My First Festival

This weekend I finally ventured out of the house and into real world Japan. This weekend was Obon, a traditional holiday where the spirits of the ancestors return to their homes. The shops were full of this moulded sugar sweets that are left out as a meal for the ancestors. I had tried some earlier in the week only to find out later that I had been eating dead people food. Most of the teachers took time off from Thursday to visit their families’. As a result things were very quite during the week and I spent most of my time studying Japanese and doing some research and work.

On Saturday I joined the other two Kunisaki JETs and 2 other folk and we headed to the tiny island of Himeshima（ひめしま） to watch the traditional Shinto Fox Dance Festival or Kitsune matsuri （狐まつり）. Himeshima is a small island off the north east coast of Kyushu. The name means “Princess Island” and has a population of roughly 2,640 for the entire 6,85km2. It is known for two things - the afore mentioned festival and its tiger prawns.

The tiger prawns or kuruma ebi (車えび) are best eaten in season, which is October and eaten in the traditional island or odori (おどり) style ie. alive and ‘dancing’. To do so you are have to grab a live, wriggling tiger prawn out of the bowl placed in front of you and rip of its head. While is still squirming you peel it, dip it in soy sauce and proceed to eat it raw. They are farmed on the island but if you can they say your should opt for the wild ones. They are incredibly beautiful for bottom feeders, with dark stripes and rainbow tails.

However the reason for our visit was the Fox Dance Festival. We took the ferry from Kunimi port and spent the ride to the island spotting jelly fish in the water. I am not too fond of boats – especially ferries as they have a tendency to overload and sink, a situation not improved by the abundance of jellies. The island does not look like much from afar, in fact the initial view dominated by a cement factory and other commercial enterprises. But, once on land this all changes.

The island was in festival mode so there were a multitude of stalls selling a verity of street food from kushiyaki (くしやき grilled meat skewers) to squid on a stick. There were also French dogs (i.e. corn dogs I am not sure why they were French unless it was poodle?!?).

We followed the main road to the Kannonzaki Peninsula on the north of the island where we climbed the hill to reach the Sennin-do. It was spectacular – a tiny temple built on a rock over the sea. As you descend to read the temple you just see this small building surrounded by rocks, sea and secluded (but sadly not very clean) beaches. The walk there was also interesting with lots of little shrines along the path. With the amazing scenery of blue oceans and green islands it was the first time I felt I really was in Asia.

There is a lot more on the island that I missed and I would like to go back and hire a bicycle for the day to see the rest. The island also has come great onsen and in November and June it is the stop over for millions of butterflies as they make their way between Okinawa and Gifu.

After a lunch of the speciality fried chicken, squid on a stick for the more adventurous and shaved ichigo (いちぎ) ice we spent an hour having a long conversation in Japanese with 3 other visitors. I didn’t understand much of it expect to say World Cup and Soccer when mentioning my nationality. Sayaka, was our translator and the rest of us mostly spent our time laughing and grinning like baka (ばか idiots).

The main event was held at various spots on the island with the dancers moving from stage to stage. All in all there were about 20 different dances. They took place on a circular stage with a taiko drum in the centre. There was one song that was sung repeatedly and the music did not stop for the full 2 hours of the show. The drummer and the singers were replaced regularly. The dances and costumes were beautiful and the performers ranged from tiny children to adults. The kids were the highlight though just from their outfits. The main dance was the last one, with school kids dressed in white jumpsuits, with umbrellas and lanterns and their faces made up as foxes. They must have been completely exhausted by the time they were done, and certainly sick of all the photos.

Just as it all finished we had to rush to make our ferry back to the mainland. I started to panic a bit when they loaded is like cattle into the car hold, as that would be last place I want to be when it sinks, but we were allowed to ascend to the deck.

My rest of my photos from the festival can be found at this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=144019&id=514335750&l=66846d84db

Unfortunately I was unable to get many of the dances, as my camera is not very good at capturing motion at night.

A note on the banks:

I was finally able to obtain a bank account today. I arrived early with my support – Hirakawa-sensei – and when the bank opened I was met by all the staff (over 20 of them) who were standing to great the awaiting customers. It was completely surreal and it felt as though they might salute. I know am the proud owner of a bank book where they register all my transactions made at the bank – it feels very archaic after spending the last 8 years doing internet banking. As far as I know there is no Internet banking and my cash card will be POSTED (it will take a while to get used to the security here) to me. ATM’s are only open between certain hours and the fees are dependant on the time you use them. So 8:00 – 8:45 weekdays is ¥105 (+/- R10), 8:45 – 18:30 is free and so on. My bank is purely prefectural so should I leave Oita I may struggle to find a place to withdraw money in other cities. In which case I will have to get a post office account, which is accessible throughout Japan.

So there really is very little to complain about when using South African banking services – technology wise. Though I do appreciate the service here. In fact they even spent 30 minutes helping me to fill out my various gas and electricity forms so that the amounts would get debited directly from my account. They even posted it for me. However, Hirakawa-sensei said that it took far to long and that they didn’t know what they were doing when it should be part of the job. I was amazed that they were even willing to help me with something that was pretty much non-bank related - this is one of the intercultural service delivery mysteries.