (cultural festival). Turnout was nearly as high as it had been for the Obon Hanabi (fireworks) festival back in August, but this festival was held midday, so the mass of the attendees was sober this time.

In no more than two months, I had been introduced to three very important and customary Japanese events. The aforementioned Hanabi, the annual teiksai (school sports festival) and the Bunkasai cultural festival which, on this day, I watched from a distance. All were open windows through which I viewed the complex and often inexplicable Japanese culture. Sometimes I opened the shades myself and sometimes they were opened for me.

Bunkasai

In a surgeon's mask Yamashita-sensei looked like he had contracted the plague, would wither away in days but didn't want to take any of us with him. It seemed like a nice enough gesture; many Japanese will guard their peers from their infected noses and mouths, but the reason for the masks is still an enigma to me. Are they wearing it to be kind to others or to protect themselves. When I first arrived in Japan, I would have argued the former, since everyone I met in my first few days was as warm as cup of cocoa. But many here say the masks are worn out of selfishness, for the sick don't want to get sicker. Whatever the reason, Yamashita-sensei looked foolish in it, especially as he barked orders at the children in preparation for the town's annual Bunkasai (cultural festival). I half expected him to ask one of the students for a scalpel.

The Bunkasai began on a Saturday in early October, lasting but two days, but after a week I needed a break. It's not as if teaching English is all that strenuous, but this particular week was my first teaching shogakkos (elementary schools). After a week of playing human jungle gym with six and seven year olds, those two days seemed to overflow like a raging river in monsoon season.

The cultural festival was to be spread over three locations; the middle school, the high school, and the town cultural center. The latter stands out noticeably, as there are perhaps three modern structures in all of Mima. With its grayish dome that on this cloudy day morphed into the sky's image, the cultural center fit Mima's landscape about as well as the Japanese bathroom slippers on my oversized feet.

I was beckoned from my computer to watch the Naval Band's rendition of various Japanese classics. They were excellent, and since they had travelled all the way from Hiroshima (at least a 5 hour journey), I was anxious to speak with them. It had been raining during their performance, so I offered to help dry their instruments.

"Doshite wa kiimashita ka?" I asked them why they had come so far to perform.

"Watashisachi no nan demo kiimasu," which I took to mean they would go anywhere to perform.

The Naval Band was certainly the entree of the Bunkasai meal, but there were other enjoyable dishes I had the good fortune to taste.

I browsed the arts and crafts carefully set beneath the basketball hoops of the middle school gym. There were flower arranging exhibitions (ikenobo style I was later told, though of course I had no idea what that meant then or even now). Japanese pottery, photography, woven wooden baskets, dragon masks, graphic and three-dimensional arts, and other obsessional Japanese arts. Of course no hobby is obsessed more by the Japanese than photography; they both make and use the best cameras in the world. Among the brilliant lanscapes and portraits rested a shot of the mud soccer tournament in Ippomatsu. I tried to explain to a fellow browser that I had been at the event, but she didn't seemed to understand or perhaps she didn't care.

I watched another middle school teacher try her hand at some craftwork, which immediately impressed upon me the delicacy of the Japanese women. Sitting as still as Japanese en dolls, they seemed to only move their hands, while all the while their crafts projects progressed into works of art. All the women in the room (I was the only male gutsy (or feminine) enough to enter this room) made something creatively different; there were no guidelines to follow. Some used grains and bamboo shoots, others used flowers and feathers. I try to mirror their zen-like contentment, but I never have been good at keeping still. By the end of my reverie they had all created masterpieces seemingly from scratch.

Later I wandered into the middle school gymnasium, where a rock and roll band was setting up to perform. Striking, yes, and it did seem a bit out of place among the pacific craftsmaking and art exhibits. But if the Japanese are anything it is eccletic, right down to the diversely-prepared bento lunches, which may contain as many as six or seven different types of meats or fishes in one meal. So the rock and roll, which, having American roots, the Japanese naturally love, didn't surprise me that much. The band, which ironically contained one of my colleagues at the middle school, covered old Buddy Holly tunes, and drummed up a few original tunes as well. But after the lead singer instructed the crowd to clap to the beat, a gentle breeze swept through the gym and seemed to blow the originality of the moment away. From then on, though the mood in the auditorium was upbeat, no one rose to dance, instead rythymically clapping to EVERY song, whether the song required it or not. It was as if the audience had been given orders, and was following them until told otherwise. Was the audience getting paid by the clap, I wondered?

Day Two

On the second day of the Bunkasai, the events shifted to the cultural center, where I took my seat for a theater performance a few minutes late. I was in the bathroom when the rest of the teachers had departed for the performacne, so I had been left behind at the school. It was a rarity if I knew where to be at any given moment, so I was neither shocked nor bewildered to find the teacher's lounge empty. I simply walked off campus and asked an old lady where everyone went.

After a beautiful choral arrangement, six men and women took the stage on their knees. Behind them was a finely woven mural depicting what I interpreted to be the Japanese trees of life. Mindlessly they chanted sutras, and I wondered if I hadn't wandered into a mosque facing Mecca. Sets of eyes all over the room closed as the drone continued; formal applause for end of the collective suffering was graciously offered at the set's finale.

The hall smelled of old people and something else I couldn't quite put my finger on. It seemed a sort of freshly shaved sawdust aroma. Four young girls each brought out kotos, traditional instruments whose sound was familiar (similiar with that of the sitar) but the sight of which I couldn't recognize. I immediately fell in love with the six-foot stringed board, though it is stereotypical of every Western image of the east. Closing my eyes, I saw all the accepted Eastern images run through my head - the Buddhist temple, the glistening rice paddies, the haunched harvester in a coned straw-hat. And the images continued as the women played the koto with symphonic skill and geisha-worthy elegance, like they were sewing silk on a feather bed. Respect seemed to be given to every note, and the melody seemed to mirror the snail's pace of Mima country life.

In my mind I could see the centuries pass over this small town, as it moved from a collection of huts to a bustling commercial center of sake, fish and rice. In truth the last stage was but a dream of the future, for Mima had but one supermarket and no streetlights. Each high note that the koto played seemed to represent a bountiful harvest, an unlaborious birth, or a sunny wedding day. There was flavor in every pick of the strings. Few times had I felt that I was not only in Japan but in Asia, but this was one of those rare moments. Once I had the feeling when I saw a man walking his bull down the road to Hiromi, slowing traffic in both directions. The feeling was mysterious for it made me feel brave for having come here and cold for having left home. Perhaps I was like the baby bear, led to the frigid stream but left alone to fish on his own. But the longer I waded, the warmer the water got, and Asia began to feel like home.

In between sets, the old women squinted in the dark to read the blue programs. Before long, seven small children stood as taut as bamboo to wail an old Japanese song. Perhaps they had been instructed that loudness was better than harmony, for the room all of a sudden felt very small and I plugged my ears. Then, without warning, what had been a cultural festival in the most traditional sense turned into a talent show MTV would have been proud to have sponsored. Out from the curtain popped several twenty-somethings to rap - literally - away my stereotypes. J-pop (Japanese pop music) blared in the background as the women danced as seductively as they could in full clothing. It was like a strip tease without the stripping. Their act caught every one in the audience - especially the elderly - off guard, and a groan to my left alerted me I was not the only one praying for an expedited conclusion.

It may have been poorly choreographed and resembled nothing more than bad taibo, but the crowd seemed to forget as soon as the next act took the stage. In yellow hair-bows and pink slippers, the cutest thing since Hello Kitty be-bopped back to the 1950's. They jumped, spun, even tied their shoes to the old American song I couldn't name (yes the shoe-tying was part of the choreography). The audience loved them, and though several other groups followed, traditional and contemporary alike, only the white-faced geisha was greeted and applauded with such fervor. The third-graders' J-Lo fatigues didn't hold a candle to the geisha's elegant turquoise kimono. Seeming to know what was coming, the geisha was given a rousing welcome even before she had performed. Her brief head tilts brought the strongest applause from the crowd, though I couldn't figure out why. All she did was turn her head, I thought to myself; my dog did that too when he couldn't figure out what was going on. She was accompanied by a hypnotic tune that could have easily been arabian, what with its nasally whining tones and endless quality. The geisha hid secretly behind her fan, like an insect hiding from a predator. This elicited the greatest applause of all, and a standing ovation upon conclusion.

My school's brass band played the finale, a saxophone led rendition of The Beatles's "Let It Be." But everything else was amateur to the geisha's well-prepared performance. When the bunkasai had ended I felt like I had been in an intensive cultural course for two days. I had seen so many things Japanese. From the crafts to the arts to musical performances, it was clear just how artistically talented the people in my town were. I felt very proud to be a member of such a skilled community, but couldn't help but think that these were the same strong people slicing rice stalks by day. How they mixed the practical necessities with the artful creativities was beyond me.

Perhaps Japanese homogenaity makes putting on a cultural festival a breeze. But when my students at shogakko asked me if we had 'festivals' in the United States, I have to admit I was saddened to say we didn't. Unless of course you count state fairs and carnivals as cultural festivals. I don't.