Summer Festival in Asaka

One of the nice things about living in Asaka is the continuing traditional culture. Every Summer the small town of Asaka, like many other towns across the islands of Japan close off several city blocks for a weekend festival.

As with any activity in Japan, it's good to dress appropriately. Traditional Summer wear. Some girls wear light, colorful yukata robes while many guys wear the pajama-like jimbe which consists of thin cotton knee shorts and a matching tunic, simple patterns and colors, often with ventilated shoulders, worn with flip-flops or wooden sandals (no thank you).

So my son and I toss on our jimbes, grab non-folding fans and with wife and mother-in-law head out to the festival.

Its only a five minute walk to the beginning of the crowds. Rows and rows of booths for food, drink, games and wares. Some of the more common offerings are (in order of my preference):

Buttered potatos
Pan-fried noodles with vegetables and meat yakisoba
Battered octopus balls takoyaki
Snow cones with dozens of flavors
Beer
Sausage on a stick
Okonomiyaki (a hearty, pancake-like food)
Fried chicken
Beer
Cotton candy
Punch in a bag
Bits of meat on a stick yakitori
Pineapple on a stick
Bananas sticked and dipped in something that looks like chocolate, but nearly tasteless
Candied plums
Candied apples
Iced fruits

Did I memtion beer?

The non-consumables:
Catch-your-own goldfish
Catch-your-own superballs (floating in little circular stream tanks)
Lotteries
Games of chance
Pop gun shooting galleries
Durable water balloons on little bungees
Water whistles topped with pokemon
Electric light-up fans
Fortune tellers
A small flea market and a bazaar

Am I forgetting anything?

One guy always brings a mini front-hoe and fills his fishing boat with water and toys. Even if you don't manage to scoop one up hey, you got to play with a front-hoe! How cool is that?

That's the menu. I hope it gives a good flavor of atmosphere.

So when we get into the main throng of the crowd, my four year old son starts getting canyoned-in by all the tightly-packed people. I pop him up on my shoulders and we push on.
Even into the late hours after everyone has consumed great amounts of beer, the crowd never gets beligerent or unrully. No more than a dozen or more police on hand. That's another nice thing about Japan. Anything more than harsh words is seldom seen.

All day, the main streets were busy with parades of traditional syncronized dancers, as well as drummers, musicians and a gigantic shrine carried on the shoulders of twenty or so people.

It was great to see some of our students and customers out there, or rather to be seen by them. Big hairy white guys are easy to spot at these festivals, no matter how crowded it gets.

After enough watching, playing, eating, drinking and pushing through the crowds it was time for the fireworks. The Japanese really do their fireworks well, and they go on relentlessly for nearly an hour, but it's odd for me as an American, to watch them without Sousa, Elvis or Garth Brooks blairing along with it. Fortunately, it was a clear night with a full-moon. Everyone sat down along the sidewalks, curbs and streets. One of the neatest new sights to these fireworks shows is, as almost all cell phones have pic/video cameras, once the fireworks get up to speed, everyone flips up their phones for pictures and footage and you get this river of hundreds of little video screens cutting through the darkness on the ground. It was as interesting as the show.

Fireworks done and all of us worn out, we had to push our way back home. Washed our feet and asleep before our heads hit the futons.

Pokemon Movie 2004

Me and my son just saw the movie, Poketmonsters 2004: Advanced Generation. I think my Japanese is getting better; I was able to enjoy most of the jokes although I was the only one laughing (these Japanese are downright meditative in movies).
I enjoyed it well enough and my 4 year old son only had to step out twice for munchies and a trip to the loo. That says how much he enjoyed it. The one sound that could be heard from the audience was the kids periodically echoing the calls of their favorite pokemon. If you are the type who can check your cynicism at the door, it's pretty cute to hear "pika pika" bouncing around the theater, like an audio pinball. Otherwise you're probably in the wrong movie.

Two nice aspects:
Japanese 'toons differ from American ones noteably in that the Japanese characters all have more depth and personal substance. It's nice for non-comic situations, which the Japanese don't go out of their way for anyway.
Also, they had some sound effects in there that had me, a guy with a fair share of electronic music experience, gapping, "how'd they make a sound like THAT?"

For any full-on Pokemon fans (like an ex-SWAT sniper I know) you're in for a treat.

Life in Japan

Asaka is a small, carrot-farming town in Japan. It's only a few minutes from Tokyo, but standing there you would never guess it. Most locals consider it the middle-of-nowhere which is fine with me. Clean air, plenty of nature and friendly people; in a culture where there is no friendly chit-chat between customers and employees, here they do it all the time. You back in the West might be annoyed occasionally by "chatty" checkers, but I found I missed it after living a few years in a place where it would be most unusual to ask the guy at the video store, "so what'd YOU think of this movie?"

It's nice, here. I live in an apartment on a ridge cut by several small rivers. Steep embankments and long stretches unbroken by streets. Great for trail biking. It's odd; the only other guy I ever see out on those trails is one of the very few other non-Japanese guys out here. I'd say 'hi' but damned if I can ever get close enough. That guy can really RIDE.

Back in Uni, I was all about the racing bikes. Out here, the narrow streets are a deathwish for riders, and the roads are too craggy for those thin, sensitive rims; I'd be tuning my spokes every night. So I got a trail bike for the first time and within hours I realized I'd wasted many years on a stupid racing bike. Trail bikes are more fun, more technical and require alot more thought and creativity.

illigitimate offspring of the Kipper Kids 

Howdy

38 years old. Either start a blog or surrender to the inert state of oldism.

I scheduled a few days off from my teaching for the Japanese O-Bon holiday, and spent most of day one decompressing with my clan. Now is as good as any time to join the blogger-verse. I'm up in my comfortable apartement out in a rural suburb of Tokyo best known for carrot farms, son's watching Nickelodeon and battling with his Japanese and US action figures, wife's watching Korean media (recent fascination), NPR in the background. Oversized cup of Starbucks at hand.

We've been teaching English language and culture to local kids for 3 years, here. I quit my other jobs and made our school my full-time occupation last year.

All reading has been put on hold while I finish Dude, Where's My Country?
How long could it take?
Well, for a single guy, probably an afternoon or two. For me, two weeks.
I'm typically a lazy reader. I take forever to finish books. I usually read 3-to-5 books at a time, swap out the lineup, go back over portions again and again, and have very little free time for reading.
But some books get the priority rush:
Lord of the Rings, because it was so interesting.
The Pentateuch, as a neccesity of endurance.
Comic books, because they're so darned much fun.

But Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country?, I have to finish this as soon as possible because it is just so very depressing. Most of the contents should not be news to anyone half-awake or over the age of 12 (no offense to anyone under the age of 12 or in a coma), but the details of so much of what WE have allowed to continue to be "wrong with the world" are highly NEED-TO-KNOW. It may be the most important book of it's kind I've read since Silent Spring. If you don't like Mr. Bush & Co, you might give it a look so as not to blather-on, half-informed making the rest of our camp look ingorant. Otherwise, read it just to make sure you're ready for the prepared arguments comming your way.