When the Sane Go Marching In

I'm really not a pronunciation Nazi, but after spending a good portion of sixth period today listening to the students practicing their songs for the Culture Festival, I was ready to tear my hair out.

As you can guess, one of the songs they are performing is "When the Saints Go Marching In." But somehow it was never actually "saints" but "sane," "scene" or occasionally even "sea". @_@ If this was at a school that only had ALT visits once in a while I could totally understand, but I've been going to this school three times a week for the past two years and two months! Why not ask me--even just once--for the proper pronunciation?

I really wanted to say something, but didn't really feel that it was my place to do so. (I get along well enough with the music teacher, but we're not close enough for me to feel comfortable "correcting" him.) *sigh* Oh well. Their pronunciation for everything else is pretty good, so I really shouldn't dwell on that one word.

Nihonbuyo Performance

(Note: Nihonbuyo = Classical Japanese Dance)

So for the past year or so many people have been practicing/preparing for the big Nihonbuyo performance that went on at the Bunka Center this past Sunday, October 4th. There were 20 different performances and probably 50 or so performers (from pre-school children to senior citizens).

It was a massive event requiring a heck load of logistical planning, preparations, and manpower. There were professionals from Tokyo to put make-up, kimonos, and wigs on performers. Numerous sets, props, and hair pieces had to be made. It was a completely different experience than last year's November Bunka Sai (which is still/also going on this year--so practices aren't done for me, yet!).

The nice thing was that since we started practicing a year ago, I didn't actually have to go to a lot of extra practices this time around. Last year, I started learning Nihonbuyo in June and the performance was in November, so in the last month or so before the performance I had to go to practices twice a week to feel like I sort of knew what I was doing. This time the only extra practices I really needed were the group practices.

But with a year's experience under my belt and my Japanese (or at least my willingness to speak Japanese) much improved since the last event, I ended up helping out with more stuff this year. For example, I learned how to do the basic make-up for the children and for my own performance so that if the professionals were too busy I could at least help a bit. (In the end, though, I only helped put make-up on the hands of one girl when no professionals were around.) I also came early on the dress rehearsal day to help get things set up (taping up names lists by the "dressing rooms", carting around boxes, etc.).

As a result, I was really tired on Saturday (even though I did leave early--around 4pm) and I think that carried over a bit to the Sunday. It also didn't help that the dress rehearsal for our piece was pretty rough because the Mandolin club that was doing the live music for our performance didn't all show up for the dress rehearsal!  As a result, we couldn't catch our cues (no guitars were there, and some of our cues came solely from the guitars) and I think it made us all a lot more nervous than we needed to be. 

I know that Saturday night I started feeling nauseated--which is what happens when I'm super nervous about something. I was in bed by 10pm, but I was having a fair bit of difficulty actually getting to sleep. Luckily my friend emailed right around then telling me to "relax and enjoy" the next day, and that helped settle my nerves a bit. I also got a call from my dad telling me that he was home! (Unfortunately I couldn't/didn't talk very long with him because I *was* trying to sleep early for the performance and by that point it was past 10:30pm). With that good news I was better able to go to sleep.

I guess I was still pretty nervous, though, because I ended up having really weird dreams. One was that some villains attacked a group returning from an archeological dig and stole some armor that gave them super powers. During the attack/theft, however, they dropped a cup-shaped thing which turned out to extend to be a bell. A friend of mine picked it up and tried ringing it. It turned out to be a sort of control device which forced all the armor pieces (along with the people wearing them) to come running to the bell. Naturally this put my friend and I on the run from the villains. We collapsed the bell again and wrapped it in a towel to prevent it from ringing. We ran into a big warehouse-like building with a festival/exhibition going on to escape, and managed to make it back outside without anyone following us. Just as we were about to flee, however, my friend realized that she had left her wallet inside the bathroom and needed to go back to get it. (Being on the run requires funds, after all.) She handed me the bag with the bell for safekeeping and dashed back inside. That part of the dream ended just as she got/was about to get caught by the villains.

The next dream sequence started off at an airport. I was trying to be a good Samaritan, so I helped a lady catch a taxi that had just dropped off a passenger. It turned out, though, that the woman was the daughter of some really rich/important person and the taxi drivers (why there were two, I don't know) decided to take advantage of the opportunity to kidnap her. I and the person who had been dropped off by the taxi thus became material witnesses to the event. Since we couldn't leave the city until the woman was rescued, the woman's family opened their house to us. It was a gigantic house and inside it actually had farm animals and farm land! There were a bunch of goats running around as they pleased inside the house. On the tour of the house, they took us through a field of corn--but it wasn't corn on a cob, it was just a field of kernels! And there were a bunch of different colours, too--like green and blue! Same thing with the next field: it was all different types of tomatoes--purple, green, yellow, etc. (I expect all the farm imagery came from my having recently seen a picture of a bunch of different tomatoes that my friend got from Black Sheep Farm!) At some point during the tour, this dream sequence actually connected with the previous one and it turned out that the kidnapped woman held a key to stopping the super-powered armor pieces--something involving time travel, I believe--and so we needed to rescue her to stop the villains. 

So yeah, when I woke up on Sunday morning I was in a bit of a bemused state thanks to the strange dreams. Even though I wasn't performing until close to 5pm (it was originally supposed to be closer to 4:00-4:30pm, but after the dress rehearsal they adjusted the times and it ended up being later), I still had to be at the Bunka Center by 9am. When I got there, I found out that I was supposed to have worn a kimono and not a yukata because I needed to go to give aisatsu (formal greetings) to the Japanese dance teacher from Tokyo, Sumiya(?)-sensei--my teacher's teacher. (Apparently that teacher is something like 70 years old, but even for an Asian woman she looked really young! Like in her late 50's/early 60's!) And apparently it's considered rude to give aisatsu in a yukata. There was a kimono there (the one I wore for the dress rehearsal) but I didn't have time to change into it before going to greet Sumiya-sensei.

Luckily I was able to go with my friend Kasumi (who often does dance practice with me) to give aisatsu, because it would've been super awkward for me to have gone alone. As it was, it was plenty awkward because I didn't realize that I was supposed to bring a token of appreciation for Sumiya-sensei. Thank goodness she at least knew that I was from Canada and not Japanese or I would've felt even worse. As it was, I felt pretty embarrassed to have received a handkerchief/towel thing from her even though I hadn't given her anything. @_@ I also got a handkerchief/towel thing from one of the other members of our dance--Oedo Nihonbashi--and felt bad for not having anything to reciprocate with. 

Then too were all the flowers I received--from my friend from taiko (I bought my black and silver yukata from her shop), from my supervisor, from a teacher at my favourite elementary school (she also gave me a beautiful bag made from an old obi), from a teacher at Kirita, from two parents of students at Kirita, and even from the president of the Towada Soroptomist Society (although how she knew about my performing is completely beyond me!). At the time I was just really surprised and happy to receive them, but I learned today that it's customary for performers to prepare small gifts--bento, handkerchiefs, etc.--to give back as a token of appreciation. My dance teacher, Rika-sensei, for example, had something like a hundred things prepared, and even then she ran short! I know that it's OK for me to not know these things because I'm not Japanese, but still, I wish I had known.

Well, I can't go back in time, but I decided to at least bake peanut butter cookies tonight to give out tomorrow as thank you gifts for the people I received flowers from in person. (Well, the elementary school teacher I won't see for a while, so I'm sending her a thank you card through the office's "internal mail." And I'll have to get a card to the Soroptomist president somehow as well.)

But back to the performance. It was really a long day of waiting. I had my hair done first thing in the morning, but after that I had nothing to do. Luckily I was able to kill some of the time watching Kasumi and her dance partner getting their make-up, kimono, and wigs put on. I took a ton of photos of the entire process, as it was really impressive. 

The rest of the time I was wandering around trying to at least not be in the way, if I couldn't be helpful. I felt a bit bad because Erik was there and Kristina came back stage for quite a while, too, but doing nothing but waiting gave me too much time to get nervous, so I didn't really feel like talking/socializing.

It was a relief when I was finally able to get my make-up done (luckily it turned out I didn't have to do my own) and get dressed in the kimono. By then Kasumi and some of the others had finished their bigger performances and we were able to practice together, which helped ease some of my tension. 

After much waiting, it was finally time for the performance! It actually went surprisingly well. During practice I was always looking at Kasumi or someone next to me to match my timing to theirs, but I was able to look at the audience more than usual during the real thing. There were a few mistakes--at one point we made a circle and one-by-one leaned forward and tapped the shoulder of the person in front of us with our fan (kind of like a domino-effect) but I was too close to Kasumi and ended up brushing my face against her obi. @_@ At the very end I also put my right foot forward instead of my left. Thankfully I was in the back row, though, so I was able to quickly change to the proper position before the final pose without drawing much if any attention to my mistake. 

Once we were done we just had to wait for Rika-sensei's piece before going back out to give aisatsu to the audience. (Her dance was the longest, at something like 25 minutes. My eight minutes was more than enough for me, and I was with a bunch of other people, so a 25-minute solo completely boggles my mind.)

After the aisatsu, we took a group shot and then all of the adults in Oedo Nihonbashi had to rush upstairs to take off our rental kimono so the kimono people could get packed up in time to make it to the after party for a short time before heading back to Tokyo. (The after party started around 6:30pm and they had to leave by 7:10pm to catch the train!)

Then it was the after party from 6:30pm to 8:00pm. (Apparently Rika-sensei was out until something like 2am, so I'm glad I decided to leave when I felt like I should head home, rather than trying to wait for the party to die down.)

I was planning on doing nothing but lesson planning and maybe a little more cleaning (in preparation for Nate's arrival on Wednesday!) tonight, but then I got an email from Rika-sensei during the day saying that some people were going to give aisatsu around 5pm and could I make it. Since I got the email in the morning, I didn't really read it or think about it too carefully and just said "sure." I really had no idea what I was going to go do, however. 

Turned out it was just a smaller gathering of people coming to talk about the performance and to exchange thank you's, etc. Again, I felt awkward about a lack of knowledge of Japanese culture when, before leaving, all the other people handed Rika-sensei an envelope clearly decorated as a thank you envelope (i.e. for cash). @_@ Of course, I was the only one who didn't have one because I had no idea about the custom! I guess it was good for me to go just to learn about such things (it was also during this time that I learned the thing about the bringing gifts to reciprocate for gifts/flowers received during the performance), but I really prefer to learn things before making a mistake, rather than through/from errors. 

*sigh* Just goes to show that no matter how well adjusted you think you are to Japanese culture, there are always some small things that you really can't know unless someone tells you about it specifically. In my case, I guess I shouldn't feel too bad because I suspect some of the etiquette is more specific to Nihonbuyo/special performances and thus not something people would normally be expected to know.

Oh, and in case you missed the link earlier, you can check out all my photos in my Facebook album here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=322372&id=655150561&l=05061ba504

Exhausted

3 Oct 2009: Dress rehearsal 9am-4pm
4 Oct 2009: Classical Japanese Dance Performance 9am-6pm (actual performance time: 8min around 5pm) + Wrap Party 6:30pm-8pm


Too tired--will write more details tomorrow. For now, you can enjoy my Facebook album at the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=322372&id=655150561&l=05061ba504

The final 10 months

Even though I made this decision almost a year ago, I couldn't help but feel a pang of regret/sadness as I handed in my decision to NOT re-contract with JET for next year. 

In spite of all my worries about being so far away during my father's health crisis and my fear that I'm hitting a plateau in terms of work motivation/initiative, I think that if I went by feelings alone right now, there would be a 50% chance that I would actually change my mind and re-contract. 

Which is why I handed in my decision today. 


(I wonder if I've been telling everyone--my supervisor, co-workers, teachers, students, friends, etc.--this past year that I would be leaving Japan in 2010 because I subconsciously knew that I might waver in my decision when the time came? Like I was trying to make my leaving a "fait accompli"--i.e. since I'd already told everyone I was going, I would have no choice but to follow through...)

It's a very 物の哀れ mono no aware type of feeling I have now. I am keenly aware that my remaining time in Japan is very short and I have bittersweet feelings about the upcoming departure. As much as I am looking forward to being reunited with my family, friends, and church community, I am equally sad to think about leaving my students, friends and co-workers here in Japan. 

At the same time, I've known this day was coming for a while, so I feel a renewed desire to cherish and make the most of the remainder of my time here. Of course, the problem is that there is still so much that I need/want to do before I leave that I wonder how I'm going to find time for it all... (Especially with my laziness and tendency to spend hours doing nothing...)

Anyway, here's a list of local/nearby things that I'd like to attend/see before going back to Canada for good:

- 十和田駒フェスタ (Towada Koma Festa) - Towada Horse Festa: Oct 17-18, 2009 Unfortunately coinciding with the 切中祭 (Kirita School Festival). If I want to go, I'll have to skip out on the 切中祭 preparation day on the Saturday (Oct. 17)... =(

- 奥入瀬渓流紅葉 (Oirase Keiryuu Kouyou) - Oirase Gorge Autumn Foliage: Extremely difficult to catch due to the craziness of my schedule in October and the unpredictability of leaves changing colour...

- 十和田湖冬物語 (Towadako Fuyu Monogatari) - Lake Towada Winter Story: Shouldn't be hard to find a day to go, it's just that I don't like driving in general, so going through the gorge in the winter is something I've been avoiding...

-十和田市郷土館 (Towada Kyoudokan) - Towada Culture Museum: Right above the Towada Library! Just need to pick a day and get myself over there!  I actually stopped by today (and checked out the library at the same time)! It's small, but I remember seeing some of the pottery pieces while they were being fitted together on the third floor of our office during my first year in Towada, so it made me feel slightly nostalgic...

-十和田市立新渡戸記念館 (Towada Nitobe Kinenkan) - Towada Nitobe Memorial Museum: I really should've gone while I was living behind the place, but even now it's still really close to my apartment! Again, just a matter of picking a day and heading over.

-十和田市称徳館 (Towada Shoutokukan) - Towada Horse Culture Museum: Not all that far away. Just need to make the time.

-七戸ＮｏｎｏＵｅ人形の館 (Shichinohe NonoUe Ningyou no Kan) - Shichinohe NonoUe Doll Museum: Not a big fan of dolls--particularly when I think about the Child's Play movies and the various Japanese manga/drama scenes with possessed dolls I've seen--but every time I see the sign for it when passing through Shichinohe I can't help but wonder what it's like inside...


...

And these are places in Japan I'd like to visit before leaving (although I plan on coming back in March 2011, so I guess I could hit the places up then with my train pass! =P)

- Osaka: I love takoyaki and okonomiyaki, so it's a must-visit place for me! I'm supposed to go with Tomabechi-sensei sometime, but it all depends on her (and my) school schedule(s), so...

- Okinawa: Unless something goes horribly wrong, I should be going with Tomabechi-sensei during spring break!! I can't wait to start planning the trip!

- Kariya City (Aichi Prefecture): It is twinned with my hometown, Mississauga, so I feel like I should visit if only so I can tell people honestly where I'm from (instead of saying Toronto) and have a chance of them actually recognizing the name! =P

- Hiroshima: For a second time!! I LOVE Hiroshima. I especially want to go back to eat okonomiyaki at Sankanou 


...

As for the things I want to/need to get done for school/work...

- Graduation monkeys for the sannensei: there are 17 students this year, so I need to start working on them now or February will be hellish

- Graduation video: I don't know why I volunteered to make the sannensei's graduation video since I've never made one before in my life, but I did, and now I just hope I can do a decent job of it!

- Farewell speeches/messages: Yes, I'm thinking WAY ahead, but since I want to write meaningful messages in Japanese on my own--to friends, to schools, to the office, etc.--the earlier I start working on them, the better

- Write a year's worth of JHS English newsletters: Since one will most likely be the only one from our office re-contracting, it'd be difficult for him to have to do both the ES and JHS newsletters (and I don't really expect newbies to get used to things fast enough to be able to create newsletters right away). If I can't do a year's worth, I'd like to do at least half a year's worth... I was hoping to get one newsletter done this afternoon at the office, but I started losing focus around 2pm and wasn't able to finish it. *sigh*


So yeah, it's a little depressing to think that I only have 10 months left, and I wish I had more time here. But with my family situation and things being the way they are, the only way I could justify staying longer would be if I was planning on living (more or less permanently) in Japan. Ironically, now that my departure is set, for the first time, I can actually kind of envision making a (permanent) life here.  


Consequently, I've got a bunch of "what if's" running through my head right now:


- What if I hadn't come to Japan with the idea that my time here would only be temporary... 
- What if I had been able to find a satisfactory Christian community nearby...
- What if I had been a more disciplined, mission-minded Christian (i.e. less dependent on having a strong church community around me)...
- What if I had thought about living in Japan permanently before my father's health problems came up...
- What if I had worked a bit less and made more friends early on in second year...


...Might I have decided to go the full five-years with JET and gone for longer in Japan afterwards? 


I guess it's human nature to wonder about the path not taken.