Tapping away in the Shogakko

Here's what I'm up to if you're bored today.

I'm just finishing up in Koyasan's Primary School, and I've got to say, these kids are probably solely responsible for me being in anyway fit. They are ALL little Ninjas. I said a long while back about the transformation during cleaning time from cute little kids to Sweeping-Brush-Samaurai's. Today was just us "playing" a game wherein I battle them off with swirls from my scarf and they come in with flying kicks. Dodge ball on crack perhaps.

Rhapsody in Blue is playing....Actually, check that. It's ended and been replaced with Red Hot Chili Peppers. Huh, I'm just back from the Music room where I was just talking to the 11 year old who is playing DJ now during break. They're his own cds. I can see a lesson involving lyrics here...

Yesterday in Fuki was another Primary School visit. The whole PrimarySchool (so that would be 12 students then, no 1st Class) was playing basketball together and I help Tatsuya, the smallest boy in 3rd class, score by holding him up to the rim to dunk.

He held on.
I pulled.
He held on.
I stopped supporting him.
No change.

I think he's a about half a hobbit in size, and he seemed willing to hold on, with one hand, all day. I had to jump, yank, and pry him off.

Feckin' legend of a kid.

Because the Primary and Middle School (7 students) next door to each other in Fuki are so small now, they've joined together, and you can see some pics of the 1st 2nd and 3rd years last November kicking my ass at Othello here.


http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/davidlmorrison/JapanAug2006toJul2007/TeachingatFuki/

Meanwhile in Hanasaka, the even smaller village I teach at half waydown the mountain, (11 students) there is a slightly different school of martial arts to Koyasan: Cardboard Tube Samaurai. Just as honourable, but with a lot less pain. For me at least. There's some photos from December of 4th, 5th and 6th class here.


http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/davidlmorrison/JapanAug2006toJul2007/TeachingatHanasaka/
Looks like an unidentifiable lunch is up.

Amities

david

Du-Ri-AH
After a year and a half with it, I've just discovered a new Kanji on my washing machine. It has a drier function. God damn it.

Doya-Doya Festival


http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/davidlmorrison/JapanAug2006toJul2007/OsakaDoyaDoyaSun14thJan07/

It's the Doyadoya (No idea what it means) Festival in the main shrine of Osaka. It's in one of those compounds that houses both Shinto and Buddhist buildings, where the Buddhist monks pray to the Shinto gods to protect their buildings, and vice-versa.

This willingness to take the foreign and adapt it to native needs is all over Japan, most notable in the use of foreign words within the Japanese language. Bread was introduced by the Portuguese, so it's "Pan". They didn't have a word for part time job, so they borrowed
the German "Arbeit". The list is endless, especially when it comes to things that can be described in English in far fewer syllables than in Japanese, even when there are Japanese words than could do the job.

Back on track. It's a Naked Man festival, in which men (high school boys in this case) wearing sumo nappies crowd into a temple and try to grab the good luck charms dropped by a priest from a platform above them. It's a daylight, less violent, less crowded version of the
Festival I took part in last February, the one where I'm visible in the newspaper clipping, and was hilarious to watch this time around.

ESPECIALLY when the participants screamed as ice cold water was poured over them. Here's the photo I submitted to the agencies to put on the wire.

And it was already bloody cold out to start with.

What's the German word for pleasure from someone else's pain? Schadenfreude, I think is how you spell it. Japanese entertainment, TV and Live, is all about the Schadenfreude.

END OF BREAK

The rest of my time in Gunma was mostly spent engaged in my favourite pastimes of eating, sleeping, and watching films. And more sleeping. It reminded me of being back in Dublin those first few days. Bed, bed, and more bed.

And then an expedition at the end to another Ski slope, this one with over a metre of snow.
Everything was alright for the first two hours, it was snowing, so visibility wasn't so great. And then, WHITE.

I lost all sight of everyone else on the mountain, and of, well,everything! The wind was so hard that I wasn't even sure if I was still standing; moving or still. My experiences on a board went from too little snow to a BLOODY BLIZZARD! They had to close the mountain because the ski lifts were going to attempt loops. Before their gymnastics practice could happen though, some people were using themto get DOWN; as it had become more dangerous to ski down.

Anyway, you can see photos of the entire break here.

http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/davidlmorrison/JapanAug2006toJul2007/Christmas2006/

New Year's Sa-ke

New Year's in Tokyo was.... interesting.

A big group of us went to Roppongi, which is infamous for being about as dodgy as Japan can get. Before we had even left the Metro station, we had come across the first of many DUMB AS SHIT Marines. How did you SURVIVE growing up? And then 10 metres from the station, I started hearing voices.

"Hashish-Hashish"

But no bodies to accompany them....

Not even very pale little Japanese boys wearing eyeliner, or little girls crawling out of wells.

"The Grudge" and "The Ring" being documentaries in their original Japanese form.

There was Mexican food (Tokyo having surprisingly few Japanese restaurants. Does Dublin have many “Irish” restaurants?), and dancing, and watching "dancing" and lots of laughing at other people's expense. And a bizarre set up on one floor whereby the men and women had to sit on separate couches, only there was no couch for the men.

Just as it ended, Erin and I left the rest and took a chance. We really wanted to see the fish market in Tokyo at it's busiest time, 5 to 7 a.m. Apparently the sight of Multi-Tonne Tuna being tossed through the air as people argue on price is well worth the lack of sleep. What a way to go, being decapitated by a flying dead Tuna. I'm sure it's happened. So we took the metro there, but, as expected, it was closed for the National Holiday. The restaurants weren't, so we had some of the BEST sashimi (raw fish) EVER. The monster feed was stunningly gorgeous, as was the Knife Master who was preparing it right in front of us.

Maybe he was just stunning.

Desert was provided by a Buddhist Temple we stumbled upon on the return to the station. We joined the crowd for the New Year's ceremony, and were poured a bowl of Sake at the end. It was just after sunrise, but it's very hard to say no to a guy on his 34,567th incarnation who has just blessed the unpleasantly early alcohol for you.

Completely knackered, there was another site I wanted to see.

New Year's is THE big holiday in Japan, and the first visit to a Shrine of the New Year is a grand occasion. We took the Metro to The Meiji Shrine

(First Emperor, and former father figure for the Japanese state, after Imperial rule was restored at the end of the 19th century; Hirohito's grandfather)

the most important Shrine (Shinto, not a Buddhist Temple) in Tokyo to see the first visitors of the New Year. Some wore Kimono, many were with their whole family, and all were deep in thought and prayer for a prosperous coming year.

The police were there just as crowd control at the front of the Shrine where people pray, but had to wear visors to protect them from the offerings being thrown at the Shrine.

A couple of days later, just before the Tokyo stock exchange opened, the Shrine to the god of business was the place to be.