I woke up last week well before my 6:30 am alarm clock; it was 12 degrees centigrade in my tatami room. The night before, I fell asleep to a slightly different, never-ending screech of small insects. And now as I peer out of the third-floor window of the obnoxiously lit board of education office, I can see that a beautiful pallet of yellow, orange, red and brown has appeared among the trees. For a city that is said to not change very much during fall, Akune is surely showing its autumn colours well.
There are many things that come to mind when I think of autumn in Japan: the changing of the leaves, especially in Kyoto; weather reminiscent of Seattle; hot pot parties; neck ties at work, rather than summertime polos; and, of course, the seasonal harvest, which includes: chestnuts, sweet potatoes, sanma (Pacific Saury, fish) and delicious shiitake mushrooms. In the coming autumn and winter months, I am looking forward to good eats, nostalgic rain showers and sporting my new tie clip (thanks Dad). Notice I did not mention Thanksgiving or Halloween. The lack of Thanksgiving and Halloween in Japan is understandable, but that is not to say that the two go completely uncelebrated.
As world-class consumers, the Japanese (from what I have observed in my experience) do, to a certain degree, latch on to parts of American culture that are consumable: music; clothing; art; food; and even English to a certain, vulgar-and-or-incoherent-phrase-on-the-back-of-a-T-shirt, degree. For this reason, it is definitely possible to find a few households with some Halloween decorations or a turkey dinner on the table in the autumn season. Even as I was driving home from school on a rainy day a few weeks ago, I spotted a few fake spider webs, Jack’o Lanters and the like in the front windows of a few houses in Akune. All the Halloween décor looked a little out of place, though. Just imagine, driving by a well-designed Japanese house with a ceramic tiled roof, laundry hung to dry blowing in the wind, a beautifully kept bonsai tree in the entryway and in the midst of all this a bright orange, store-bought pumpkin head in the window.
This year I was lucky enough to be teamed up with a teacher at one of my schools who has been to America several times and is a big fan of Halloween. Tashiro-sensei and I, for two weeks in a row (two classes in all), introduced Halloween to the fifth and sixth grade classes of Akune Elementary School: the surprising long history, rooted in Celtic culture; the world of goblins and ghouls; and of course the skills one needs to fill their pillow case with tooth-rotting sweets. It was surprising how little I actually knew about the history of Halloween. The kids had a very fun time trying on costumes and practicing their trick-or-treating skills. Later that week my English conversation class was conducted with a Halloween theme and we all shared our thoughts about Halloween, our favourite candy and I shared my favourite Halloween memory, or rather the one that I remember the clearest. I told the story of the witch house in the central district of Seattle. The house at which every year I was scared out of my little costume. It was at this house that the same women sat every year, in a creaky rocking chair, holding a bowl of candy in her lap waiting to release her blood-curdling scream in the face of any trick-or-treater who dare come near. I can still hear it sometimes.
The night of Halloween this year was very different from the last. Last year I hit the streets of Vancouver as Bob Ross, my favourite televised painter of the 1980’s, and had a hell of a time at the UBC’s various beer gardens (or ‘bzzr’ gardens as they are advertised on campus). I think October 31st, 2009 was the first Halloween that I did not celebrate in some way, shape or form. Instead of getting trashed on campus in a denim suit and admiring the numerous naughty nurses, police women and the like, I volunteered with Big Up to help launch a fairly sizable event, the Bamboo Concert.
About twenty minutes away from the centre of Akune is a nice neighbourhood by the name of Tashiro. I commute to Tashiro once a week to teach a class at Tashiro Elementary; with a total of nine students at the school, Tashiro has become one of my favourite school visits of the week. Tashiro is a very mountainous area and as such it is dense with bamboo forests, which are a wonder to look at on a morning commute. Big Up decided to showcase Japanese artists from across the country in a local spot as a way to highlight the beauty of the bamboo forest and accentuate the tranquility of a naturally serene setting. With a few well placed lights deep in the bamboo forest, a couple dozen handmade bamboo benches along with some Japanese pop, Enka (Japanese classical pop music) and ocarina (yes, ocarina), Big Up was able to gather nearly one hundred audience members for the Bamboo Concert. I was very proud to be a part of what was later called a complete success.
Bamboo Concert
Aside from my involvement with Big Up, I have been filling up my schedule with a number of other fun and exciting activities. At the end of October I was asked to judge an English speech contest for junior high school students. I was glad to accept the invitation and even more delighted learn later that I too would have the opportunity to speak as a representative of the Akune Board of Education (BOE) as well as the only foreigner in Akune. The prompt for my speech was predetermined by advisor at the BOE, Momokita-sensei: “Japan as I see it”. As my first writing assignment since graduating from university, this speech was somewhat of a pleasure to write. I did, however, have some difficulties starting, as always, and since I was to deliver the speech in Japanese it wasn’t the easiest piece to prepare. I ended up presenting a speech about my encounters with and impressions of Japan throughout my life-starting with my first origami class in Tom’s 1st grade class, to Karen’s raku firing, my first girlfriend, world history class, studying Japanese with Tashibu-sensei and finally coming to Japan-and how those experiences came to form the image of Japan as I see it.
My experiences in alternative schools writing, making art and truly putting my creative tools to the test, I felt that I had to express a little of that side of me in my speech. Since I was writing, I felt that it would be apt to use some of my creative writing skills (shout out to Mr. Nolet, you were in this speech). I wanted to use a metaphor to tie up my whole speech. I honestly want to use the mosaic metaphor: all the experiences I have had with Japan are what make up the mosaic that is Japan as I see it. I ran this metaphor by my supervisor, who vaguely understood the figurative conclusion that I was so desperately trying to articulate in Japanese, but in the end Shinsaka-san gave me the verdict that I thought he would:
“You mean a jigsaw puzzle? It’s like a puzzle, right? Just say puzzle. You have to remember one thing, you’re speaking to junior high school students.”
I would only find out later, from another source, that when said with Japanese pronunciation, mosaic is often associated with a popular brand of adult entertainment videos.
“[…]In a way, Japan as I see it is a living jigsaw puzzle, made up of all the experiences I have had, the people who I have talked to and the images that I have had in my head ever since I was a child […]”
The above is a rough translation of the clincher of my speech. I was very happy with how my speech was received by the audience; the gymnasium was barely a quarter full the day of the speech contest.
Speech Contest
Last week I went on a couple of independent study adventures in Akune. On Saturday I went to a pottery studio in Tsurukawauchi (a neighbourhood) with a few friends from Big Up and Akune Public Hospital and had a great time practicing one of my favourite forms of art in a whole new whole in a very special environment. With the skills I learned throughout elementary and middle schools in Karen’s ceramics class at Summit K-12 (for life) I was able to thoroughly enjoy myself last weekend at Warabe Kobo (Warabe studio). It was my first time throwing pottery in a while and the fact that we were using small, hand-powered wheels, which I had never used before, turned a fun Saturday afternoon at the studio into a true test of my ceramic skill. After we finished forming, trimming and glazing our pots, a phenomenal accomplishment for a two hour class, we all sat around and shared tea while the people of Warabe Kobo, a lovely family of potters, talked about my afro.
Warabe Kobo
Last Sunday I went to my first-and definitely not last-cooking class at Ms. Matsumoto’s house. Ms. Matsumoto is the mother of one of my friends in Akune, Shigehisa-san. Shigehisa-san owns Harmonican, a very chic restaurant that I frequent on the weekend for delicious lunches with local ingredients. Ms. Matsumoto lives in an amazing house right next door to Harmonican that I believe I mentioned in an earlier post.
I showed up at the cooking class-having just borrowed a must-need apron from Harmonican next door-and was greeted by the warm smile of Ms. Matsumoto. She led me through the fabulous wooden genkan (entryway) into a nice sit-down dining room, something my unaccustomed knees have been missing for almost four months now. At the dining table I introduced myself to the small class of young and middle-aged women and without a second’s delay the tea had been poured and the class was underway.
First, Ms. Matsumoto read carefully over the menu, our course material for the evening. The menu for the evening sounded great on paper: shiitake, kinoko, maitake and eringi shisosuki (four-mushroom hot pot); three side dishes, including a small cabbage salad, baked miso-stuffed shiitake and deep-fried peanut konjac; and for dessert, a soymilk pudding. The kitchen was a bit crowded, but with all the hands we had, we were able to whip the meal together, for seven people, in less than ninety minutes. I was not alone as I sat, more than satisfied, basking in the lingering aroma of mushroom soup at the beautiful dining table. It was interesting to work in another kitchen-as apposed to my kitchen counter that comes up just past my thighs-,see how other people store and prepare ingredients and of course it was a pleasure to enjoy the fruits of a collective culinary effort.
The genkan
Mushrooms with Ms. Matsumoto
A culinary collective
I would like to leave you with a gastronomically themed proverb:
医者と味噌は古いほうがいい。
Doctors and Miso are both best when aged.
Until next time.
