I am abysmally behind. In my defense, blogger got blocked at school (where I usually played catch up, during exam time), and then I was busy, you know. Moving back to America.
So let's back, back, back, back it up (back it up!). The last big thing I wrote about -- other than the tragic passing of frisbee man -- was my brother's visit. ...In January. Hah! Needless to say, about a million things have transpired in the interim. Highlights!
Shamisen concert and enkai. Back in late January (I know, I know) my shamisen class did a free performance at an old folks home. Our teacher is a care worker there for his day job. I only found out about the concert three days prior, when Kawai-sensei casually mentioned it, and asked whether I wanted to come. I'd never seen the group perform before, so I thought it would be a good chance, and agreed. Then he said, "Good! You'll be playing four songs." What. I'd only been practicing for three months! Then he added, "And you'll play this one by yourself. Solo!" WHAAAT. I was pretty nervous about it, but in the end, it went off fine. Any mistakes I made were drowned out by the rest of the group, and the old people were mostly chill -- except for one sort of strange lady who was like an elderly groupie. She kept shouting compliments at me in English, and exclaiming about how handsome Kawai-sensei is, hahaha. Before the solo, Kawai-sensei had me stand up to introduce myself. First, he asked the audience, "Now, where do you think this young lady is from?" and one adorable old lady, who must not have been able to see very well, querulously suggested, "Kameoka?"
The enkai party afterwards was held in a colorful little crab shack all the way in Maizuru. We drove for a few hours to get there, and proceeded to eat an obscene amount of crab. There was also bar-wide karaoke, but fortunately, we were the only customers, so we could sing with abandon. The ladies in my shamisen class -- who upon further conversation, turn out to be mostly brassy old bachelorettes -- insisted that I go up and sing "the Titanic song!!!" And then I fell asleep in the van on the way home.
The Higashi-Uji English Seminar. Taking place in early February, this was round two for several of us AETs. Sponsored by Joanna's school, we went to a hotel in Kyoto city for two days and pretty much had nonstop English time with a class of her students. Games, cultural presentations, the city-wide photo scavenger hunt, and of course...the English skit contest. The students' skits were all pretty cute, and we AETs tried to make a Japanese one to break the ice. The premise was this: famous characters at a singles party, trying to make romantic matches. The cast list ended up something like this:
Joanna as Nami (a character from popular Japanese pirate show "One Piece")
Kristi as Hello Kitty
David as Batman
Sam as Sailor Moon (a Japanese schoolgirl turned fighter for justice)
Robbie as the Terminator
Ryan as Doraemon (Japanese blue robot cat from the future)
and myself as Hermione Granger, host of the party
It went over pretty well. The kids especially loved Batman and Doraemon's costumes, I think. In the end, only one match was made -- Hello Kitty ran off with the Terminator.
Day out with sannensee. So, a couple of third years from my school had been trying for some months to arrange an outing with me. (Extra cute because they aren't even students that I had taught! They just came to the teachers' room and started chatting to me.) We went to Kyoto Tower, which is pretty silly but has a nice view of the city. Then we stopped by a big temple called Higashi Hongan-ji, which I'd never visited before. This turned out to be hilarious, because there was a whole crowd of pigeons that you could feed some bird food. Saika, the slightly spastic ringleader of our group, decided to give it a shot, and was immediately set upon. I managed to get a video of the pigeons repeatedly dive-bombing her as she shrieks in a very un-Japanese way. It still makes me crack up every time I watch it! Afterwards, we wandered over to Kiyomizu Temple, where despite the cold rain, Saika convinced me to take my first and thus far only ride in a rickshaw. We finished it off with a return to Kyoto Station, and a nice round of student/teacher purikura -- photo stickers for everyone!
International Kids Carnival. On the last day of February, I volunteered at an event set up by the local International Association. Essentially, we set up a number of big booths representing different countries, each with different games and activities. I, of course, was working at the America booth, along with a few other local AETs and two student volunteers from my school. (Mimi and Yuiko, from my favorite class!) I ended up manning the face paint station all afternoon. Apparently, face painting is not something they do in Japan, but after a little coaxing, the kids all loved it! I even managed to convince the cameraman from a TV station covering the event to let me paint his cheek...and a few minutes later, he came back to get the other one done!
After all that, we had graduation, and a few staff parties, and preparations for the new school year. But during spring break, before the new school year got going in April, Joanna and I took an adventure trip to...VIETBODIA!!!
Showing posts with label shamisen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shamisen. Show all posts
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
fall term, part 1 (September - October)
I'm not sure when, exactly, we skipped from summer vacation to winter vacation. It may have something to do with fall term having been the absolute busiest of the four point five I've now lived through in Japan, both at work and in my personal life. At work, I and Paul have been kept hopping on any number of projects and requests, which can be hectic. However, I take it as a sign that we are considered useful members of the department, and plow cheerfully through!
As for extracurriculars, in addition to tea ceremony (which I've been studying a year now, since I got here), I've also been attending Japanese classes and shamisen lessons. The Japanese classes are actually not super useful, but it's been a good opportunity to connect with a few other foreigners in town. Sonobe now boasts seven of us altogether -- three JETs, three Interac (another English teaching company), and one mystery cyclist that we all see around town or in the grocery store. Out of that number, five of us attend the Japanese classes. Actually, we reached the end of the first run of lessons just before winter break, but if there's continued interest, the lessons will hopefully start back up again sometime.
My shamisen class, on the other hand, is populated by a bunch of old ladies, one middle-aged guy, and me. All the better -- Japanese ladies are hilarious! Our teacher is a man called Kawai-sensei, who is fantastically patient, especially with me and my bumbling. Shamisen, by the way, is a traditional Japanese instrument that looks something like a banjo. It's a lot of fun, but a bit tricky for me, A) because my hands are really small, and B) because most shamisen compositions are traditional Japanese folk songs, which I don't know and don't follow what I'd consider to be an intuitive western melodic progression. That is to say, sight reading is nearly impossible for me, because I can't figure out what the song is supposed to sound like!
So that's what's going on now. But, what's happened in the meantime? Let's see, starting from...September!
Before classes got started up again, we of course had the school festival and sports day. Both English clubs carried out a project. Junior high put together a pretty good performance of Snow White, and senior high made an absolutely hilarious video reenactment of the Lion King. It wasn't actually supposed to be as funny as it was, but we had no time, no budget, and no costumes, so it came off pretty slapdash...if by slapdash, you mean awesome. There was more dancing than usual too, this year, which was fun to watch. There were two separate presentations of "Thriller," complete with sweet Japanese zombie teenagers. And our unofficial favorite class won about a thousand awards -- every award they were eligible for, actually. The best part was during their traditional dance. The girls were all in little cotton yukata, dancing all cute, when suddenly they jump apart, and their homeroom teacher springs onto the stage and starts dancing with them! This is extra hilarious because the teacher is really tall, like a foot taller than any of them, plus he was wearing cat ears. (???) I got the whole thing on video, holla!
During sports day, I somehow ended up helping at the reception table for parents and guests, despite the fact that I'm not fluent in Japanese. It all went okay, though, because I only had to tell parents where to sign in, then give them a flyer and a visitor ribbon. Paul and I also ran in the teachers' relay...and lost, of course, but what do you expect us oldsters to do against the track team?
At the beginning of fall term, our work lives were dominated for weeks by the annual English speech contest. A lot of students made great speeches, but the two school-wide winners were both first years -- Asuka, who got first for her excellent pronunciation, and Ayaka, whose speech about children's books was well-written and frankly charming. Asuka even managed to pass through the next round, and went on to the area competition, but unfortunately, couldn't make it farther than that. They both performed well, though.
On September 12th, I and my pal Joanna went to a really cool art exhibition at Kyoto Kaikan. It was a huge show of the works of Seiji Fujishiro, who does stunningly intricate paper cutouts. They are displayed backlit, so the colors and scenes shine vividly. His work was really dreamy and childlike, and we enjoyed the exhibit a lot.
Time passed, some Australians visited our school, my umbrella got bent in a typhoon. On October 10th, a group of us JETs got invited to help out at a neighborhood festival in Momoyama. We got dressed up in festival coats, and the boys had to carry a giant contraption called a mikoshi on their shoulders. It had to way several tons, seeing as it took like forty guys in rotation to carry it. About halfway through our march around town, I and Kristi, a JET from Rokujizo, got tagged to help pull the ropes that stabilize the mikoshi. You see, now and again the men would stop and start jumping up and down with it, so we girls would just start hauling on the ropes and jumping backwards to maintain balance. It was fun, but actually really exhausting! I can only imagine how tired the boys must have been.
Through October and November, Paul and I taught the same five-week course for elementary school students that our school offered last year. This is lucky, because it means we got exchange holiday during winter vacation, saving a full three days of our annual leave. We also trucked our way through a series of Halloween classes, and on the Friday before Halloween, we both dressed up. Paul was an emperor penguin, and I had a full-body suit of Rirakkuma, who is a popular Japanese character. (He's a teddy bear, and his name is sort of a pun -- it literally means "relaxing bear.") Between the costumes and the candy that we were handing out, we caused a mob scene at school. Especially, when I made a special trip to visit class 2-5, they all started shrieking and pulling out their camera phones. I felt kind of like a rockstar, hahaha!
I wore the same costume on Halloween itself. We spent several hours at a party at an Irish pub called McLaughlin's, hanging out with nurses and greasers and President Obama. Then we stood around outside for awhile, being attacked by excited Japanese strangers who apparently love Rirakkuma. Finally, I joined the Kameoka crew on a trip to a rave at some place called Club Metro. It was crowded, and hot, and for some reason, the club is in a train station. But we had a pretty awesome time. I did, however, remember that I am officially getting too old for all-nighters. The train ride home at six a.m. was a serious struggle that I don't intend to repeat any time soon.
As for extracurriculars, in addition to tea ceremony (which I've been studying a year now, since I got here), I've also been attending Japanese classes and shamisen lessons. The Japanese classes are actually not super useful, but it's been a good opportunity to connect with a few other foreigners in town. Sonobe now boasts seven of us altogether -- three JETs, three Interac (another English teaching company), and one mystery cyclist that we all see around town or in the grocery store. Out of that number, five of us attend the Japanese classes. Actually, we reached the end of the first run of lessons just before winter break, but if there's continued interest, the lessons will hopefully start back up again sometime.
My shamisen class, on the other hand, is populated by a bunch of old ladies, one middle-aged guy, and me. All the better -- Japanese ladies are hilarious! Our teacher is a man called Kawai-sensei, who is fantastically patient, especially with me and my bumbling. Shamisen, by the way, is a traditional Japanese instrument that looks something like a banjo. It's a lot of fun, but a bit tricky for me, A) because my hands are really small, and B) because most shamisen compositions are traditional Japanese folk songs, which I don't know and don't follow what I'd consider to be an intuitive western melodic progression. That is to say, sight reading is nearly impossible for me, because I can't figure out what the song is supposed to sound like!
So that's what's going on now. But, what's happened in the meantime? Let's see, starting from...September!
Before classes got started up again, we of course had the school festival and sports day. Both English clubs carried out a project. Junior high put together a pretty good performance of Snow White, and senior high made an absolutely hilarious video reenactment of the Lion King. It wasn't actually supposed to be as funny as it was, but we had no time, no budget, and no costumes, so it came off pretty slapdash...if by slapdash, you mean awesome. There was more dancing than usual too, this year, which was fun to watch. There were two separate presentations of "Thriller," complete with sweet Japanese zombie teenagers. And our unofficial favorite class won about a thousand awards -- every award they were eligible for, actually. The best part was during their traditional dance. The girls were all in little cotton yukata, dancing all cute, when suddenly they jump apart, and their homeroom teacher springs onto the stage and starts dancing with them! This is extra hilarious because the teacher is really tall, like a foot taller than any of them, plus he was wearing cat ears. (???) I got the whole thing on video, holla!
During sports day, I somehow ended up helping at the reception table for parents and guests, despite the fact that I'm not fluent in Japanese. It all went okay, though, because I only had to tell parents where to sign in, then give them a flyer and a visitor ribbon. Paul and I also ran in the teachers' relay...and lost, of course, but what do you expect us oldsters to do against the track team?
At the beginning of fall term, our work lives were dominated for weeks by the annual English speech contest. A lot of students made great speeches, but the two school-wide winners were both first years -- Asuka, who got first for her excellent pronunciation, and Ayaka, whose speech about children's books was well-written and frankly charming. Asuka even managed to pass through the next round, and went on to the area competition, but unfortunately, couldn't make it farther than that. They both performed well, though.
On September 12th, I and my pal Joanna went to a really cool art exhibition at Kyoto Kaikan. It was a huge show of the works of Seiji Fujishiro, who does stunningly intricate paper cutouts. They are displayed backlit, so the colors and scenes shine vividly. His work was really dreamy and childlike, and we enjoyed the exhibit a lot.
Time passed, some Australians visited our school, my umbrella got bent in a typhoon. On October 10th, a group of us JETs got invited to help out at a neighborhood festival in Momoyama. We got dressed up in festival coats, and the boys had to carry a giant contraption called a mikoshi on their shoulders. It had to way several tons, seeing as it took like forty guys in rotation to carry it. About halfway through our march around town, I and Kristi, a JET from Rokujizo, got tagged to help pull the ropes that stabilize the mikoshi. You see, now and again the men would stop and start jumping up and down with it, so we girls would just start hauling on the ropes and jumping backwards to maintain balance. It was fun, but actually really exhausting! I can only imagine how tired the boys must have been.
Through October and November, Paul and I taught the same five-week course for elementary school students that our school offered last year. This is lucky, because it means we got exchange holiday during winter vacation, saving a full three days of our annual leave. We also trucked our way through a series of Halloween classes, and on the Friday before Halloween, we both dressed up. Paul was an emperor penguin, and I had a full-body suit of Rirakkuma, who is a popular Japanese character. (He's a teddy bear, and his name is sort of a pun -- it literally means "relaxing bear.") Between the costumes and the candy that we were handing out, we caused a mob scene at school. Especially, when I made a special trip to visit class 2-5, they all started shrieking and pulling out their camera phones. I felt kind of like a rockstar, hahaha!
I wore the same costume on Halloween itself. We spent several hours at a party at an Irish pub called McLaughlin's, hanging out with nurses and greasers and President Obama. Then we stood around outside for awhile, being attacked by excited Japanese strangers who apparently love Rirakkuma. Finally, I joined the Kameoka crew on a trip to a rave at some place called Club Metro. It was crowded, and hot, and for some reason, the club is in a train station. But we had a pretty awesome time. I did, however, remember that I am officially getting too old for all-nighters. The train ride home at six a.m. was a serious struggle that I don't intend to repeat any time soon.
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