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Published: October 17th 2008
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And they're off! Rokogi teams racing to the finish line. Note: These last few blog entries are extremely overdue. I am posting them about three months after these events took place.
With only one more week of school left before summer vacation, and the temperature and humidity going up, up, up, school life on the island of Yuge is going out with a bang. Not that the students aren’t studying as hard as ever and us teachers aren’t delivering our regular lessons, but in addition to the daily academics of school, we are taking advantage of the summer and our beautiful island in the Inland Sea. And with only two weeks before I fly out of my life here and back to the homeland, there couldn’t be a better way to end my two years of teaching here.
At my junior high school, we’ve been training for the big rokogi race for a couple of weeks now. This is a unique school event that probably only happens in our town of Kamijima between the islands of Yuge and Ikina. Up until this year, only Ikina Island had done the rokogi races, but now that Ikina Junior High School and Yuge Junior High School have combined, we all get to
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teachers setting up the course with buoys in the morning enjoy this unique tradition together. Rokogi are a kind of rowboat with only one oar on the stern that both propels the boat forward and acts as a rudder. I tried to find a boat like this listed on the Internet, but failed. Though the other teachers tell me it’s an ancient and now rare form of Japanese rowing. The oar is attached to a kind of pivot on the stern that only allows the oar to swing a short distance. It is similar to the movement of a fish’s tail how it is located at the back of the fish and only moves slightly, but propels and steers the fish. The person controlling the oar stands at the stern of the boat with the handle end of the oar about shoulder-height pushing the oar away from her/him and pulling the oar towards her/him. In order to move the boat with any speed, this person has to be very quick with the pushing and pulling.
The day of the race was perfect sunny (and very hot!) weather, and the students raced against each other in teams. The teachers also formed a team to race against the students. I had
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the teacher team with me at the bow of the rokogi done really well before during rokogi practice, but my team lost miserably to the students. Luckily Nick, the English teacher from Ikina Island, was there to wallow in failure with me. That same day a javelin thrower competing in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing came to his hometown of Ikina Island (where we were racing) to speak to his hometown fans before he went off to Beijing. So, after our rokogi race was over, we all gathered at the Ikina Elementary School gym to listen to him speak. He taught a few of my students how to throw a javelin, and I appeared in the newspaper again clapping in the background as he walked through his fans.
That same week, at my elementary school we had a creative beach picture contest on the beach right outside my elementary school. The goal was for each grade (1-6) to create a school mascot and use sand, seaweed, rocks, shells, and anything else available to make big pictures of the mascot on the beach. We worked for hours in the hot sun shoveling sand and collecting rocks and shells from the sea, but the pictures were adorable in the end, so it
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bumper boats? was worth it. The mascots were anthropomorphic notebook and pencil, mikan fruit, and clams, dolphins, and the “Yuge Elementary Trio.”
This week was also the Japanese star festival, “Tanabata.” This is a holiday based on Chinese folklore. Once upon a time the stars Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair) who lived lonely lives on separate sides of the Milky Way met and fell in love. They were married, but soon Orihime’s father, Tentei (the sky king) became upset with the marriage and banished the two stars to separate sides of the Milky Way and forbade them to meet. Orihime cried and cried and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by Orihime’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the seventh day of the seventh month. On this day Japanese people decorate stalks of bamboo and write their wishes on small pieces of paper to be tied to the bamboo leaves. The festival is very colorful and often held at night since that’s when the stars and the Milky Way can be seen.
I celebrated this festival with my preschool. I spent the morning helping the kids tie their wishes to the bamboo
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steering home as proud losers and hang other paper decorations. Then we tied the bamboo stalks up outside and swam in the pool hoping for the wishes to be granted by the sky king.
As soon as school let out for summer vacation, our town board of education held a summer camp for elementary students. Of course I was asked to participate everyday, even though this was my last week before I left Japan and I still hadn’t packed anything or started to say goodbye to everyone. Not a minute of rest! Still the camp was a blast. It was mostly held for out of town kids from cities like Hiroshima and Osaka so that they could experience rural life, although some local kids participated as well. Everyday was spent doing different activities on the beach or in the Inland Sea. The first day we had an opening ceremony, swam at Matsubara Beach on the southern end of Yuge where there is slide that goes right into the sea, ate whole fresh tomatoes from Yuge and sipped tea under the pine trees (matsu) for which the beach is named after, and made dinner. During the following days we carved our own chopsticks from big
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students lined up for the closing ceremony of the rokogi race stalks of bamboo, kayaked, took a boat out to a neighboring uninhabited island where we snorkeled, went clam digging, fished, and swam a lot. I watched the camp leader dive under water and come back up with two octopi, sea urchin, and clams, which only minutes later were being barbequed for lunch. The campers were a great bunch of kids and some were surprisingly eager to try out their English on me.
I also went on my last Odaishi-sama Buddhist pilgrimage during these last couple of weeks here. I was able to see some of the older residents of Yuge who hardly ever come out of their homes for the last time. I’m afraid if I come back to Yuge to visit sometime, they will no longer be here. And once again, I received tons of gives of snacks, food, and fresh produce, which I’m afraid I won’t be able to eat all of before I leave. I’ll certainly try though!
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