Lion Dance practice, Night No. 2

Members in the small ward in which I live have asked me if I want to participate in an autumn "Shi-shi-mai" Lion Dance performance. The 跡の浦 (Ato-no-ura) area is one of four areas who do the Shishi-mai dance at the local main shrine in our village area of our city on November 3. However, Ato-n-ura hasn't participated since 1989.

While I probably won't hold a major role in the performance of our group, I consider it a great opportunity to gain a greater understanding of our community and grassroots Japanese culture.

Most visitors to Japan see only Tokyo, Kyoto, bullet trains and geisha. For me, I am more interested in real people, common people, the kinds of commoners you see in a Hiroshige painting. Normal everyday people like me.

Over the next month, I hope to tell you about these people, the culture, the dance, posting video and pictures.

Tonight, I got off work just before 9 p.m. I drove directly to the Ato-no-ura community building near my house. Some members were already practicing. A couple of the flute players were seated. These were "shukuro" 宿老 or older veterans of the dance who were there to support and teach.

The Shishimai performance consists of several elements which can simply be put into the taiko drummers, the flute players, and the dancers. Among the dancers are the lion-spirit performers (Shishi-mai), other characters such as the Tengu and Otafuku, and various assistants.

Tonight, I practiced the footwork and hand movements for the Shishi-mai. Having watched the local dance, I never paid much attention to the performance, but it is more complicated than it looks.

What makes it more difficult, yet certainly more traditionally significant, is that instruction is done simply by trainees observing older, practiced veterans and copying them. There is nothing written down -- no musical notation, no drum score, no guidebook for dance steps. You must watch, absorb and practice.

They do, however, use a videotape of a previous performance to assist them.

The practice wrapped up around 10:30 p.m. and I sat down for casual snacks and drinks with other members as is ceremonially custom in Japan. Most were driving so they had alcohol-free beer.

Tonight's members were Mr. Takai, same age as me, 42; has three boys, one in high school, one in junior high, one in third grade at my son's elementary school. Mr. Takai works at Autobacs and has been to Disneyworld on a business training trip many years ago.

Mr. Hashimoto: Vice President of the Shishi-mai group, but very laid back. Aged 38. Was instructing me tonight about the Shishi-mai, and practicing his English. Surprisingly, this wasn't annoying at all.

Mr. Sakaji, 39, the son of an established soroban, or abacus, teacher in Shinjo, entertained us with long tale of the pursuit for some special brown eggs.

Mr. Fukumoto, 38, has a daughter in my son's class at school.

Tonight, from our discussion, I learned about the local town land trust, the small shrine near our house, Yamada or Ineda Shrine, and some of the motivation of the men to perform in the dance.

I felt like a door was opening to something deeper about this culture. I am eager for tomorrow night's practice.

Ugliness

An ex-pat friend commented the other day about his inability to explain how ugly our Japanese town is.
I had always thought the area was green, coastal, natural and beautiful, but found inner city sites to be scruffy, incongruous, dirty, and surreal. Part of the charm, for sure.
But, I realized what my friend was talking about was the dilapidated concrete structures built pell-mell with seemingly little inner-city planning, commercial on top of congested residential, with a higgledy-piggledy drunken web of power lines twisted together, strung dangling above any open trace of skyline.
Imagine having a powerline or cell phone tower or strip-cut mountain in every picture you ever wanted to take.
Without getting into the reasons for this, I found today driving through old town Tanabe that it takes a grittier perspective to appreciate the people and buildings and unaesthetically pleasing blur of the inner city. It takes the Blues.
I was listening to John Lee Hooker's "Decoration Day" and "Shout" and "Bang Bang Bang" while I wound through the old castle streets, seeing the bent older people shuffle, the wild-haired school-ditching youth, the old lady wringing her laundry, the grizzled fisherman ignoring traffic laws and weaving in and out to the port.
The hardwork and tedium, the laxadaisical "here I am whatfer" attitude became clearer to me.
I wish I had my camera today, and maybe I'll get around to adding pictures later.

Hot, hot, lonely Japanese Summer Nights

Sticky heat, dribbly flavored shaved icees, spiders and a reprieve from my classes.
Oh, it is uncomfortable to lie so still that I don't think about how humid and hot it is and try to fall asleep. My sheets are like a pliant extra layer of skin reticently peeled away from my moist skin after I roll one way or another. The room cooler helps a great deal, but makes our throats itch and threatens to give us colds by changing our body temperatures so rapidly. A couple of times already we have left it on all night. The air conditioner lays a heavy stone of sleep upon our heads, burying our bodies like a weighted anchor, leaving you drowsy like a darted rhino in the Serengeti, unable to move quickly.
But the sounds of summer night are returning: crickets, wonderous then oppressive rain, and the string of bike gangs driving along the interstate south to nowhere gunning their crotch rockets and snarling traffic. I imagine having a long rope strung across the road at chest height to a cyclist, stripping these chimpira or horn enthusiasts from their saddles one-by-one. And a long-distance slingshot with eggs for ammo, so I can pit their fallen bodies with the ooze and crack of egg white and bleeding yolk.
I made friends with a 10-inch biting centipede who strode over my leg the other night in the gloom. I shouted "Uh-ahh-ya-ha-ha-AAAAGGGGH" and other unrecordable greetings. It responded by curling into a ball, lashing its backside and running for the closet. I cried out again from the kitchen as I searched for a greeting stick -- a newspaper, a kitchen knife, a fire extinguisher. Finally, I got a bucket of hot water and tossed in the segmented squeal-inducer with long chopsticks, emboldened by my unamused wife who heard me yell.
One thing about the heat -- it brings out the smell of the tatami matting, the cypress and cedar wood, fetid water vapor trapped under the rotting boards of the laundry sink. It stills the air in the kitchen in the mornings and helps give me that timeless stare outdoors that scares our neighbors' children as I stand in my shorts by the window with my cup of coffee. I am like a naked, middle-aged Tin Man his armor rusted away, escaped from the Wicked Witch and hiding in a small Japanese house in the Witness Protection Program.
The heat also causes our electronics to act erratically. My wife has gained and lost at least two kilograms within 24 hours. Somehow it has beamed the weight off her and placed it somewhere else in the house. We are hoping it wasn't to the backside of the cockroaches who hunt at night in our kitchen sink. The movie I wanted to watch on satellite TV inexplicably was unavailable the other night. I blame that on the heat and not on my refusal to pay for premium channels. Clocks stop. Driers smell funny. The washer hump-a-jumps like it's holding a howler monkey inside its tub.
And speaking of mosquitoes, because now it is time we should, they hang in the adobe like wall matting to catch the right breeze and take turns dive-bombing heads and ankles and other exposed body parts. Heat and mosquitoes are a cruel villainous team, one causing you to strip and thrash about, the other picking up your infrared body heat and picking off your exposed appendages red dotted bite by ever-itching red-dotted bite.
But, one of the BEST things about the onset of summer evenings is the kakigori which we call "flavored, shaved ice in a cup with lots of syrup." But that is like saying a bagel is just a pregnant donut with a sugar deficiency. These summer treats are liquid hypersonic kid-warping brain-twisting addictive tonics, easing your inner hot, slapping the mannered bitter overheated adult you once were and changing you on the spot to a drooling, sticky-faced ice snorter.
No one is the same in my family after having one. And sometimes we prey on each other's.
But, finally, the sugar rush is gone, the bickering at bath and defiance of bedtime overcome, and the quiet of the living room is mine. It is romantic times like this that my wife stays asleep comfortably with the kids in the cooled bedroom upstairs, and I futz around with the remote control to catch an unpaid glimpse of the Star Channel.

Ashita-no-Mori Guest House

We loved staying at Ashita-no-Mori あしたの森 Guest House right in front of Kawayu 川湯 onsen hot spring "Sen-nin-buro" 仙人風呂, one of only three such popular hot springs, actually etched from a natural river, in Japan!

The guest house's specialty of a Kumano beef dinner was absolutely delicious and our family loved the wooded guest room we stayed in, despite its petite size.

Our view from our room looked out over the river which was quite picturesque: steam rising like twisting dragons from Oto river and morning frost limning the edges of solid objects epitomized the rustic oriental image of ancient Japan! (see link for area pictures)

Breakfast was great, too!

Family Visits Kumano Kodo

NAKAHECHI-CHO, Tanabe-shi, Wakayama Pref., Japan


On our return trip from Hongu Taisha, we stopped in at Nonaka-no-Ipposugi in Nakahechi to visit giant cypress ヒノキ trees in front of Tsugizakura-oji.


Three of us posed inside one of the trees along the stone stairs to the shrine.



Behind Alex, to the right, is Hidehira-Zakura, a Japanese cherry blossom tree (sakura) 桜 which apparently sprung from the blessed cherry oak walking stick of Lord Hidehira Fujiwara while he walked the Kumano Kodo hundreds of years ago.


Hidehira was blessed with the birth of a son upon reaching the edge of the Kumano.


The son was left - if legend be true - in a small cave, now known as "Chichi-iwa" - where he was nurtured from the "milk" of the rocks and wolves while the lord made his spiritual journey.

Toganoki-jaya is a teahouse serving tea and sweets near the Nonaka are on the Kumano Kodo.
During the regular hiking season (spring, summer), pictures taken in Edo-period costume can be had for a fee.

New Year's Grand Shrine visit 初詣 Hatsumode

HONGU GRAND SHRINE, Tanabe City, Wakayama Pref., Japan -
The family poses in front of the three grand shrines of the Kumano area, Kumano Hongu Taisha on January 5, for our official New Year's shrinal visit.
My son, Alex, purchased a fortune lot for 200 yen which told him this year would be extremely good for him (大吉)!
The shrine reported 315,000 people had visited just over the New Year's holiday. Luckily, we arrived after the rush although they were still very busy!

The 12 Days (or so) Around Christmas

Holidays are always a blur. Celebrating two kinds of holidays in two weeks makes for a busy time. Here are some of the highlights:

12/24 (Friday) Christmas prep

12/25 CHRISTMAS in the morning, but Xmas not being a national holiday in Japan, I had to teach lessons in the morning and afternoon.

12/26 Alex had rehearsal for a multi-group hip-hop dance performance in the morning, then we all returned in the evening for the actual 3-hour event -- three-year-old and one-year-old in tow ... loooooonnnngggg day.

12/27 and 12/28 大そうじ Major year-end cleaning! Windows, bath, entrance area, car, kitchen ... everyone helped.

12/29 Kids relaxed. The wife and I printed our New Year's Cards and mailed them off!

12/30 O mochi tsuki お餅つき at a friend's friend's house. Wound up spending morning and afternoon there eating rice mochi cakes, new year's foods.

12/31 New Year's Eve spent in living room watching countdown programs including the annual Red and White Singing Competition on NHK 紅白歌合戦 and a six-hour comedy special about a team of comedians who are swacked in the behind each time they laugh (the loser was whacked 186 times ... I know, but we still watched it all).

1/1 RELAXED AT HOME. Food, snacks, champagne, beer, cola, pizza ... zzz.

1/2 Family gathering at in-laws. Delicious food. New Year's money envelopes お年玉 (o-toshi-dama) for the kids.

1/3 Went to the park. Unsuccessfully tried to launch kites. Had Belgian Waffle snacks at FAB restaurant in Shirahama.

1/4 & 1/5 Stayed at the Ashita-no-Mori あしたの森 pension-style inn in Kawayu　川湯 town along a river that doubles as a huge onsen spa. Ate Kumano beef!