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Published: October 19th 2006
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Nishio Tea Ceremony
Talk about a red carpet! This was just one of many streets stuffed to the gills with people. I've been a busy girl this October. Working six days a week and having plans set for every day off has kept me running. Being under the weather on top of it all has made it a little difficult to keep up, but I've been doing my best. And then the day comes when my body gets a little too pissed off and decides that enough is enough. Such is the case today, so I've taken the day off to recuperate a little and try to nurse myself back to health.
So as I take a break from sleeping, I share an update on the happenings of October thus far. On October 8th I was one of 14 718 people who participated in a tea ceremony in Nishio, shattering the world record for the most people drinking tea at the same time. The event was extremely well organized, especially considering the number of bodies involved... worthy of a CSLC 2005 steering committee member kudos. The tea itself was not wonderful as we prepared it before the speeches and had to wait a while on a very windy day to drink. The experience was great though. Look for me in the
next edition of the Guiness Book of World Records. As a blond in a sea of black haired participants, you might just be able to pick me out!
From the tea ceremony, we then headed back to Hekinan to take in the Mochi Nage Festival. This is perhaps one of the most unique, funny, and stupid traditions I've ever encountered... and I was extremely happy to be a part of it. Mochi Nage is a rice ball throwing event. According to Japanese tradition, the ages of 25 and 42 are extremely unlucky for men. To symbolize the throwing away of the evil that comes with these unlucky ages, these men climb to the top of a tower-type structure and throw thousands of riceballs down to the ground. Women's unlucky ages are 19 and 33, but supposedly their evil isn't as bad or something because they don't get to throw anything. The strange part of this tradition, is that these rice balls are surprisingly hard, but many of them have little prize tickets inside, so people crowd around the bottom of the tower structure and fight like crazy to collect as many rice balls as they can. It's actually quite
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Among the entertainment were these traditional soldiers doing some kind of salute. Couldn't really see it from our street though. dangerous, but for onlookers like myself, it's a hoot to watch. Old men and women elbowing to get their rice balls, and people getting clocked in the head every time they look down. It's absolutely hilarious! I picked up one rice ball that pretty much landed at my feet, but that was about it. Now granted some of the prizes given away are pretty great... a TV, a bicycle, an iPod, etc. But most are rolls of aluminum foil, boxes of Kleenex, and packages of ramen. If the old men and women are anything like my grandparents, I think they must be fighting just for the opportunity to mass stock their pantries.
This past Sunday, the 15th was a busy day too. It started with a trip to the Ohama Festival with a great new friend, Mariko and her friend Michael. This festival is a temple walk where we visit a variety of different temples in the area and each one has elementary students presenting history or traditions of the temples. For those students who are intimidated by a Concours speech or a science fair presentation, you would be amazed at these students' presentations. Groups of 3 or 4
Mochi Nage
The 25 year olds lining up to pummel the crowds below. students in upper elemantary school were presenting to the whole city, outside, about 15 or 20 people at a time for the whole day! There presentations were perfectly memorized and had wonderful props, costumes, and actions to go along. Very impressive. The food and art exhibits at the festival were awesome too. One temple actually sat us down and set out curry, rice, onigiri, tofu, fish, snow peas, boiled peanuts (a Hekinan treat), and tea with dessert. They really go all out for us foreigners!
Later that evening, Mariko and I met up with a few other girls to see a kabuki performance. Kabuki is a traditional Japanese show with a few different acts, including dances and plays. The casts are very famous and exclusively men. Female roles are thus quite humourous, I think. The dancing and music were amazing and the costumes and sets were really great too. The plays were pretty difficult to understand as they were not only in Japanese, but in a dialect equivalent to Shakespearean English. Even the Japanese girls had difficulty understanding. Luckily I had my trusty program to inform me of the overall story of the play. Very helpful. The whole performance
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Not just a gun to sound the beginning of the pummeling, but a whole set of fireworks that just so happened to be directly behind me. Scared the shit out of me! was about 5 hours long, making for a very long day and a bit of a sore ass, but it was a great experience!
This weekend, my first ACC Halloween party, and next weekend a Japanese class trip to Isu Shrine. For now... more rest.
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Aubrey
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I love mochi!
OK, the kabuki and tea ceremonies were pretty cool, but now you have me remembering the fun and taste of mochi! I love this blog! Kara you are too great! We have snow on the ground - still miss life here? Nothing has changed. I am monitoring life here and other than Crissi getting her nickname and Susan asking me to call her "Sushi" from now on, there is very little happening.