Culture Festival

Assume that it's December 11, 2012 while I'm typing this.  That'll help put things into perspective.

Junior High schools city-wide have just had their culture festivals this past weekend.  I went to two of them:  Yokogawa-chu’s on Friday and Makizono-chu’s on Saturday.  (This was a week ago.)

The students do a number of different things from plays to singing, to speeches.  While the idea is the same, the culture festivals atYokogawa and Makizono were quite different.  Yokogawa began with a series of English skits (which I had helped them with).  I was very proud of them and they put on quite a show!  They’re good actors.  That pretty much concluded the only part of the festival I understood.  But I enjoyed the dancing.  The dancing was probably the only time the students got to dress in street clothes. The second years at Yokogawa did a skit on Hiroshima, which was so packed full of emotion, I nearly cried.  The third years also did a skit, which for the most part I didn’t really understand, but they at least had good props and good acting.  They ended their festival with choir singing, and my JTE’s (Japanese teacher of English) class was by far the best out of all the classes in the school.

Makizono also had an outstanding performance.  One of my third year students had an English speech that she had been practicing for the past two weeks.  The first years did an interesting skit that, again, I didn’t understand at all.  But it was still entertaining and kind of funny.  The second years, like the ones at Yokogawa, did a skit on Hiroshima, but I have to say, Yokogawa’s was much better.  The morning performance was rather dull in my opinion, but I guess they were just waiting until the afternoon before the third years blew me away.  For three weeks, a professional taiko drummer had been teaching the students.  I had dropped in and participated on the first day of their training, so I knew it was coming.  But I wasn’t expecting the actual professionals to put on a show.  It was so spectacular!  There’s really no other way to describe it.  It was so loud that every beat of the big drums had my chair shaking.  They did two performances and then the third years joined them for one last performance.  I honestly couldn’t believe how much they had improved.  They must’ve practiced so hard.  Following that performance, the third years did a play, which just so happened to be the same play the third years at Yokogawa put on.  Makizono, however, put on a much better show.  They added humour and Super Mario sound effects, and the main character acted so well.  I was really impressed.

Kireina Kirishima

Assume that it's December 11, 2012 as I'm typing this.  That'll help put things into perspective a little.

Even after living here for three months, I’m still captivated by Kirishima’s beauty.  There is so much green, and it’s everywhere.  The mountains I’m used to are snow-capped and barren, which, I admit, are still very beautiful.  Not here in Kirishima.  Every bit of space on a mountain is covered in thick green forest.  I honestly can’t believe how many trees can fit on every one.  The only mountains that aren’t tree-covered are the volcanoes.  Sakurajima is definitely the most popular of the three main volcanoes in this city.  It’s frequently active, and often greets those living around it with a burp or two.  In the summer, ash from Sakurajima drifts over to the west towards Kagoshima City.  In the winter, the ash floats over to the east towards Kanoya.  And then there is the occasional burp that sends ash flying toward Kirishima, but that only happened once that I’ve witnessed (indirectly, as I’m up in the mountains, but my fellow ALTs live by the sea in Hayato and Kokubu).

There is another volcano to the northeast of Kirishima, called Mt. Kirishima.  I get a clear glimpse of it every time I drive to Kirishima Junior High School.  There is a huge park with a long hiking route all around the volcano.  Most of it is closed off due to an eruption that happened a couple years ago.  I’m waiting for it to be reopened so I can go hiking up there for a day.

A few weeks ago, the rice fields were harvested, and now the fields are a beautiful golden yellow.  That and the newly begun kouyou (changing of leaves from green to yellow to red), and Makizono is starting to look like a colourful mosaic.  I’ve heard that kouyou is most spectacular in Kyoto, and it will be at its height when I go there in two weeks.

The weather has gotten a lot colder in the past week and a half, and I found that I was not prepared for it in the least with my plethora of tank tops and lighter clothing.  I just recently went shopping to battle the cold with new turtlenecks, a cardigan and a vest.  There is no heating in any of my schools, and since it can be a bit pricy, I try to spare the use of my heater in my apartment.  Now is the time of year when people dress in layers.  I go to school wearing a tank top, a long sleeved undershirt, a turtleneck, a cardigan, thin under-pants (I mean pants that I wear under my work pants), ankle socks, knee-high socks, and my work pants.  And even then, I’m still cold.  Maybe I should pig out on junk food and store up some fat for the winter.

On the way to Kirishima JHS, with Mt. Kirishima in the background.

Makizono looking northwest

Makizono looking southwest.

Hayato Festival: WHOOOAH!!!

Long time no update!  Things got pretty busy, so I haven't been able to keep up the blog so well.  But I did send updates home to my family last month and managed to save them all.

Assume that it is December 11, 2012.  That's help put things into perspective a little.

A few weeks ago, the other Kirishima ALTs and I went to a festival in Hayato (the southwestern part of Kirishima).  It came to us as a surprise as this is the first year that ALTs were allowed to participate.  I’m not too sure why they like us so much…

            I woke up at 5am just to get dressed, eat breakfast, and have a cup of coffee, before heading down to the Board of Education (the BOE, for short).  Once we were all accounted for (one guy was late. He’s almost never on time for anything), we drove up to the Kagoshima shrine, which is located in Kirishima.  I’m not sure why they called it the Kagoshima shrine because it’s not in Kagoshima city, but there’re a lot of things I don’t understand.  So there we were, at an elementary school nearby, and laid out before us was samurai gear!  That’s right, we dressed up as samurais.  The mens’ armour was quite heavy, and helmet was a pain to wear over a long period of time.  The female armour wasn’t nearly as bad.  We wore layers upon layers, so you can imagine how hot it got with the sun shining at its fullest like a typical summer’s day in Canada.  I didn’t have any sunscreen (as usual), so my face turned beat red in the hot sun.

            At the shrine, there was a ceremonial thing, and then we all paraded down on a long 8km walk down to the sea.  Now, normally a walk like that wouldn’t be so bad, but you should’ve seen the footwear we had.  They were sandals made from string that was woven together.  I couldn’t go jogging the following day because my feet were still sore.  So there we were parading, and occasionally (which means all the time), us women would shout out a chant... “Chesto ike! Oh!  Chesto!  Oh!  Chesto!  Oooohhh!”  That made the walk much more exciting, and the other two female ALTs and I got to lead the chant quite a few times.

            Periodically, we would stop and watch as the priests did a special ritual with a flute song and slow dancing.  There was a lot of standing up, sitting down, standing up, sitting down, and bowing.  (I didn’t bow because of my Christian values, but it was challenging not to with everyone around me doing it, especially considering it was a great honour to participate in the festival in the first place.)

            At long last, we reached the sea, and there was yet another ceremony where the priests, and even one of the ALTs, put a fish in the water.  I’m not sure exactly what it signifies, but it probably has something to do with giving back to the gods.

            Overall, despite how tired I was afterwards, it was a great time, and a worthwhile experience.