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Published: February 5th 2007
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A copy of the Hiroshima newspaper. Can you find me? The big news this week is that I’m not only famous on Yuge Island anymore, now I’m famous in both Ehime and Hiroshima prefecture! My picture was in both the Ehime prefecture newspaper and the Hiroshima prefecture newspaper for teaching in the international school day (see previous blog). In the Ehime newspaper I was pictured playing my fiddle with several students singing “Soldier’s Joy.” And in the Hiroshima newspaper I was pictured dancing in a square dance with the students. I think I like the Hiroshima newspaper picture better, because it is larger and in color! Anyway, I took pictures of the articles, but they are still a bit difficult to see.
So, last Friday at my junior high school, there was a special ceremony held, called the Shounenshiki. I asked Eri if these ceremonies take place in schools all over Japan, and she said that they used to, but now they only happen in small towns that are still very traditional (i.e. Yuge). This ceremony is for the second year students at the junior high school because there is something significant about turning 14 years old in Japan. Turning 14 is like another step to becoming an adult (although
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There I am again in the Ehime newspaper! people are not recognized as adults until they are 20 years old here, when another special ceremony is held). So, this day was kind of like a right of passage ceremony for these students. All of the town officials and the kid’s parents came. Although they didn’t amount to much as there are only 13 students in my second year class.
The first half of the all-day ceremony was spent listening to the students sing, make speeches, and thank their teachers, parents, and friends. There were also many speeches made by adults encouraging and giving advice to the students. But, it seemed to me that the most important part of this ceremony was standing up and bowing at the right times. We probably bowed about a hundred times during the ceremony, and we even had a practice ceremony the day before to make sure we could all stand up and bow fast enough, at the right angle, and at the right time.
The second half of the ceremony was a lot less formal, and involved making mochi (pounded rice balls). We all pounded mochi using these huge pistil and mortar type things. It was a lot harder than
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My second year students singing their way into adulthood. it looked, and my arms were sore the next day. We had to beat the rice until it all smooshed together, and formed one big blob of sticky dough. Then the blob was taken inside where people would separate it into small chunks. These chunks were rolled in potato starch (tasteless) so that they wouldn’t stick to anything. Then we rolled them into little balls and added various other ingredients like anko (sweet red bean) or kinako (soy bean powder). Done! And very delicious! I was forced to eat several of these mochi for the rest of the day until I thought I was going to explode. I guess just one of these little mochi balls equals about one bowl of rice. So, if you eat five mochi, then it’s just like you’ve eaten five bowls of rice! No wonder I was about to pop! The day was a lot of fun though, and everyone ended up covered from head to toe in potato starch.
Then, this past weekend, just as I wrote in an earlier blog, was the Ikina ekiden (long distance relay race). Of course, Nick (he lives on Ikina), made me join his team since I
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Ikue and the junior high school principal pounding mochi. made him join mine a couple of weeks ago. This time though, we were a team made up entirely of foreigners. Nick (England), Ethan (Boston), Luke (Australia), Adam (Texas), Stephanie (Montana), Josh (Canadian Yukon), and me (West Virginia). These are English teachers from all of the surrounding islands. Despite our team’s title “Speed Fever,” we were all total failures (not surprising)! I had to start out the race, running 1km and 280m. That was longer than my run at the Yuge ekiden. I almost died by the end, but I think I was actually faster than I was at the Yuge ekiden. Our team, as a whole, didn’t come in last…but next to last. We must have looked ridiculous to the rest of the all-Japanese crowd, showing up with an all-foreigner team, and running as slow as turtles! SPEED FEVER!
Today, Monday, I celebrated setsubun (the bean-throwing holiday) at my preschool. I was just complaining to my parents about how I never get to play with my preschool kids. I always have to go there every Monday morning, teach them English for an hour, and then leave…leaving no time for play! But when I showed up this morning, they
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Some mochi dyed pink! told me that I would be throwing beans with them today! Yay! The session started with the Kamijima town fire department showing us the most ridiculous video about fire safety. It was a cartoon that seemed like it was probably made sometime in the 70’s, teaching the kids to call 119 (just the opposite as in the U.S!) if they see an out-of-control fire. The video was so old that the screen just went black a couple of times with muffled sound leaving the kids to scream and go wild.
Then, after the video was over we all went outside with little boxes of beans. While this was happening, the firefighters seemed to disappear. All the kids put on these little masks they had made and gathered around with their bean boxes. Then, out of nowhere, two oni (demons) came running towards us with huge clubs in hand! I think I was just as frightened as the kids! We all started throwing the beans at them to make them go away. Several kids started screaming and crying! I wanted to cry along with them, until I noticed the Kamijima town fire department uniforms the oni were wearing, along with
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Hard at work rolling mochi balls. patches of black hair sticking out of their oni masks! Ha! They didn’t fool me! After all of the beans had been thrown, and the little kids were thoroughly frightened, everyone posed for pictures with the oni. See, nothing to be scared of! So this is the Japanese holiday of setsubun. It was the BEST photo oportunity with the adorable kids throwing beans and crying, but of course I had no idea that I would be doing this today, so I didn't have my camera. I guess I'll have another chance next year!
Oh...and finally, don't miss the video I posted at the top of this page!
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Nani???
Ehhhhh... what about the famous Egg's from Space Experiment?? Haha, just joking. That was a great idea and definitely infused a bit of the Appalachian culture into the kids of the Seto Naikai. Well done. I am always at a loss of what to do when it comes to providing a bit of American culture. Everything is so commercialized that people know it the world over. What is next a good ‘ol ho-down??? Yeeee haaa.