All Posts from the The kids Category
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Last ever visitors
Another one to add to the Last Ever list: a week ago we hosted our last ever visitors from Australia (unless of course a distant relative unexpectedly turns up on our doorstop sometime in the next two months). A great time was had by all as we shuttled them through the now-familiar roster of exciting Mihara attractions such as seaside cafes, okonomiyaki restaurants, islands, temples, and plain old sitting around the house discussing cultural relativity over a beer or three.
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.
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Sports Day 2011
Ruby’s school had their annual sports day on Sunday. I wrote a post on it last year so I won’t go into great detail here, mainly because I can’t be bothered, although I will magnanimously give you a few consolation photos of the 2011 version.
Here are the students all marching onto the arena with the flags at the start. You have to laugh at all the pomp and ceremony and precision marching. Who was it who claimed that the post-war pacifist constitution got rid of Japan’s militaristic leanings? I have my doubts.
The sports day had lots of races and relays, a good old-fashioned tug-of-war between parents and their kids, which the kids inevitably won because the teachers joined in on the kids’ end, and other wacky events for the locals involving oldie-friendly activities such as putting the ball through the croquette hoop, kicking the unpredictable rugby ball along the ground and bowling over ninepins with a soccer ball.
Then the kids put on a display called “Stunts” which involved a variety of precision moves such as this one:
And my personal favourite, the Sandy Bottom:
There were various sorts of acrobatics, like this:
And this:
And of course, humid pyramids:
I took the opportunity while all the festivities were in progress to take a look at the pool, which is on the roof of a three-storey building. This is what the arena looked like from the rooftop:
And this is what the pool looks like. Never mind the green water, the swimming season is over until next year, but doesn’t it look like you’re on top of the world? Like one of those horizon pools that rich people have. Maybe the photo doesn’t do it justice, but that’s what it felt like to me when I was up there.
And this is the rather excellent view over the pool wall:
Incidentally, the bottom third of every single window in every single classroom is frosted over to prevent the students from admiring this very view. Presumably the authorities feel that it might Distract Them from their Learning. Isn’t that just lovely?
But I digress. Back to the Sports Day.
It was a monstrously hot day. As with last year, summer has refused to start going away at the end of August like it’s supposed to do, and for some reason we were treated to an especially brutal burst of heat on this very weekend. The Sports Day was conducted right in the heat of the day and the kids were out in the middle of it with no hats right through the 20 minutes of opening ceremony and endless speeches, the warm-up stretching, the Stunts display, the gruelling races, the warm-down, and finally the closing ceremony and endless speeches, which were also on track for about 20 minutes except that half-way through a number of students started collapsing from the heat. When the teachers carted the first one off at the back, nothing much happened. Eleni and I could see the poor thing being given water and fanned furiously by some kind souls in a tent. Then another one fell over right at the front, in full view of the principal, and by the time it got to four students down, all of a sudden the teachers started to panic. The ending was cut short, the AP was out shouting “everybody inside for a drinks break!” and even after we’d all packed up and gone home we could hear the ambulances racing up the hill. Ruby reported that three of them were taken to hospital.
Now this type of stuff is on the national news with frightening regularity. Including last year, I reckon I’ve seen three or four “students collapse from heatstroke and taken to hospital” reports, and I hardly ever watch TV. So what has the school done to address the problem?
Funny you should ask.
Back in July, about half-way through summer, Ruby brought home an important-looking notice with the grand title, Heatstroke Prevention Strategy. And what exactly was the Heatstroke Prevention Strategy?
A white baseball cap. Which the school permits you to buy for ¥630, although you don’t have to buy it if you don’t feel like it, and even if you do buy it the school won’t make you wear it, and anyway most times you aren’t allowed to wear it for one reason or another, and it doesn’t cover your ears or neck so it’s of minimal benefit. But the very notion of allowing students to don a cap in certain situations represents a massive shift in ideology, partly because of the prevailing Japanese orthodoxy about toughening kids up (hence: no heaters in winter unless the temperature falls below 10°C; no water breaks during PE classes in summer; have to take all your books to school in the morning and back home at night, etc. etc. etc.) and partly because Ruby’s school is particularly strict, or backward, or just plain stupid depending on your point of view. (I’ll let you be the judge: further background reading can be found this, this, this and this.)
So this latest incident only served to further intensify my contempt for the Mihara No. 4 Junior High School, if that were possible. There is a back story to all of this, of course, concerning my ongoing battle since last summer to convince the school to make the monumental concession of allowing the kids drinks breaks during PE classes in summer (read about it here).
I wonder if the school will get rapped over the knuckles for failing to exercise its duty of care to pupils on the Sports Day. Or will it simply be dismissed as all part of the glorious toughening up process? I’m tempted to ring them up and say “hey guys, how about that Heatstroke Prevention Strategy! Worked a treat didn’t it?”, but I think upon mature reflection that it would be altogether easier if I just went back to Australia and left them to their own devices.
And it’s just as well that Ruby managed to stay upright the entire way through, despite being in about four different races, one of which involved lugging a 10 kg sack around the track, on a 40°+ day* for heaven’s sake, because if she’d keeled over too then no doubt I would have been exceptionally angry and no doubt it would have been highly embarrassing all round.
* Official temp was 33°C, but humidity adds around 10°C according to the “Feels Like” weather report.
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End of the hols
A strange and eerie calm has descended upon the Sushi on a Stick household… yes, the little darlings are ensconced in their respective institutions of learning for the first time in over a month, and peace reigns once more between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm.
In Ruby’s case, the school holidays actually finished last Monday, when work experience started. (Of course the school couldn’t possibly countenance giving the students time off for work experience, so they shave a week off the holidays instead.) She spent a productive five days at an architectural design company playing with CAD all day, and ended up with a rather nice floor plan of her very own house design, along with a cute little cardboard model complete with grass and trees and tiny little paper figurines (one of them sitting on the toilet even).
Here in Japan, you don’t find your own work experience and contact the school; rather, the school draws up a list of places that have agreed to take on students and you have to choose what you want to do. These are typically uninspired options such as the local 7-11, the local petrol station and a cleaning company, although they do have a few more interesting ones too. Ruby’s preferred option was the nice Italian restaurant down by the beach, called Zona Fortunato (Italian scholars will note the error), and I have to say that this would have been pretty good because (a) the hours were only 11 to 3; (b) she might have learned something about cooking; (c) it was 10 minutes walk from home and (d) we could have come down for a meal to embarrass her in action. But on the other hand, she has often talked about wanting to be an architect someday, and it sounds like the design firm was fun, notwithstanding the 8:10 am starts. And I figure she can always work in a cafe when she’s older, and we’ll come and embarrass her there instead.
You know how I said we were definitely going to see the Pirates ‘n’ Fire festival on Saturday night? Yep, you guessed it… we piked out. It was just too hot and, after all the fun and excitement of the summer, I just couldn’t muster up the energy for yet another trip to a distant beach with an hour’s drive home and another late night, especially as we had to front up to a working bee at the primary school on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. sharp, plus the kids and I had a concert on that day. So, another culture fail to add to the list. After all, we went last year (you can read about it here) and it was fantastic fun and at least we can say we’ve seen it and everything and… enough already.
Even though we didn’t make it to P&F, though, I was rather pleased with myself for discovering a new island, a new beach and even a new cafe on Saturday. Ruby had soccer practice starting at 4:30 in the afternoon at her regular ground which is about an hour away (lots ‘o’ driving… it’s part and parcel of country life) and I had two hours to kill so I decided to take the opportunity to explore a nearby island that was marked on the map. Turns out it even had a beach, although by the time I arrived the beach was officially “closed”, in the sense that the music had been turned off and I didn’t have to pay ¥1000 ($10) to drive in. However the water was still very much there, so I went for a nice swim on a totally deserted beach. Though I did feel a bit of trepidation as I stepped into the water, mainly because I was half expecting to be told off at any moment for Swimming Out of Hours.
(Once back in the Tokyo days, Eleni and I went down to Okinawa for a holiday and we found a lovely deserted beach just near our hotel. But no sooner had we stepped into the crystal clear water than a man raced up on a beach bike shouting at us to get out. It turned out that the hotel which owned that patch of beach was closed for redevelopment and therefore the beach was officially off limits. I tried to protest that the ocean is not private property and people can choose to enter it where they like but he was having none of it and kept carrying on making so much noise that eventually we up and left. We ended up at another “properly supervised” beach with music screaming out the speakers all day long.)
Back on topic, here’s the beach I discovered on Saturday:
Happily I was able to swim undisturbed (certainly by other swimmers) and even buy an ice-cream from one of the stores, which strangely was still open for business despite the beach being closed. Clearly they haven’t read the rules.
On the way back I tracked down a lovely cafe clinging improbably to the side of the hill with the most stunning views from the outdoor tables. Tragically the coffee was disgusting but it was worth it for the island vista spread out in the setting sun:
And readers will be pleased to know that we managed to make it to a festival on the Saturday night anyway, the one put on by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the big factory complex on the way into town. We went last year and I wrote about it on this page, so I won’t go on about it here other than to say that it was another one of those wonderful sea-of-humanity events with thousands of people wandering around and many of the girls dressed up in yukatas and millions of stalls and a big stage down one end and, to finish off the night, a fireworks show, bringing the fireworks count for 2011 up to five.
On Sunday the kids and I did another concert with the PJO band, with Eleni offering moral support from the audience and taking millions of photos. Here is a selection.
Felix ensconced in the trumpet section:
Our band leader Habu-sensei (Mr. Habu to you) has taken a shine to Felix and often gets him up on stage for an interview. I love it because it’s the only time (other than when he had to introduce himself for the first time at the local primary school) where I ever get to see Felix looking nervous and subdued.
Ruby and Felix between them have an embarrassing number of solos. Ruby even has an entire song (the theme from Ice Castles, if you must know; a soppy ballad but it’s not too bad considering) where she gets to stand out the front and get closer to her adoring fans:
Eleni the photographer got a bit arty at one stage and started shooting in black and white:
And finally, yours truly up the back pumping out those bass licks. (How’s the look on Felix’s face — I think he was doing a high note.)
Another crazy action-packed weekend, in other words. Ruby was back at school on Monday morning; Felix had a few more days of freedom but now he too is back inside the hallowed walls of learning and I have time to write posts (at least, that’s my excuse for the pitiful lack of postage during August; pretty poor form to blame it on the kids, I know, but that’s what they’re there for).
And now all we need is for the hot and humid weather to finally go away and leave us alone so that normal programming can resume in earnest.
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Annual jazzfest
Avid readers of Sushi on a Stick may remember that the kids and I play in the local community brass band here in Mihara, also known as the Poporo Junior Swing Orchestra or PJO. This is the one where the kids get centre billing while the adults (or “supporters” as we are technically called) get to feel all warm and rosy that we can still get a gig at our age. At least that’s how I feel about it.
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.
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How to make a maiko
First of all, what’s a maiko? Ruby’s recent dress-up experience in Kyoto was called “maiko” rather than “geisha” as we might expect.
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.
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Mid-weekend wrap
Well I mean I know it’s against the rules to write a weekend wrap half-way through the weekend but here I am on a Saturday night with a bit of free time and the computer on my lap and so much to report, so I hope you’ll forgive this breach of protocol.
This week Eleni has been in Tokyo doing a spot of work (and a lot of shopping), which came about when, quite out of the blue, she was asked to help correct some exam papers or something that required actually being in Tokyo, and it was just the excuse she’d been looking for to go up and visit friends and get rid of a bit of cash. (And I’m pleased to report that the cash all went on nice sensible things such as a new pair of walking shoes and some much-needed parmesan cheese for the Sushi on a Stick household.)
So anyway on Friday we all trooped off to pick her up from Hiroshima Airport and then we headed straight over to Fukuyama to catch a concert by the Austrian brass band known as Mnozil Brass. This was a spur-of-the-moment thing; a month or so back I came across a flyer at the local Community Centre in Sunami where Eleni teaches English on a Saturday, and seeing as Ruby and Felix and I now have a professional interest in brass bands it was decided that we should go and check out a real live one at close range.
And what an excellent spur-of-the-moment decision that was, because Mnozil Brass turn out to be not only highly talented musicians but great entertainers with a crazy wacky bent. They incorporate all sorts of routines into their music, such as a Western medley complete with slow-motion shoot-out scene, and a piece performed by one guy operating a pair of trombones with his feet and a pair of trumpets with his hands (the blowing is done by four guys positioned around him). Here’s a sample of their performance that I found on YouTube, although it doesn’t really do them justice:
Some of the routines were so funny I had tears in my eyes from laughing so much, and even Felix managed to stay engaged right to the very end. We were pretty pleased with ourselves for managing to get out to a proper grown-up concert as a family, and it inspired us to seek out a few more interesting shows during our remaining year and a bit in Japan, not least because the ticket prices are so very reasonable.
Then today was Felix’s birthday. He likes to get a trail of clues to his birthday presents so we obliged him with a series of cunning riddles that wound up at a hidden stash concealed in — where else? — the toilet:
All those birthday decorations around the photo are because Ruby discovered the border option on the camera and this one was taken before I could get hold of it to turn the decorations off.
This year we lashed out and got Felix a Nintendo DS, thus fulfilling his life’s ambition and bringing him up to speed with his friends, all of whom have been battling Pokemon and ruining their eyesight for years now. He wanted to have a DS party where everybody would bring theirs along and presumably the idea was just to sit there jabbing at tiny plastic buttons for three hours. Thankfully most of his friends forgot to bring them, so instead they spent the time on more healthy pursuits such as playing trains upstairs:
kicking the soccer ball around the garden:
and woofing down the endless supply of home-made pizza churned out in the kitchen:
Ten pizzas in about two hours; not a bad effort if I do say so myself.
We even went so far as to organise the doughnut-on-a-string game:
(And what a pleasure it was to visit Mr. Donuts for the first time in a long while to pick up the necessary supplies.)
Finally there was an ice-cream cake with candles and lolly bags at home time, just in case the kids hadn’t had enough sweet muck.
For some reason I had been under the impression that Japanese people don’t really celebrate birthdays, but the boys all seemed perfectly at home with the concept and it all went swimmingly. Birthday Boy pronounced himself to be well pleased with the day’s proceedings which was a relief, because I always tend to feel a bit nervous in the lead-up to a birthday party — so much expectation, so much responsibility. Another one of the way, phew!
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Sports Day at Junior High
The annual sports day at the local junior high school was held last Sunday.
As you might expect, they do it a bit differently in Japan: there’s less of the long-distance slogs and traditional athletics such as high jump and long jump, and more emphasis on en-masse events such as marching:
and acrobatics:
Now most junior high schools have at least a couple of hundred kids so they spend a whole day doing all the events for the different classes and year levels. Whereas Ruby’s school has just 70 students, so what they do is to combine their sports day with the get-together for the local area. So you end up with three sets of events: one for students, one for parents of students (and occasionally both, such as the parents vs kids tug of war), and one for the local residents. And it works really well to have alternating events where everybody gets involved.
I got roped into a few events including the parents relay (where I forgot to line up on my turn and left the runner stranded on the track) and the 100-m sprint (where I managed to finish last), but despite the disappointing results I think I gave it 110% and certainly sports was the winner on the day.
I’ve made a short Reader’s Digest version of the Sports Day for your enjoyment — seven hours condensed into 90 seconds, which is all you’re allowed on flickr. But it’s probably just as well — some of the dance sequences were awfully long…
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Attention seeking behaviour
I’ve had a good close look at the Japanese medical system in action this week.
Ruby felt sick after her big Sports Day on Sunday and we thought it was just a random bug or something, but by the second day when she was still sick we took her up the road to the friendly doctor. His verdict was acute appendicitis and before we knew what was happening he’d called an ambulance and booked her in at the hospital in Onomochi half an hour up the road and by three o’clock she was in the operating theatre under full anaesthetic.
Anyway it all went without a hitch, she’s feeling better already and they say she’ll be out of hospital in a couple of days.
And we got great mileage out of it too, telling all and sundry how our Ruby had been whisked off to hospital in an ambulance, which you have to admit has a certain dramatic ring to it. (Speaking of which, Eleni got the gig in the ambulance while I had to follow behind in the car and stop at all the traffic lights.)
We took Felix in yesterday afternoon to check out Ruby hooked up to the heart rate machine (just like in the medical shows on TV, though unfortunately it didn’t beep) and an oxygen mask on too just for added theatrical effect. He was most unimpressed that she was getting all the attention and promptly claimed to have a massive migraine and then started to wonder aloud whether it would be better if Ruby died (so he could get to play on her iPod) or if she survived (because she was actually quite fun to be with sometimes). In the end he decided that it was better that she lived, which was awfully magnanimous of him.
The following day Ruby perked up considerably and was soon ensconced in her bed with the iPod and a supply of books entertaining the nurses and the nice old lady on the other side of the room. However she was disgusted to discover that there was no wireless reception from her bed, meaning no access to the outside world (ie Facebook). And, ever the opportunist, she asked if she could please have some money “for being sick.” Awwww, aren’t kids cute?
In answer to the funding demand, we explained that her little attention-seeking escapade was already costing us a couple of grand. In the Japanese public health system, you pay 30% of medical costs (oldies pay 10%). It’s a great system in that it also covers things like dentists, chiropractors and acupuncture. Back in January I got a new crown fitted to my tooth for under $100, and Eleni pays less than $10 for her daily sessions with the chiropractor. However the flipside is that you also pay 30% of hospitalisation and surgery expenses, which do tend to be rather costly, as we have just discovered. So that puts paid to some of our more grandiose travel plans, but perhaps it’s just as well; after our exhausting attempt at a summer holiday I don’t really feel like going anywhere much at the moment. And I’m sure Ruby doesn’t either.
Incidentally you can read Ruby’s account of her ordeal here.
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Fireworks and festivals
Summer in Japan means fireworks. Not just the annual grab-a-spot-early-on-the-grass kind put on by the local authorities (although there are also some of those coming up next week), but the kind you buy at the supermarket and let off down the beach at night right under the sign that says No Fireworks at Night. Yes, you can buy your own fireworks in Japan and it’s a wonderful thing. (For the benefit of overseas readers, fireworks were made illegal in our corner of Australia many years ago by the evil nanny state. I have vague memories of bright fireworks in cardboard tubes from when I was very young so it must have been in the early 1970s that they disappeared from the shelves. Apparently you can still buy them interstate and get them sent to Victoria, but somehow it doesn’t seem worth the bother.)
Does this bring back memories for any fireworks-starved Victorians out there?
The huge big fireworks packs at the supermarket also contain sparklers which I reckon are a bit boring (seeing as they’re still legal in Victoria) but the kiddies love them:
We’ve already tried a couple of different packs from the supermarket and the trick is to get one with lots of fountain type fireworks (like in the video) than the aforementioned sparklers. Felix and I are conducting extensive research in this area at the moment. And when you go down to the beach to let off your fireworks there are generally a few other groups down there doing the same, so you get to see a few different types. The other day some people had ones that rocketed up in the air and set off huge showers of sparks. Hopefully our next pack will have some of these in it. More research required.
Summer is also for festivals. Already just in our local area we’ve had the carrying-around-the-portable-shrine one a few weeks back that nearly broke my back, plus the one nearby where Eleni’s drumming troupe got a quick workout. This weekend coming up is the big one, Mihara’s annual Yassa Matsuri festival where they block off the roads in front of the station and set up a huge stage and there’s dancing and singing and all sorts of carrying on. And as part of the festival there will be a massive fireworks display along the river on Saturday night.
The Japanese do put on an excellent fireworks display and I’m really looking forward to it. In the grand old Japanese tradition of public gatherings, there will be about 10000000000 people there and it will be impossible to get a good spot to view the action. Except that we have thought up a very sneaky plan. We’re going to park the car at the local Fuji shopping centre car park at about four or five in the afternoon and go down to the river to spread out our blanket. We will then spend a couple of hours wandering around in air-conditioned comfort and grab a leisurely bite to eat before heading out into the sweltering heat and making our way royally through the sweating crowds to our very own Reserved Spot, from where we will admire the fireworks display in extreme comfort.
Well that’s the plan anyway. Something is sure to go wrong, like our blanket will get blown away during the afternoon or stolen by heavily tattooed yakuza types.
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Sleep
Back when I lived in Tokyo during the early 90s, I used to regard the Japanese as somehow superhuman. For a start, there was the economic miracle: how did a country so devastated by war manage to become an economic and technological powerhouse in a few short decades? Then there was the uncanny ability of Japanese commuters to fall asleep on the train (and I’m not talking eyes-shut-and-looking-relaxed asleep, I mean full-on, dribble-coming-out-of-the-mouth, head-lolling-on-your-shoulder type asleep) yet still wake up on cue at the right station and bolt off the train. Plus there was the thousands of years of history and culture. Rich country, massive population, advanced technology, lots of customs and rituals and rules and shared understandings. Everything has its place, everything works properly, the trains all run on time. To a young impressionable type from the Antipodes, it seemed that the Japanese had life totally worked out.
So it’s been nice this time around to be here as a family, putting the kids in school, filling in the forms and reading the notices and doing all the mundane everyday stuff, and finally discovering that not everything works properly, that the Japanese make mistakes too, that despite the history and culture and food and everything they haven’t actually got life totally worked out after all. Yes! They’re just like us, trying to do the best they can in this crazy mixed-up world in which we live in [Paul McCartney].
But just when I was starting to believe that the Japanese are mere mortals, it turns out that there is still one area where they’re super-human, and that’s sleep. The kids here somehow manage to get by on less sleep than seems right. Felix’s normal bed-time of 8 pm, for instance, is absolutely laughable; none of his friends would be in bed before 9, many of them later still. And yet every person I speak to—teachers especially, but parents too—will decry the trend towards later bedtimes. The other day we were given an official government pamphlet that urges children to get more sleep. Apparently 57% of Year 6 kids go to bed after 10 pm on weeknights, while a mere 6% get to bed before 9 pm. Somehow I think that pamphlet’s been wasted on us.
I remember grappling with this very issue back in Italy, where they also put their kids to bed late, but at least the Italians have a valid excuse: the afternoon siesta. Whereas here in Japan, the kids are trained to stay up late and survive on less sleep as part of the legendary toughening up process. Or is it that we misguided Westerners have trained our kids to be too sleep dependent, putting them to bed ridiculously early for years on end until their pathetic soft bodies start to think that they actually need that much rest? Perhaps it’s a bit of both. In any case, it’s clear that we’ll need to work on our two if they are to survive the next couple of years without collapsing in a heap at some point.
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This blog is about the adventures of a family of Australian barbarians spending two years in the islands of southern Japan. Stay tuned for regular updates on the food, the culture, the earthquakes, the wacky festivals, the school system and more. 
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