Matsuri... yachatta.
Jul. 20th, 2008 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flameraven(This entry is SO backdated, because I was nowhere near coherent enough to write anything when I finally got home yesterday.)
It was pointed out to me that I wasn't very clear with Friday's post, partly because it was just a stream of consciousness list, and also because that list was half in Japanese. (This is, however, basically how I think; in a mix of Japanese and English. It is probably the reason why I also end up rambling in Japanese on the rare occasions I get drunk.)
So for those of you who don't understand Japanese, a quick summary of what all those incomplete thoughts were about:
Friday we had a festival (matsuri) at a local elementary school. It was a very small festival, but that was okay. All the little kids were wearing yukatas (light summer kimonos), and were absolutely adorable. I was excited mainly because this was the first festival I'd gone to in over a month and a half (I was misinformed and missed the one they went to at the end of June), and also because this time I finally got to wear the full uniform. Before, of course, I wore the happi (printed coat), but that was it. This time I got to wear the ninja pants as well. Technically, this still wasn't the full uniform, because I didn't buy the split-toed rubber boot/shoe things that everyone else wears, but that was okay. I wasn't particularly interested in those anyway. And I messed up and didn't have a white tank top yet either.
It actually turned out to be a really short festival; we met up at school a bit after four, got our face-paint done, left at four-thirty, and were at the school by five. We did two songs ("Yoi-Sa" and "Kansai"), and I about died of heat-- it was somewhere around 34C, extremely humid, and those happi are warm when you're bouncing around. I took off the happi and tied it around my waist after the second song, and felt a little better. Afterwards we taught the little ones "Ura-Ja," which is really simple, since the instructions are included in the song. It's a really sweet, fun song, which I'm fully intending to teach my sisters when I get home. The kids were a little confused and a little shy, so they didn't really get into the dance, but it was fun teaching them anyway.
After all that, we ran in and cleaned off our makeup, and then just hung around the festival, taking pictures with random kids and eating the festival food, which, possibly because I'd eaten a light lunch, all looked delicious. I ended up getting a chocolate banana and a cup full of katsuage (fried chicken), and was seriously eyeing the slushies when it was announced that we had to go. Alas! Still, it was good to actually get to enjoy the festival a bit; often we kinda miss out on that stuff because we're so busy dancing.
And then there was dinner and hanging out at Joyful, and all was good, although my feet were very very dusty.
Sunday was even more intense. As the schedule said, I showed up at campus around two, and we did our stretches and practiced the formation for "Matcha," which we'd finally be performing in front of actual people. The formation was a bit different than we usually do, and the stereo cut out halfway through the song, so we had to be a bit creative and finish things up by singing. We took a break after that, and everyone finished getting into costume and started work on face paint and such. I painted fireworks that matched the design on our happi. :3
Of course this didn't take very long, so I actually sat around a lot while everyone else was fixing their hair and whatnot. Everyone commented on how quickly I'd gotten ready, but... well, what else did I have to do? My hair fixes itself; it's not like I have to do anything to it. That's what I like about my hair.
Anyway, we headed off from school and got to the festival around... three-thirty or four, I think. It turned out that I was right and this was the festival I'd seen advertised on the poster, taking place around Oyama station. It was Oyama's version of the Gion Matsuri, which is really famous in Kyoto. (I looked it up on wiki later; apparently Gion Matsuri started out as a religious thing, to drive off plagues, earthquakes, fire, and general badness. It turned into an annual event and ran for hundreds of years, until eventually the shogunate decided to stop all the religious stuff. The people got upset and basically said "fine, we'll ditch the rituals, but we're gonna keep the parade," which lead to the current form of the festival.) So there were little mini-shrines (omikoshi) being carried through the streets, and taiko drums, and big waving banners, and then dancers, of course-- including us.
We stopped and rested in a little alcove for a bit (where someone noticed a poster up for the Yosakoi Dance Festival in Nikko-- and Mugen was featured on the poster), and then everyone headed for a toilet break. I mention this only because during said break, myself, Mai, Kazue, Nozomi, and another girl got separated from the rest of the group. This lead to a rather confusing (and exhausting) fifteen minutes or so while we ran through the crowded festival streets, trying to figure out where everyone else was. We did eventually find them, after another guy pointed us in the right direction; they had joined up with some of the other dance groups that we've met at other festivals (who are always very nice and bringing food for us) and were helping in those groups' dances.
These dances lean a little more towards the traditional Obon and other dances, and are less like street dancing than ours (the less athletic moves are understandable; most of the people in the other groups tend to be women or men in their forties or fifties); they also use the noroko(?)--little shaky wooden clappers-- more than we usually do. We followed them in several numbers, and it was more than a little chaotic, as none of us really knew the moves and we were trying to watch the other people ahead of us (while a guy waved a giant flag in the way...) It was fun anyway, though.
We finally took a break after maybe an hour of this; we stopped outside a store that had a little purification fountain next to it (with a ladle and everything), and everyone descended on the fountain, muttering "Nomimono! Nomimono!" (Drinks! Drinks!) and started drinking from there before they could get out the drinks we'd brought with us.
After about three ladles of water and a good few handfuls dumped on my neck and arms, I was feeling slightly less sticky and gross. It also helped that we got to sit down and rest. Once I was feeling better, I took out my phone and started getting snapshots of everybody sitting around, and a bit of the floats going by, although the quality was pretty bad so I couldn't get anything too detailed (this included the guy doing the flag waving, which was unfortunate, because he was amazing). Apparently, we did have time then to walk around and buy food and such, but I didn't find this out until later, alas. I really would've liked to get ahold of some of their snowcone/slushy things.
When the break was over, we finally got to do our dances! Well, we danced with the other group for a bit first, but then it was our turn. We had a whole ring of people around us at this point, lining up on both sides of the street. We did "Matcha" first, and I got a bit confused and ended up out of position, but still did pretty well, I think, and everybody clapped really loudly when we were done, which was quite gratifying. Then we did "Yocchore," which was a bit less organized since it had been awhile since I did it, and several of other new people (like Kazue) didn't know it at all, but it was still fun. And then we went on to the next song... and "Yocchore" started playing again. There was a pause, while they sorted out the sound system again. And then the music came back, and it was... "Yocchore." Yes.
So we ended up doing "Yocchore" not once but three times. Which was... eheh. Well. "Yocchore" is the most physically demanding song, I find, because there's a lot of jumping around, and I still have trouble pulling some of it off. By the third time, most of us weren't even trying very hard, we were all so tired, and some of the people had started to leave. By the time we finished the third round and all attacked the water fountain again, most of the people had left. It had gotten cooler and darker anyway, and a lot cloudier. It looked like it was going to rain, actually, though there wasn't much chance of it in the forecast. When we looked at the street again, most of the people had gone, and we ended up leaving soon after that.
We went back to the school parking lot, and said goodbye to those who had to go home for one reason or another, and I (quite reluctantly) returned my happi to Kimura-san. I'm really going to have to ask Rika later if I can keep one of them and take it back with me. They're just so damn cool-looking. I figure I can wear it to conventions if nothing else. Gotta figure out the right way to ask, though.
Afterwards we went to the onsen (I remembered to bring my towel this time!) and I ended up trying a number of the baths I hadn't before, including some of the really weird ones like the rock salt (?) bath, and the sauna, where we rubbed some kind of salt on our skin-- with Techi, Nozomi, and Mai. A little weird, but so relaxing after an entire day of dancing.
Of course, being exhausted and hungry and then taking a hot bath meant that I was just about falling asleep on my feet when I got out. I managed to stay awake long enough to go and get some dinner (at the same cafeteria place we went before), but after that, exhausted and fed, I was pretty ready to crash. Techi was talking about going someplace after that and hanging out some more, but she didn't know where, and while I wanted to do more, everything was calling for me to sleep, so in the end I just got a ride home.
Mind you, I still stayed up until after midnight, poking at the internet and such, but even that was kind of a struggle. I finally just gave up (since the internet was being very dodgy anyway) and collapsed into sleeeep.
Still. It was an awesome, awesome festival. Pure chaos, of course, with tons of people and little shops and music and shrines... several streets were taken up by the festivities, and even though these were streets I ride on or past every day, I absolutely could not have told you where we were at any one time. But the craziness is most of what I love about matsuri; everybody just goes wild and has fun. None of the strict social heirarchy or frustrating rules that fill every other area of Japanese society. I think it was Techi, actually, who was asking me about the US, and if we have "matsuri" there... and we do, more or less, in the form of carnivals or the county/state fairs, but, as I told her, they're zenzen chigau kanji; it's a totally different feeling from what you get here. Carnivals are all lame rides and rigged games and crazy food (deep fried ice cream wtf), and it feels like a bad way to go waste money more than anything; Japanese matsuri have much more spirit and fun, even if they have equally pricey food.
Also? Some of the best music ever. I was actually rather disappointed that I didn't get to hear more of the taiko players-- our own music was closer, and then we moved away from where they were, but as we stood in the Hakuoh parking lot and did our farewells I could still hear them playing, and I wanted to run over to the station and just listen and dance. I love taiko, and still would like to learn to do that... I think learning the Yosakoi dance served just as well, since I got to go to matsuri that way too, but I do still love taiko.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to watch and enjoy the festivals this week, in Nogi and Moka and Mashiko, more, since I won't actually be dancing.
It was pointed out to me that I wasn't very clear with Friday's post, partly because it was just a stream of consciousness list, and also because that list was half in Japanese. (This is, however, basically how I think; in a mix of Japanese and English. It is probably the reason why I also end up rambling in Japanese on the rare occasions I get drunk.)
So for those of you who don't understand Japanese, a quick summary of what all those incomplete thoughts were about:
Friday we had a festival (matsuri) at a local elementary school. It was a very small festival, but that was okay. All the little kids were wearing yukatas (light summer kimonos), and were absolutely adorable. I was excited mainly because this was the first festival I'd gone to in over a month and a half (I was misinformed and missed the one they went to at the end of June), and also because this time I finally got to wear the full uniform. Before, of course, I wore the happi (printed coat), but that was it. This time I got to wear the ninja pants as well. Technically, this still wasn't the full uniform, because I didn't buy the split-toed rubber boot/shoe things that everyone else wears, but that was okay. I wasn't particularly interested in those anyway. And I messed up and didn't have a white tank top yet either.
It actually turned out to be a really short festival; we met up at school a bit after four, got our face-paint done, left at four-thirty, and were at the school by five. We did two songs ("Yoi-Sa" and "Kansai"), and I about died of heat-- it was somewhere around 34C, extremely humid, and those happi are warm when you're bouncing around. I took off the happi and tied it around my waist after the second song, and felt a little better. Afterwards we taught the little ones "Ura-Ja," which is really simple, since the instructions are included in the song. It's a really sweet, fun song, which I'm fully intending to teach my sisters when I get home. The kids were a little confused and a little shy, so they didn't really get into the dance, but it was fun teaching them anyway.
After all that, we ran in and cleaned off our makeup, and then just hung around the festival, taking pictures with random kids and eating the festival food, which, possibly because I'd eaten a light lunch, all looked delicious. I ended up getting a chocolate banana and a cup full of katsuage (fried chicken), and was seriously eyeing the slushies when it was announced that we had to go. Alas! Still, it was good to actually get to enjoy the festival a bit; often we kinda miss out on that stuff because we're so busy dancing.
And then there was dinner and hanging out at Joyful, and all was good, although my feet were very very dusty.
Sunday was even more intense. As the schedule said, I showed up at campus around two, and we did our stretches and practiced the formation for "Matcha," which we'd finally be performing in front of actual people. The formation was a bit different than we usually do, and the stereo cut out halfway through the song, so we had to be a bit creative and finish things up by singing. We took a break after that, and everyone finished getting into costume and started work on face paint and such. I painted fireworks that matched the design on our happi. :3
Of course this didn't take very long, so I actually sat around a lot while everyone else was fixing their hair and whatnot. Everyone commented on how quickly I'd gotten ready, but... well, what else did I have to do? My hair fixes itself; it's not like I have to do anything to it. That's what I like about my hair.
Anyway, we headed off from school and got to the festival around... three-thirty or four, I think. It turned out that I was right and this was the festival I'd seen advertised on the poster, taking place around Oyama station. It was Oyama's version of the Gion Matsuri, which is really famous in Kyoto. (I looked it up on wiki later; apparently Gion Matsuri started out as a religious thing, to drive off plagues, earthquakes, fire, and general badness. It turned into an annual event and ran for hundreds of years, until eventually the shogunate decided to stop all the religious stuff. The people got upset and basically said "fine, we'll ditch the rituals, but we're gonna keep the parade," which lead to the current form of the festival.) So there were little mini-shrines (omikoshi) being carried through the streets, and taiko drums, and big waving banners, and then dancers, of course-- including us.
We stopped and rested in a little alcove for a bit (where someone noticed a poster up for the Yosakoi Dance Festival in Nikko-- and Mugen was featured on the poster), and then everyone headed for a toilet break. I mention this only because during said break, myself, Mai, Kazue, Nozomi, and another girl got separated from the rest of the group. This lead to a rather confusing (and exhausting) fifteen minutes or so while we ran through the crowded festival streets, trying to figure out where everyone else was. We did eventually find them, after another guy pointed us in the right direction; they had joined up with some of the other dance groups that we've met at other festivals (who are always very nice and bringing food for us) and were helping in those groups' dances.
These dances lean a little more towards the traditional Obon and other dances, and are less like street dancing than ours (the less athletic moves are understandable; most of the people in the other groups tend to be women or men in their forties or fifties); they also use the noroko(?)--little shaky wooden clappers-- more than we usually do. We followed them in several numbers, and it was more than a little chaotic, as none of us really knew the moves and we were trying to watch the other people ahead of us (while a guy waved a giant flag in the way...) It was fun anyway, though.
We finally took a break after maybe an hour of this; we stopped outside a store that had a little purification fountain next to it (with a ladle and everything), and everyone descended on the fountain, muttering "Nomimono! Nomimono!" (Drinks! Drinks!) and started drinking from there before they could get out the drinks we'd brought with us.
After about three ladles of water and a good few handfuls dumped on my neck and arms, I was feeling slightly less sticky and gross. It also helped that we got to sit down and rest. Once I was feeling better, I took out my phone and started getting snapshots of everybody sitting around, and a bit of the floats going by, although the quality was pretty bad so I couldn't get anything too detailed (this included the guy doing the flag waving, which was unfortunate, because he was amazing). Apparently, we did have time then to walk around and buy food and such, but I didn't find this out until later, alas. I really would've liked to get ahold of some of their snowcone/slushy things.
When the break was over, we finally got to do our dances! Well, we danced with the other group for a bit first, but then it was our turn. We had a whole ring of people around us at this point, lining up on both sides of the street. We did "Matcha" first, and I got a bit confused and ended up out of position, but still did pretty well, I think, and everybody clapped really loudly when we were done, which was quite gratifying. Then we did "Yocchore," which was a bit less organized since it had been awhile since I did it, and several of other new people (like Kazue) didn't know it at all, but it was still fun. And then we went on to the next song... and "Yocchore" started playing again. There was a pause, while they sorted out the sound system again. And then the music came back, and it was... "Yocchore." Yes.
So we ended up doing "Yocchore" not once but three times. Which was... eheh. Well. "Yocchore" is the most physically demanding song, I find, because there's a lot of jumping around, and I still have trouble pulling some of it off. By the third time, most of us weren't even trying very hard, we were all so tired, and some of the people had started to leave. By the time we finished the third round and all attacked the water fountain again, most of the people had left. It had gotten cooler and darker anyway, and a lot cloudier. It looked like it was going to rain, actually, though there wasn't much chance of it in the forecast. When we looked at the street again, most of the people had gone, and we ended up leaving soon after that.
We went back to the school parking lot, and said goodbye to those who had to go home for one reason or another, and I (quite reluctantly) returned my happi to Kimura-san. I'm really going to have to ask Rika later if I can keep one of them and take it back with me. They're just so damn cool-looking. I figure I can wear it to conventions if nothing else. Gotta figure out the right way to ask, though.
Afterwards we went to the onsen (I remembered to bring my towel this time!) and I ended up trying a number of the baths I hadn't before, including some of the really weird ones like the rock salt (?) bath, and the sauna, where we rubbed some kind of salt on our skin-- with Techi, Nozomi, and Mai. A little weird, but so relaxing after an entire day of dancing.
Of course, being exhausted and hungry and then taking a hot bath meant that I was just about falling asleep on my feet when I got out. I managed to stay awake long enough to go and get some dinner (at the same cafeteria place we went before), but after that, exhausted and fed, I was pretty ready to crash. Techi was talking about going someplace after that and hanging out some more, but she didn't know where, and while I wanted to do more, everything was calling for me to sleep, so in the end I just got a ride home.
Mind you, I still stayed up until after midnight, poking at the internet and such, but even that was kind of a struggle. I finally just gave up (since the internet was being very dodgy anyway) and collapsed into sleeeep.
Still. It was an awesome, awesome festival. Pure chaos, of course, with tons of people and little shops and music and shrines... several streets were taken up by the festivities, and even though these were streets I ride on or past every day, I absolutely could not have told you where we were at any one time. But the craziness is most of what I love about matsuri; everybody just goes wild and has fun. None of the strict social heirarchy or frustrating rules that fill every other area of Japanese society. I think it was Techi, actually, who was asking me about the US, and if we have "matsuri" there... and we do, more or less, in the form of carnivals or the county/state fairs, but, as I told her, they're zenzen chigau kanji; it's a totally different feeling from what you get here. Carnivals are all lame rides and rigged games and crazy food (deep fried ice cream wtf), and it feels like a bad way to go waste money more than anything; Japanese matsuri have much more spirit and fun, even if they have equally pricey food.
Also? Some of the best music ever. I was actually rather disappointed that I didn't get to hear more of the taiko players-- our own music was closer, and then we moved away from where they were, but as we stood in the Hakuoh parking lot and did our farewells I could still hear them playing, and I wanted to run over to the station and just listen and dance. I love taiko, and still would like to learn to do that... I think learning the Yosakoi dance served just as well, since I got to go to matsuri that way too, but I do still love taiko.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to watch and enjoy the festivals this week, in Nogi and Moka and Mashiko, more, since I won't actually be dancing.
