This year, I’m happy to report, we managed at least to do part of the above. There was no unseemly staying up until midnight but we did manage to compromise our beauty sleep by getting up at 5:30 in the morning to go for a walk up the local mountain and watch the sun rise on the new year. The kids were intially unimpressed at being roused in the cold and freezing dark but put in a good effort, all things considering, and we made it up to the allotted meeting spot on time and joined up with the Yanamotos and headed off to trek up the road in the pitch dark with our torches to the top of the mountain. Felix had trouble maintaining his energy levels along the way:

But he made it up eventually, just as the sun was about to come out:

Ruby was tired out by the experience:

But at least they had good reception up there.

And there were hordes of other people there too.

Although it should be noted that most of them came by car, the wimps.

Tragically when we got to the top the clouds completely obscured our view of the sunrise, but it was a good experience nonetheless. And I got to brag to everybody that I had in fact already seen the sun rise with my own eyes on my epic trek with Mr Nishihara last February.

Then we got home and waited for our very own feast of special NY goodies, brought around to our place in various trays and pots by none other than the Nishiharas. It looked a little bit like this:

Sadly we all had to eat off the small table because we’d given our big table away the previous day (to a good home, of course).

The feast included a special type of sake that everyone has to sip at, or in Felix’s case take a huge gulp of. (He was rapt to have a legally sanctioned opportunity to consume alcohol.) It gets served from its own very special ancient traditional serving set:

The feast included massive crab legs which Ruby had never tried before. Unusually for our princess, she willingly took on the challenge of eating her Very First Crab Leg:

The meal was lots of fun, and it turns out that Jan 1 is much like Xmas day in Australia, where far too much food is consumed and alcohol is drunk, and everyone then sits around in the afternoon feeling bloated and playing with the new games/toys (this year it was Felix’s excellent new Sushi Tower Game, where you stack up the plates and bits of sushi etc. on the revolving sushi belt until they fall over then you have to pay for it with tiny plastic Japanese money).

And of course there were masses of leftovers which we ate for dinner as well as lunch the next day. All in all, a highly convivial festive season.

First we took them to a new seaside cafe that we’d discovered just a few short months ago. When we arrived, the cafe owner took us out on a tour of the front garden for a bit of a local geography lesson, which included a short stint on this terrifying concrete ledge thingy. Felix took the opportunity to traumatise Eleni by pretending to hang over the edge.

The visitors were most impressed with the very elaborate cake presentation; so impressed, in fact, that we just had to take a photo or two:

I made the mistake of ordering a large coffee. I mean, just look at the size of that cup. It was a nice coffee, though.

Then we took the troops over to the island with the rabbits on it:

And later, a cute lantern display down at Onomichi:

Later we factored in a stop off at everybody’s favourite temple, Buttsuji–tragically the “butt” bit is pronounced “oo” as in “book”, but it still looks good in a photo:

This one gets the Gold Logie for Best Winged Beast:

So it was all a bit sad when they left and we realised that there were no more tours to conduct, but in any case we’ve amassed so much local information over the last two years that I figure we could always start up a tour guide business at some point in the future.

Meanwhile, the Mihara Sports Day was also held last Sunday, and the three representatives from the Sushi on a Stick household acquitted themselves very well from all reports, yet despite their heroic efforts Sunami once again lost out to evil Tanoura up the road, boo hiss we hate them they are too competitive and practice too hard and clearly don’t understand that the Games are meant to be conducted in the spirit of Fun. Which means, letting Sunami win every now and then.

I love this photo of Felix with his mates just before the Soccer-Ball-Around-The-Cones event, looking like something out of a manga cartoon:

Ruby and Felix after their events. Ruby ran hard and was well pleased with herself, as you can see. (Felix if you’re reading this, you were Really Good too, OK?) Love the big S on the front of the vests (that’s for Sunami I believe, although the Superman reference is most pleasing).

By three o’clock it was all over, and even before the official closing ceremony had finished–which surprised me somewhat, in a country that so loves its ceremonies– we were all taking down the tents and packing up. In an amazingly short space of time, the whole carnival, the thousands of people, the tents and flags and brass band and food stalls and loudspeakers and podium and everything else (the locals certainly know how to put on a festival) had been shipped off and there was nothing left but a dusty old field.

And thus our Last Ever Mihara Sports Day came to an end.

Incidentally, Felix’s soccer team had a tournament yesterday at that very same dusty field. And I realised that I’d never really taken enough notice of the Ending of the Match Ritual before, which is a terrible omission because it really is quite a ritual. So I’d now like to relate it to you in all its glory.

In Japan, when you finish a junior soccer match, first of all the players of both teams line up in the middle with the referees and all bow deeply towards the spectators, who clap. Then the players from both teams shake hands and say the equivalent of “good-game-good-game-good-game” ad nauseum and also shake hands with the referees. The referees are now free to depart the field of play. Next, players from each team go over to the opposition team’s bench where they bow once more and say Thank You to the opposition coach and associated hangers-on, who politely clap. Then every player lines up to shake hands with the opposition coach. Then they troop over to their own bench and do the same to their own coach and parents and we all clap furiously and they shake hands with their own coach. Then the players from both teams shake hands with one another again (in theory, although I didn’t see much actual hand contact by this stage). And then, and only then, are we allowed to declare the game over.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope with the lack of ritual in Australia. Soccer matches that end when the final whistle blows? Outrageous.

It all started with some good news on Friday, courtesy of the long-range weather forecast that comes out every Friday afternoon, that the week after next is expected to be slightly cooler. Only slightly, mind, but anything’s welcome during the long hot sticky relentless Japanese summer. Actually it hasn’t been too bad this year. The other day a nice big windy typhoon came along and kept me up all night what with the carport roof flapping and the whistling through the cracks, but at least it was a bit of a change.

On Saturday Felix, Eleni and I (Ruby tragically was away on a three-day soccer training camp) went fishing with a very nice man called Mr Yoshimura, a retired fireman who has a little fishing boat. I’d mentioned to Mrs. Yoshida, who we know well because she’s the mother of one of Felix’s classmates and also a member of Eleni’s drumming group, that I really wanted to go out on a boat one day and did she by any chance know anyone with a boat? The squeaky wheel gets the grease as they say, and so it was that at 7:30 on Saturday morning we were down at the Sunami docks stepping out on our latest big adventure.

Here’s Mr. Yoshimura at the helm as we zoom out into the Seto Inland Sea. (Incidentally the primary school is the background there somewhere.)

The view from the boat was superb:

Here’s another view, where you can see the onsen (hot springs) building to the left and even our house, although I’m not going to point it out exactly because you might come and rob us:

I actually told Mr. Y that I wasn’t much of a fisherman and that I just wanted to go out on a boat for the views, but he was adamant that we all have a go. And I’m glad he did because it was actually good fun and we all managed to catch fish, despite being rank amateurs.

Here’s Felix with the first catch of the day:

(There’s a fish there, trust me. It’s in front of his shirt.)

And here Felix models a double-catch (ie two fish at the same time) by yours truly. The lines have two hooks on them; the top one is meant to be a lure or something, but if the fish insists on launching itself onto the wrong hook who am I to argue?

Eleni got right into it too, especially after she caught a double of her own.

This is a typical Sunami fishing boat, with a nice roof over the top so you don’t get sunburnt and a dinky little cultural sail at the back:

Sadly ours didn’t have a roof — Mr. Y doesn’t believe in them — but we were well prepared with hats and sunscreen and loads of drinks.

In the end Felix reckons he caught the most (of course) with 11, while Eleni and I chipped in with about seven or eight each. All in all we caught about 30 fish which we transferred into little esky like this.

After the fishing we landed on a tiny island called Kosagi-jima that has about 50 houses on it, one of which belongs to a friend of Mr. Y who doesn’t live there any more but is happy for people to plop down there for a break after a hard morning’s fishing. So we sat around the table and ate our sandwiches and onigiri rice snacks that we’d cleverly packed for the trip, and then we had the most wonderful swim at the beach right in front of the house, which was totally deserted and much cleaner and nicer than any beach we’ve seen thus far. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it was the finest swim I’ve had in ages. You don’t normally associate Japan with pristine beaches and sparkling blue water and cute little islands, but yesterday just proved that such stuff does exist, at least around here.

Here’s another photo of the view on the way back. Sorry, I can’t help it.

The fishing trip was deemed a great success and we took home our haul of 30 fishes and divided it up biblically with friends and neighbours, minus the loaves I suppose.

That night we went and saw a fireworks display on the island of Innoshima. This is part of the month-long Pirate ‘n’ Fire Festival, which we went to last year and loved so much we vowed to come back and do it again this year. We went with the Yoshidas, who joined up on the spur of the moment when we delivered some fish to them. We had to put our cars on the ferry from Sunami to Ikuchi-jima (which is always fun; there’s something inherently lovely about catching the ferry, not least the cool breeze during summer), then hop over on the bridge (the one that Eleni and I rode across a few months back) to Innoshima. The place was packed and we nearly didn’t get a park but it all worked out in the end and we bumped into another family from school so we all got to sit there and ooh and aah for half an hour. The display was described by our friends as being on the small side, having “only” 1,500 fireworks in it, but to my mind half an hour of solid fireworks is plenty. Those big bangs are so terribly loud to my sensitive ears, don’t you know.

So that was Saturday. Then on Sunday I was out being cultural, having agreed to help carry around a portable wooden shrine called a mikoshi (which houses the god of the local neighbourhood) for some sort of annual ceremony. I’d actually been co-opted into this last year and found it to be back-breaking work but they made me promise to come back this year and I’d been dreading it since the moment the official “invitation” arrived, but it turned out to be not as bad as I’d feared (thus validating my belief that you should always lower your expectations so that you can be pleasantly surprised afterwards). All in all I think I made a decent contribution, putting in quite a bit of haulage including up a rather steep hill at one point.

First we met up at the local community centre and the Head Guy explained the shrine-carrying protocols:

Now the Japanese as we know don’t do things by halves, and when they’re in party mode they like to drink hard too. So at 7:30 in the morning I found myself holding a full cup of sake and a tiny plate of pickles, presumably as fortification for the task ahead. There were about 20 of us there (all guys) plus six high school boys who’d somehow been commandeered to lend a hand. I was surprised to hear the Head Guy telling them they were permitted to drink beers too and that we were all to turn a blind eye for the day. (The legal drinking age in Japan is 20.) Just shows that rules are made to be broken.

The mikoshi has a couple of kids on it (Felix’s classmates, as it turns out):

Finally we set off down the mountain towards the beach:

Every few hundred metres there’d be a rest break at somebody’s house where beers would magically appear and we’d all sit around theatrically wiping our brows and complimenting ourselves on our efforts:

Sometimes there’d be a rest break for no apparent reason, like this one just before the lights on the main road. Not that the gods care about earthly traffic signals.

We even stopped at the combined police/fire station. The high school lads didn’t have any beers there.

Whether by accident or by design I’m not sure, but the neighbouring hamlet also had their carry-around-a-mikoshi ceremony on the same day. They’ve only got a limited number of participants and they’re all getting on and are are past carrying the shrine on their shoulders, so this year they’ve just strapped it to a dinky little trolley and were seen pulling it along by a rope, to much jeering and guffawing from our group.

I mean, look how small and light it is, and it hasn’t even got any kids on it! Pathetic really. Whereas our mikoshi is the real deal and takes quite a bit of effort to carry, as you can see in this short instructional video:

Finally we finished up with a huge and satisfying meal prepared by the Women-Folk (of course) together with yet more beers.

And on top of that we were all presented with a six-pack of beer to take home as well (the high school lads were given strict instructions to hand it over to their parents).

So that was truly an action-packed and culturally stimulating weekend. Poor Ruby missed out on the whole thing, and I can’t wait until she gets home and asks what we got up so I can shoot back the ultimate 21st-century retort: READ MY BLOG.

First of all, the 2011 Sunami Beach Opening Ceremony was held in the morning. Now this would be little more than a cultural curiosity if it weren’t for the fact that Ruby (and presumably Felix, though we’ve never bothered to check) is officially prohibited by her school from swimming until such time as the beach has been officially declared open. So it was with great anticipation that we trotted down to the ceremony, not least because the Sushi on a Stick household was well represented this year. As at last year’s ceremony, Eleni’s drumming troupe was called upon to do a couple of numbers, but this year Felix also got to chip in on the drums with a bit of ancient traditional thwacking of his own.

Not only that: when we all got down there, Ruby and I found out that we too had been roped in to carrying some mini floats in the procession dressed in all the gear. Ruby was initially unimpressed, being a teenager, but she soon warmed to the idea:

Like all good Japanese ceremonies, this one started off with a succession of interminably long speeches, which gave us plenty of time to pose for photographs. Here Ruby models the traditional Fish In Net float:

Tragically Felix was off somewhere else for this one:

Finally the speeches finished up and it was time for the procession to head off, led by the dragons up the front.

We had to go through that little streamer gate on the grass, then deposit our floats all of five metres up the hill. And that was the extent of the cultural contribution of Ruby and myself. Next up was the dragon dance, with Felix and his buddies thumping away in the background:

And Eleni’s drumming group finished off the day. Tragically I forgot to take any photos of it, but you can always check out the 2010 version on this page, which looks much the same. (It might even have been the same song. The repertoire doesn’t change much.)

After the ceremony, Eleni had to go off to teach English, which she does every second Saturday, so the kids and I decided to celebrate by — why not? — going down the beach. This wasn’t actually our first swim for the year; last week we managed to spirit Ruby under a blanket in the car to a rather nice little secluded beach (well shielded from the prying eyes of passing teachers) that we discovered just five minutes down the road. But of course it’s much more civilized to simply saunter down the road with your bathers on.

And I’m pleased to report that a lovely day at the beach was had by all. After a while Ruby had to go back and do some homework so Felix and I decided to stay on. He soon met up with some of his beach friends from last year, a group of 20-something boys that he plays catch with. I even managed to get in a little nap on the sand — such luxury! — and was just thinking about collecting Felix and heading home when all of a sudden he’s running towards me screaming and this time it’s not just for show, he’s genuinely injured himself, he’s cut his leg on a rock, a huge gash that’s leaking blood everywhere and before we know it a Helpful Guy has called an ambulance and we’re off to the hospital and he’s got four stitches in his heel.

So that was a bit of birthday excitement, and finally I got to fulfil my longstanding ambition of riding in a Japanese ambulance. (Dream big, eh?) As we sped merrily through the red lights it occurred to me that in the space of 18 months in Japan, fully three-quarters of the Sushi on a Stick household has been carted off to hospital in an ambulance: first Ruby with her appendix, then Eleni with her fractured cheekbone, and now Felix. Clearly it is my destiny over the last six months to become ill or injured to the extent that I too require emergency medical attention. I just hope it isn’t that serious.

Speaking of which, it could be argued that a cut to the foot isn’t really serious enough to warrant an ambulance, but being a Saturday afternoon the hospital options were limited and Helpful Guy said that we’d get seen to more quickly that way. (Plus they’re free under the national health so who was I to argue?) And he was quite right, too; within about half an hour Felix had his foot stitched up and we were out of the hospital and free to proceed to the next and final phase of the birthday celebrations, namely, dinner down at our nice local Italian restaurant Zona Fortunato, which is the most wonderful place to eat pasta and watch the sun go down over the neighbouring islands.

Once again I forgot to take a photo of the occasion, but here’s one from a month ago, when we went there for Ruby’s birthday:

Eleni very sportingly delivered the kids home at about eight, which meant that we could all sit around chatting (for we had also invited our long-suffering friends the Nishiharas) until the outrageously grown-up time of about ten and watch the lights of passing ships shimmering in the moonlight etc etc. Highly convivial. And I think this one has to go down as the most action-packed birthday I’ve had for some time.

So we bundle into the car and head out into the fields and after about 20 minutes we bundle back out again next to a little irrigation channel on the side of the road and sure enough there they are, circling about lazily near the river banks and glowing away madly. There’s quite a crowd out by the river too, even a group of school children all squealing with delight. The fireflies are really rather beautiful and they can even land on your hand and they don’t bite or sting which is always a bonus.

Apparently they only come out at a certain stage in the life cycle which is why you have to be on your guard and ready to leap into the car at any time (albeit during a certain defined timeframe in early June). In fact this now-or-never aspect is disturbingly similar to the ridiculously fleeting cherry blossoms, which can barely manage a week before falling pathetically off the branch. What is it with the fleetingness and transience and etherealness of Nature in Japan? Must be something to do with Zen.

The feverish excitement accompanying the Firefly Viewing experience was another reminder of how the Japanese are surprisingly in tune with nature, something that always struck me as particularly odd while I was living in the concrete jungle of Tokyo, although it’s more understandable out here in the country. They know the names of trees and plants and birds and animals and bugs and everything in between. They know every type of fish under the sun and everyone knows their own blood type and height and weight. (Is it knowledge or just information for information’s sake, I sometimes wonder.) Plus they’re obsessed about having four distinct seasons. I wish I had a thousand yen for every time someone’s told me how Japan has four distinct seasons and how great it is that Japan has four distinct seasons or asked if we too have four distinct seasons in Australia as if they’ve somehow got a mortgage on having four distinct seasons. What’s going on here? What country doesn’t have four seasons for heaven’s sake?

But recently the answer has come to me: maybe the Japanese are trying to differentiate themselves from the rest of Asia, especially those poor sub-tropical Asian countries near the equator that only have wet and dry seasons. After all, the locals can be very disparaging indeed (I hesitate to use the “r” word) about the rest of Asia. I often come across translations that refer to “Japan and Asia” as if the two are quite distinct and different entities. So maybe all this four seasons stuff is just the Japanese thumbing their noses at their Asian cousins with their vaguely-defined seasonal changes. But I digress.

Felix was so impressed with the etherial transience of the fireflies that he promptly fell asleep in the car on the way home, just to reinforce the fact that unlike the locals who all stay up until midnight, we like our sleep here in the Sushi on a Stick household. Funnily enough, just the other day yet another notice arrived from the primary school urging us to put our kids to bed early — before 10 o’clock they reckon. Er, how about eight o’clock? Meanwhile Eleni reports that one of her Retired Ladies only requires four hours of sleep per night. Can you imagine? Surely it must be bad for your health. Actually I think I’m secretly jealous: just think how many books you could read (or write), old movies you could catch up on, mindless internet surfing you could do, with four extra hours at your disposal every day. But I digress.

So that was our first dose of midweek culture. Then on Thursday Felix started ancient traditional cultural Japanese drumming lessons, which are taken by an esteemed and bewhiskered Sensei and local legend who kindly invited him to join in practice for a performance to be held at the official Beach Opening Ceremony in early July. There are about four or five kids involved, including a couple of his friends from school, and it sounds like it will be fun. Eleni will also be drumming with her group at the ceremony (as she did last year) so the Sushi on a Stick household will be well represented.

In fact, I don’t see why we couldn’t do our very own Family Drumming ceremony and just declare the stupid beach open right now. That way we could all go for a swim during June without fear of exposing Ruby to retribution from her school, which expressly forbids swimming out of season. Although maybe we don’t care any more. Only six months of school left to go; what’s the worst that could happen? Expel her?

Speaking of summer and nature (hey, nice segue!), Japan may not have many flies but it sure has the most terrifying array of bugs. For instance, there is this massive hairy black flying beast that comes to visit me at the office window most days. It must be about three centimetres long and it is so menacing and makes such an unfeasibly loud noise with its huge beating wings that even when the window is shut I involuntarily panic that it might still be open. This bug is truly evil, the tarantula of the winged insect world, and if it ever flew into the room I’d have to run out and slam the door, no questions asked. And it’s just one of the bewildering assortment of creepy looking flying and crawling things that emerge during summer in Japan.

Although I suppose every country has its nasty elements in the animal kingdom. Australia, according to Bill Bryson, has more things that can kill you than any other country on earth, so who am I to talk? Having said that, the fearsome mukade, a kind of poisonous centipede, is in a class of its own in terms of scariness (see pics posted by other foreigners here). My chief objective during our two-year stay in Japan, apart from enjoying the food and the culture and all that stuff, is to make it back home without ever coming across one of these little cuties.

The story begins on Friday, when Sunami primary school held another “come in and check out the kids in action” class visits for parents, this one combined with a Skool Gruel tasting session. With great magnanimity I decided to decline this year so Eleni took up the challenge. She reports that it was pretty tasty and quite possibly good for you, at least if the spiel from the visiting nutritionist is to be taken at face value. Here’s what the little angels got on their placemats on Friday:

After lunch it was class visit time which was home economics. I’m quite impressed with some of the stuff they get up to at primary school; they’ve done all manner of interesting science projects as well as regular wood carving sessions using scarily sharp tools, there was a no-holds-barred sex education component last year (ie in year 4!), apparently they were growing rice at one stage, there’s been a bit of cooking going on recently and then Friday was sewing class. Yes, they’re teaching all the kids to sew at school, which is something I’ve never heard of but I love the idea. Each kid has a little sewing kit with the full array of needles plus a little bit of cloth to practice on and it’s all very civilized. Felix wasn’t too bad on his first time, although this was quite possibly due to the assistance of his one-time Love Interest (sadly no more) Kotone next door:

Incredibly, no-one managed to prick themselves with a needle. Indeed, there are no accidents during the dangerous (by Australian standards) scientific experiments, nor during the wood carving or anything else for that matter. The way I see it, Japan is an altogether less litigious society which means the kids get to do more Fun Stuff at primary school.

On Saturday Felix and I hopped on the bus for a day tour to Sera, a town about an hour away up in the mountains. Sera is famous for its orchards and flower gardens and general naturefulness and it is a lovely spot indeed. Unfortunately it’s also where I managed to get horribly lost a couple of weeks ago while trying to navigate from one of the aforementioned flower gardens back to the concert hall where the band was due on stage any minute. It was such a disturbing Twilight Zone experience that I vowed never to set foot (or tyre) in the place again unless driven by a professional. Our bus driver was wearing a proper uniform so I decided I could trust him.

The first stop was at an orchard place growing all sorts of fruits. We were originally going to be picking strawberries but because of the recent rains there weren’t enough around or something like that, so instead we made strawberry pizza. Yes, you heard it right. Actually I recall from our time in Italy that the Italians themselves make sweet pizza as well — I distinctly remember seeing honey pizza and Nutella pizza on the menu at one of our favourite haunts — so perhaps the Japanese are more in tune with Italian culinary sensibilities than we give them credit for. Having said that, try to picture in your mind the combination of pizza base with custard cream then strawberries and finally chopped cheese on top. I mean, that’s just weird. Still, it was pretty tasty I have to admit. And the kids had plenty of fun making them:

The pizza (“pizze” for you purists) were cooked in a real wood-fired oven and everything:

(If you look really closely you can see the strawberries on top. Of course! Would I lie to you?)

Then we got to sit around and eat our morning tea pizza on the edges of this beautiful old farmhouse converted to a cafe:

I managed to find myself a coffee too so by this stage I was pretty happy on my little patch of verandah:

Next stop was a barbeque lunch up at another spot that was so high up it felt like we were on the very top of a mountain. There was a huge playground and a walking trail and lookouts and lakes and ponds and other bits and pieces, so I went for a nice walk and then found a flat bit of bench and promptly had a little nap in the midday sun while Felix and his friends roamed around the enormous playground on the roof of the world:

Luckily there was an announcement over the ubiquitous loudspeakers when it was time to leave (courtesy of the highly professional bus driver) otherwise I might have become Lost in Sera yet again, only this time without a means of transport just to add to the fun and excitement.

Speaking of excitement, on Saturday night Eleni and the kids spotted a wild boar crossing the road on the hill just above our house, the road that the kids use to go to school. There’s a bit of wildlife around these parts apparently; a few months back I myself saw a wild monkey sitting nonchalantly on a rooftop but I’d really like to see a wild boar, although not up too close thank you very much. Tragically I was out on Saturday night at a soccer function so I missed the sighting, but Eleni called me straight away to fill me in and the other soccer parents thought this was brilliant and we all drank a toast to the Wild Boar of Sunami.

On Sunday I was feeling much the worse for wear after one too many toasts to the Wild Boar of Sunami but we’d arranged to catch up with Yusuke and Yoko and kids for the first time in many months so I heroically dragged myself out of bed and down to Takehara, a cute town about 30 minutes further down the coast with a beautifully preserved Old Bit that is wishfully referred to as Little Kyoto in the tourist brochures:

And I’m glad I did because Y&Y took us to an Okonomiyaki restaurant that was possibly the best we’ve eaten to date. It was just what I needed in my hungover state, too, like a big fry-up of bacon and eggs only more interesting. Eleni and I are starting to tire of our regular okonomiyaki places and are always on the lookout for new ones. Half an hour is a fair way to go for dinner but we may just have to make the effort; it really was that good.

And on the way back we stopped in for a quick coffee at Cafe Hoxton, which appears to be run by a jazz enthusiast and has this dinky little sculpture on the balcony:

While gazing out at the islands we started thinking about all the seaside day trips we’re going to do this summer. Last year we did all sorts of enrichment activities during the stinking heat of summer, even going up to Nagoya and Kyoto for heaven’s sake, so this year we’re going to keep it nice and local. Nothing more than an overnighter. There are so many islands and beaches and cafes and hot springs to explore and we’re determined to fulfil our touristic duty in exploring it all. Well, a fair bit of it anyway.

Well, Sunday was the big event on the PJO calendar. We’ve already done a few concerts here and there, including the Illumination Ceremony last November at the local arts and culture center, but the annual jazz concert in February is by far the most important. There are three different bands on the program (including PJO), plus a random Famous Musician who gets invited in as special guest, and for the last part of the concert we all join up together to form a truly big band with something like 40 musicians.

One of the lovely things about PJO is that the kids get to stand up the front and do solos. As luck would have it, this year there was a bit of a trumpeter shortage and Felix was lucky enough to score his very own 15 seconds of fame. In the lead-up to the concert I was forcing him to practice virtually every day in order to avoid shame and disappointment on the night, and though I suspect the neighbours are now utterly sick of bars 52 to 63 from The Girl from Ipanema, it was definitely all worth it, as you can see below.

I swear I’m not a pushy stage parent, honest.

Incidentally this weekend was also the Shinmei-ichi Festival, likewise one of the major events on the Mihara festival calendar. Although to be honest it isn’t really a festival, just a long string of outdoor stalls strung along the road behind the station. The posters say there are over 500 stalls, but according to my reckoning there are only about fifteen different variants (fried food, beer and noodles, plastic toys, knock-the-prize-over-with-a-plastic-ball games, etc etc) and they just repeat endlessly all the way down the street. So I wasn’t highly motivated to begin with. We went last year already. And the weather was horrible (it snowed on Friday). Plus we were busy with rehearsals and the concert itself and, well, apathy. Thus it was that the unthinkable came to pass: we stayed away from a cultural event.

So I’d like to apologise right here and now for failing in my solemn duty to experience and report back on important cultural happenings in our locality. You can always read last year’s report.

Next week, however, is the Naked Man Festival at Kui up in the mountains, and that’s one I definitely don’t want to miss. (Here’s what it looked like last year by the way.) Stay tuned for a full report.

They just work too damned hard. Consider these examples:

Exhibit A
Mayumi, a longstanding friend of Eleni from over 20 years ago, lives in Tokyo with her husband Tappi and their two-year-old son. Tappi leaves for work every day just before nine in the morning and gets back at about midnight or one o’clock the next morning. He does this six days a week. That’s a 75-hour week right there, and apparently it gets worse at busy times. So he gets to see his son for maybe 15 minutes in the mornings and on Sundays.

Exhibit B
The Kuchii family just down the road has three kids in Years 1 through 5 (Felix walks to school with them in the mornings). The father works six days a week including weekends and gets home late every night (Felix says the older sister told him two or three in the morning but I think something might have been lost in translation; in any case it’s obviously well after the kids go to bed). So the kids only get to see their father on Wednesday afternoons, on his solitary day off. Meanwhile the mother also works on the weekends. She makes breakfast and sets up lunch in the morning, and the oldest daughter is in charge of putting the lunch on the table. During the day the kids are left to fend for themselves. Needless to say, they are a highly independent and resilient bunch.

Exhibit C
One of the students in Eleni’s Monday English class has five grown-up kids and a husband who hasn’t lived with them for 20 years because his company keeps transferring him to different parts of Japan. The family gets to meet up only a few times per year.

Can anyone spot something wrong here?

The value of work is seriously overrated in Japan. There is this deeply cherished image of the father toiling away day and night at The Company and sacrificing his personal and family life in order to be a Good Provider, but I think it’s terribly sad. When do all these overworked parents get time to spend with their kids? It occurs to me that the old teenage lament “Daddy you were never there for me” is meaningless here. Of course Daddy was never there, his company never let him go home.

Now, I can understand that this sort of work ethic would have been necessary back in the difficult post-war rebuilding period, when it was all hands on deck to get the country back on its feet. Obviously the workers of that time did an amazing job in transforming their shattered nation into an economic powerhouse.

But now we’re in the 21st century, with Japan supposedly a wealthy developed country, is it really necessary any more? Especially since so much of the so-called “work” is simply time-wasting. At a typical Japanese office the key is to be seen to be there, even if you’re not doing anything productive. More often than not your worth is judged on the hours you put in rather than what you actually get done in those hours. Working efficiently, finishing your work quickly and going home early (= on time) is frowned upon because it’s disrespectful towards the others who remain behind. Those legendary stories about the entire section of a company or government department having to stay back until the section manager decides to leave for the night; they’re only partly exaggerated.

I reckon the way companies treat their employees is outrageous, and this is not just a foreigner’s perspective either: most Japanese I’ve spoken to about this agree completely. They’re sick of the long hours. They want to spend more time at home. They want to see their kids grow up. Too many people being forced to work too hard for too little reward.

Then we get to my favourite rant, the plight of the high school student. I’ve already discussed this at length (see here, here and here) so I won’t go on about it too much. Suffice to say that high school students in Japan have almost zero free time for six years.

Consider the typical day of a high school student:

7:30 – 8:00 sports/band practice before school
8:15 – 4:00 classes
4:00 – 5:30 sports/band practice after school
6:00 – 7:00 extra classes after school
7:30 – 9:00 dinner, bath etc
9:00 – 11:30 homework

That’s nearly eight hours of study even before the sports, the homework, the extra classes and the extra homework from the extra classes. Compare this to the high school day in Australia, which is around four and a half to five hours (typically from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm, including over an hour of free time at lunch). Why do they make the kids in Japan study so much? On international mathematics and literacy tests for 15-year-olds, Japan and Australia get comparable scores. In other words, kids in Japan study three hours per day, five days per week, 45 weeks per year more for the same result. Why?

In my opinion it’s a massive institutionalized time-wasting exercise, partly designed to keep the kids busy and off the streets and partly the result of inefficient and outdated teaching methods. When you factor in the holiday homework and the sporting or other activities that continue right through the holidays you realise that high school in Japan never stops. The poor kids get virtually no time to relax, be themselves, hang out with friends, even (shock horror) be with their families.

It’s such a shame. The parents work too hard. The kids study too hard. There’s this national obsession with keeping busy, but in my opinion Japan needs to just chill out, to stop and smell the sushi a bit more.

That’s because in Kyoto they don’t use the term geisha; the correct word is “geiko”. And an apprentice geiko is called a maiko, so there you go.

Anyway I thought it might be fun to document the hour-long process of creating a maiko out of a normal person.

First of all, you have to get rid of all that pesky hair by stuffing it into a net.

Then start painting on the White Stuff. Start at the back, making this little pattern at the base of the neck rather than going all the way up. (Is that like in Goldfinger to let the skin breath so the maiko doesn’t die?)

Then do the front:

Instant goth! Or was that emo.

Now for the eyes.

And of course those lips!

Avril Lavigne, eat your heart out. (In her earlier incarnation, that is. Before she sold out and went all girly.)

The wig makes all the difference. But it’s still Ruby in there.

The finishing touches, including spray-painting any stray tell-tale brown hairs.

Now it’s time for the kimono fit-out. It took ages to choose a kimono and matching band, but then… that’s the fun of dressing up, isn’t it?

Wig decorations go in…

…and it’s off to the studio for a rock star photoshoot!

Here’s the finished product:

And one with the family for good measure:

It takes another hour to get all the make-up off again, and while I was waiting it was funny to see all these people emerging again after their maiko experiences, back in their normal clothes and normal lives once more. The whole dressing up and being a rock star for an hour thing is literally a transforming experience, with interesting parallels to those people who dress up in masks at Carnevale time in Venice.

And I have to say that I quite enjoyed playing the role of rock star minder for an hour too. If only I’d been a bit more enterprising I could have put out a hat and started charging for photo opportunities to cover costs. Never mind, there’s always next time.

Incidentally, if you’re ever in Kyoto and feel like dressing up as a maiko, the place we went to was called Aya and their website is here.

After the performance finished in the morning we agreed to go pick Ruby up from Mihara station because I’d heard that there was a mini festival on in town featuring among other thing a procession of soldier types in ancient battle gear rather like what we saw at the Pirates ‘n’ Fire Festival but right here in our own town. Given that I’ve got a bit of a thing about Men in Uniform I was determined to check it out.

The procession was due to start at 12:30 but we got into town at about eleven. Just by chance when we emerged from the car park we found the Men in Uniform all assembled in a side street doing a bit of rehearsal, so Felix and I snuck up to have a closer look. Suddenly one of the soldiers started waving at us, and after a brief moment’s panic and incomprehension I realised that it was none other than our real estate agent Mr Kobayashi dressed in full battle gear. No wonder I didn’t recognise him; I’ve only ever seen him in a suit and tie, except of course for that time I had a bath with him.

So here’s Felix with Mr Kobayashi:

And here’s Felix with some other handsome soldier dudes who offered their services in the interests of international cooperation and harmony. He was most impressed that he got to hold the sword.

Shortly thereafter the soldiers (or samurai, according to the kids although I’m not fully convinced of this) had to head off for some practice or something so they all trooped off complete with drumming and eerie wailing sounds.

It turns out the eerie wailing sounds come from these ancient traditional conch shells:

Then all the brave fierce battle-hardened warriors waited patiently until the pedestrian lights went green before heading into their mysterious underground lair hidden under the bullet train station.

Meanwhile we took the opportunity to check out the trash ‘n’ treasure market on the lawns in front of the station. (There’s that Mickey Do building in the background again. Still haven’t been inside to see what it is.)

And wander through the streets that had been blocked off and set up with food stalls along with tables kindly set up by the municipal authorities.

While we were there, the procession of soldier/samurai dudes came down the street and everybody was most impressed, but I felt a little bit special that we’d managed to chance upon them in a side street earlier, which was altogether more satisfying and certainly yielded some good photos.

And to finish off our festival experience, what could be finer than to chow down on a ye olde traditional Mihara Dog. (No, they don’t really eat dog in Japan; that’s China. It’s just a hot dog.)