Dancing With Myself

Even in Japan, Billy Idol songs hold a kind of kitschy cultural cache.

Finally, a free moment. Being back at Hayama is great, but it's also six different kinds of ridiculous. Early last week, I was reunited with the teacher who (granted, this part's pretty cool) that every day, at the start of English class, the kids would benefit from singing along with popular music from the much-vaunted Western Hemisphere. Who would the vanguards be, for this bold initiative?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Britney Spears, Stevie Wonder, and Rogers and Hammerstein. These kids are tapped into the pulse of the RIGHT NOW with an intensity that borders on obsessiveness. I'm waiting for Billy Idol to make an appearance- he's my canary in the mine, my sign that things have progressed beyond horribly wrong and into a realm from which no man may return.

That, and I wanna see a class of 36 Japanese kids singing White Wedding.

Other weird stuff that happened last week? A kid reached out as I was patrolling the aisles and rubbed my stomach. For no reason. He said- loosely translated- "HA! That feels cool." When I stepped back, he scrambled out of his seat to follow. It is at this point that I made a fatal mistake. I brushed his hands down and away from me, laughing to accentuate the silliness of it all.

He took hold of the opportunity that presented itself, and post-handful-of-crotch, returned to his seat with a proud grin. I looked to my team teacher for a bit of help on this one, as yelling "Hands off the merchandise!" unfortunately doesn't directly translate into Japanese- I tried, got nothing but confused looks- and you'll never believe what the teacher said.

She leaned over the student, smiling sweetly, and said "Ask first."

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I couldn't have made that up if I had tried. After a week of this kind of comedy of errors (I have classroom stories for DAYS- most of them revolve around teaching the kids to play Charades, which is entirely foreign to them), I had the opportunity to go to Kyoto for Setsubun on Friday. It's a post-new-year's festival to drive out demons by throwing handfuls of soybeans at their heads. People dress in demon costumes, there's a lot of bean-related chaos. Unfortunately, the fusillade of beans occurred on Thursday- the night I went, with the Foreign Crew, was the Food Night. I'm not complaining. Festival stalls in this country sell all manner of crazy food- squid on a stick, sweet potato french fries, the everpopular takoyaki and okonomiyaki... and they sell it next to booths hawking Playstation games, gardening implements, power tools and giant knives- in case you came to the festival to, say, build a treehouse, stock it with video games, and defend it to the death. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, I present the piece de resistance.
Yeah. That there's a giant fish head. It's bigger than my head. Note how it is the same size as the girl's TORSO on the left.

The shrine complex itself was unimaginably beautiful- just after this picture, it started to snow- big, drafty flakes that covered everything.
Were I a smart man (no claims there) I would have taken more pictures- next time.

All of these shrines have the big coin-boxes into which you huck (it's a verb- to huck) money into, clap, pray, clap again and move on. It's like a giant offering plate- a Karma Bank, if you will. So first we got our pray on, next to an alcove where the temple maidens were dancing with katana and handing out blessings to various important-looking besuited people. Then, we came across the big row o' candles- light one for luck. Having already made a deposit in the karma bank, and knowing full well that we were likely angering ancestor spirits with our very presence, we pushed on through the crowd (hint: Japan was not manufactured with the claustrophobic in mind) and up to the second shrine, where they were serving hot tea brewed through soybeans and handfulls of roasted beans, all gratis. Seems you're supposed to eat 1 + your age in soybeans to ensure you have a good year. Twenty-four soybeans, eaten one-by-one, feels like a TON of them when you're finished. I pity some of the old ladies who were dutifully chugging down veritable mountains of the stuff. Side note- green tea brewed with soybeans tastes at first horrible- it's SALTY- but it grows on you really fast, and you'll come to regret that it's served but one day a year. At least, I did.

After the festival, we all bailed back to our respective homes to rest up before reassembling the Foreign Legion to explore Osaka. We hit the Osaka National Gallery of Art (five-second review: Mediocre impressionists on loan from the Pushkin, awesome contemporary stuff in Basement 1, cool building), had lunch at the Hail Hail Organic Cafe by Sol Vita (more names I CAN'T MAKE UP), and then went to the Osaka Human Rights Museum.

It's not really a feel-good experience, but it's a positive thing to have- it pulls very few punches, and addresses a lot of the civil rights issues that Japan has faced/is facing/will face. The centerpiece exhibitions feature the Ainu (Ainu:Japan :: Native Americans:America), the victims of industrial pollution (a HUGE problem here, especially during the 60's and 70's), gender issues, AIDS, hate crime of all sorts, and (the big one) the Buraku.

I think I've given the lowdown on these guys before- short version, leatherworkers, butchers and tanners are a stigmatized subcaste over here, as they are believed to be unclean. They handled the discussion very tactfully at the Osaka Human Rights Museum- an especially nice touch, in my mind, is that they've got animal hides in layered racks with a big sign inviting people to "Let's Touch Many Kinds of Leathers!" If everybody goes to the museum and partakes in the taboo, everybody's tainted. Good move, Osaka.

After that, in need of something happy to balance it out, we went and found 1. the Mac Store (oh, little iBook, I want you so) and 2. A Mexican Restaurant. Burritos. Are. Awesome.

On the way to "Hermanos", I caught a glimpse of this beauty- evidently, James Brown is into Korean food.I again stress my inability to make this stuff up.

The next day, after our long Osaka trip, we went snowboarding. It was fun- the snow was great. I have some cool pictures left over from a previous trip (to Mt. Hakodate) that I share at this time to support my hypothesis:

In this country, the pinnacle of slopes fashion is rooted securely in the 1980's.
The mist in these pictures was much cooler in person- click to blow 'em up, and you might catch what I mean- there's a thick fog covering Lake Biwa, and the distant mountains are poking out like islands- it's almost as impressive a sight as the day-glo ski gear.

pax.