Tuesday, April 28--Career Validation

All of my teacher friends are going to be sooooo jealous!

I have been teaching a Tuesday evening class at a factory in Hon-Atsugi. The class is scheduled to end in a couple weeks, and I have to create an end-of-course assessment. The test must consist of both a written and oral evaluation, and I have to submit it to my boss for approval beforehand. No sweat—teaching third grade gave me plenty of practice creating tests. But never have I ever been paid extra for this. I was stunned to find out that in addition to my regular pay and transportation costs, I will be compensated ¥2000 for making the end-of-course assessment. If it had been April 1, I would have sworn it was some kind of April Fool’s joke.

I don’t know how Japanese teachers are treated here, but the respect and appreciation I have experienced as a foreign instructor have been amazing, and a little overwhelming. And it’s not just in the form of monetary compensation. It’s the bow at the beginning and end of each class at JMSDF. It’s the heartfelt thank you students give at the end of each private lesson. It’s the smiles of gratitude from the mothers of the little ones in my children’s group. It’s the look of admiration I get when I tell a Japanese person my occupation. There were certainly some appreciative students and parents when I was teaching in the States, but overall I didn’t feel my efforts, or those of my fellow teachers, were truly valued, which was hard on the self-esteem. For the first time since earning my teaching certificate, I feel satisfied with, and even proud of, of my choice of profession.

Sunday, April 26--This Part Sucks

Well, today highlights the major drawback of living 6,772 miles from home. I woke up this morning to an email from my mom that my 89-year-old grandfather had passed away. Unfortunately, it will be too difficult and too costly to get home for Tuesday’s memorial service at his church in Florida. As a veteran of World War II, Granddad will be inurned in Arlington National Cemetery, in one of the columbaria he helped to design during his twelve years of service there as Facilities Manager. I know the funeral schedule is, unfortunately, very busy at Arlington, so it could be several weeks before his inurnment service. I hope that I will have enough notice of the date to make arrangements to go home and pay my respects.

Though I feel bad about not being able to attend Granddad’s memorial service, I feel worse about being so far away from my mom at this time. Historically, April has not been a kind month to our family, and I feel like I’ve abandoned her to deal with this latest emotional blow alone. I can call and talk to her on the phone, but it’s just not the same as being there to provide a real ear to bend and a real shoulder to cry on. In the past, she has proven that she is like a Timex—she can take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’, but I was always close enough before to see her resilience with my own eyes. I don’t like relying on a long-distance phone connection to judge whether she’s really doing okay or whether she’s trying to sound upbeat so I won’t worry. This part of living abroad sucks.

Sunday, April 19--Giddyup

Imagine flying down a 255-meter track on the back of a galloping horse, holding on with nothing but your knees, trying to impress the gods by shooting an arrow into the heart of each of three targets spaced 70 meters apart along the path. It is as dangerous and as impressive as it sounds, and I spent three hours watching this annual display of horseback archery, or yabusame, today.

Yabusame is a ceremony, not a sport, which was first performed for the shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1187. It was developed as a way for samurai warriors to practice the skills needed both for hunting and for engaging the enemy, but it was also hoped that the demonstration of skill and concentration would please the gods, therefore encouraging their blessings for prosperity. Today, there are only two schools that train archers to perform yabusame, and a minimum of five years of training is required before an archer is invited to participate in a ceremony. As times change, and it becomes more difficult to interest new generations in preserving the traditions of the past, women who wish to learn yabusame are now accepted into the formerly male-only training program.

When I arrived at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine in Kamakura this afternoon, the archers were just beginning their warm up rides. Unfortunately, the practice runs did not go well for two riders, whose horses bucked them off near the first target. Even though an ambulance did arrive to take the second rider to the hospital, neither one appeared seriously injured. After the practice runs, horses and riders alike went “behind the scenes” to change into their formal costumes. The horses emerged wearing colorful tassels, and the men were attired in Edo Period hunting garb, featuring deer-hide chaps, lacquered caps of woven bamboo (the curled-up style of which influenced the future design of cowboy hats), and one-armed jackets bearing a gold-embroidered mon, or family crest.

The starter used a huge fan to signal when the course was ready for each rider. The archer urged his horse to a full gallop and fired off three blunt-tipped arrows in quick succession, finishing the run in about fifteen seconds. If he hit a target, a white flag was waved, and the crowd applauded in appreciation. Once all of the riders had completed the run, they returned solemnly in a single-file procession to the start, retrieving their arrows with a bow at each target. Targets were changed throughout the ceremony, from a colorful paper bulls-eye, to a square wooden plank, to a small piece of clay shaped like a bowl. The rides were repeated over the course of about an hour, and I expected the best archer’s efforts to be celebrated at the end of the ceremony, but I never did hear a winner declared.

There will be another display of horseback archery on the beach in Zushi at the beginning of November, and I learned a few things today that will hopefully help me get better photos then. First, a front-row seat near the starting line means you have to stay seated the entire time so as not to block the view of those seated behind you—which ensures that the ropes marking the course bisect each and every photo. Being near the starting line means you get some great still shots as the riders prepare to launch, but action shots are pretty much limited to the horse’s rump as the rider aims at the first target. Forget having any view whatsoever of the second or third targets, since you can’t stand up. The police keep a vigilant eye on the crowd, to prevent flash photography or standing—as a result, they are prominent features in the foreground of my otherwise appealing photos. So, next time I am prepared to arrive early to secure a good spot around the center of the course, to spend several hours standing near the back of the crowd (being tall means I can shoot photos over the heads of most Japanese), and to evade the police as much as possible. Check back in November to see if my plan works.

Sunday, April 5--Japan for the NC-17 Crowd

Spring is the season of new life—flowers bloom, baby birds hatch, weeds sprout between the bricks of my front porch…. What better way to mark this season of renewal than a fertility festival? We had heard talk of these fertility festivals from some of Jim’s coworkers who had attended one in March, and the descriptions sounded a little far-fetched for the seemingly prim and proper Japanese. Yet the base had gone so far as to ban anyone under 18 from its tour buses bound for the festival, so we decided we had to check this out for ourselves. Well, it seems the Japanese are not quite as prim and proper as they appear.

The Kanamara Matsuri was held at a small shrine in Kawasaki. The directions by train were very easy, but we feared like many previous excursions the “short walk” from the station to the shrine would turn into an epic journey of frustration. No worries this time…all we had to do was follow the hordes of gaijin (foreigners) who had also come to witness this spectacle. Did I mention the shrine was small? The grounds couldn’t have been more than half a football field in area, and were cluttered with the shrine itself, several smaller buildings, stone lanterns, gardens, vendor stalls, and a few thousand camera-toting visitors, many with their young children. Not even on a Tokyo train at rush hour have I felt so claustrophobic. Once you waded into the sea of people, you lost all control and were forced to follow wherever the tide took you. It was impossible to see what the vendors were selling or to get near enough to anything to take a decent picture.

So what exactly were all these people crammed in to see? Well, literally translated, the Kanamara Matsuri means “Iron Phallus Festival.” Large replicas of the male anatomy, including one made of steel, were sheltered lovingly in mikoshi (portable shrines), which were eventually carried through the streets of Kawasaki on the shoulders of beaming young couples and vibrantly attired transvestites. There was a giant, hand-carved wooden phallus around which hundreds of people were waiting their turn to “ride” and be photographed. The vendors were all hawking penile themed goods (which we only saw outside the shrine when people unwrapped their purchases to show to friends), from headbands to keychains to candles to lollipops. Let me just say, there is nothing quite so shocking as seeing a wide-eyed three year old sucking on a candy penis.

Now before you get to thinking that the Japanese are a bunch of perverts, let me explain the origins of this festival, which has been held each April since the Edo period (1603-1868). It began all those years ago after a local blacksmith carved an iron phallus to protect a local girl from a demon that had murdered her first two husbands on their wedding nights. The blacksmith was honored with Kanamara shrine. Later, prostitutes began coming to the shrine to ask for protection from STDs. Now, worshippers come to pray for harmonious marriages and healthy pregnancies. The annual festival is also a huge draw for the gay community, as it raises money for HIV and AIDS research.

Although we usually really enjoy the excitement and entertainment of Japanese matsuri, the crush of humanity at this festival was just too much for us and we headed back to the train pretty early. The view of the cherry blossoms from the train windows was much more rewarding than being crushed between busty, blond-wigged trannies. We’ll chalk this adventure up to “been there, done that, don’t need to do it again.”