Hanabi

Most of the fun was taken out of Guy Fawkes in New Zealand over 15 years ago when you could no longer blow stuff up or set things on fire. Gone are the heady days of melted toy soldiers, exploded toys, free for all bonfires, and hunting for rocket parachutes in neighbourhood gardens. No more could we celebrate the foiling of the Gun powder Plot and Guy Fawke's glorious death by being hung, drawn, and quartered. Not even my parents are able to illegally import huge boxes of fireworks from Wah Lee's Chinese Emporium anymore.
But in Japan it's a whole different story. Once the humidity of summer rolls around and Obon season begins, endless shelves of gunpowder-full things that go bang go on display for anyone to buy. No restrictions. I have never seen anything like it before. You can get budget mix bags of tricks, or for the discerning connoisseur, pick out magnificent individual rockets, roman candles, catherine wheels, and various other toys with large price tags to match.

I'm assuming it's something to do with the fact that they're celebrating the season rather than a bloody death sentence, and perhaps people are a bit more responsible towards themselves and other living things as far as fire and explosions go. At least I hope that's the case.

Needless to say, I have a large artillery stored away for a balmy evening.

Big Rain

I was beginning to think that the rainy season would never happen. Technically it is supposed to start some time shortly after Golden Week in May and end around the beginning of July. As in New Zealand, everyone says that the weather patterns are changing thanks to the eruption of El Nino all those years ago.

The other morning Big Brother got up early and began making indecipherable announcements through the rain. Shortly after, my Japanese Teacher of English called to say that school had been cancelled due to the weather warnings, but all teachers must go to work. If a teacher cannot physically get to work, they must take nenkyuu - one of their precious few paid annual holiday days.

I gratefully accepted a lift to work as all the trains had stopped running. Apparently some parts of the train line were submerged in over flowing rivers, while other parts had been covered over by land slips.

On the drive to school, we were forced to divert from out course many times, and took so many tiny, overgrown single lane backroads through the mountains it took us an hour and a half to get there. On the way, we drove through flooded roads, and over minor landslips and rock falls. We even passed a small Italian coffee shop in the middle of nowhere that is apparently quite famous. It is owned by a couple from Osaka, and is only open on the weekend. It is so famous, you have to have a booking to dine there.

The weather actually warranted the TV to be on all day in the staff room so we could keep abreast of the situation, while continuous streams of piped in messages came over the loud speaker from the Niimi Town Hall. Teachers trickled in all day and there was mounting concern that we may not be able to get home at the end of the day.

Luckily the weather had subsided enough to be able to return the regular way home, and listening to the radio we heard that Niimi had made the national news as a landslide had killed a local elderly woman who was trapped in her home. Many people had also lost their riverside vegetable gardens (cheekily grown on the inside of the river walls on land meant for the local river wildlife). For all the danger it creates, the landscape and rivers looked spectacular shrouded in mist, and I was reminded again of how the weather really affects the way you live in these remote parts of Japan.

Here are some pictures I took in Shingo the day before the weather warnings of the mist and a river rising dangerously close to the train tracks.
And here is a picture I took today of the Takahashi River in Niimi Central. You'd think the rain and floods would have washed away all of the plastic, garbage, and other crap along the rivers edge, but no, it just brought a new bunch of crap along that will sit around until the next strong current.

Onion Paradise

We had a BBQ at Niimi's Jo-yama park. A bunch of people I haven't seen in ages, along with a bunch of people I'd never met before came along, and joined in on the "onion paradise" created by some Japanese guys on the grill. The girls loo in the park was being terrorised by this ginormous spider who lunged at anyone who got too close.
During the evening, nobody appeared to be able to recall a single song lyric, a substantial amount of people declared they believed in the power of mind over matter, and I discovered that gaijin blood must taste disgusting to Japanese mosquitoes as while everyone else was getting eaten alive, I remained unscathed.

I had a pretty quite evening due to illness, but that still didn't stop me from being carted home in a car after burning out whilst playing a game of four-way chess.

Light my Firefly

Niimi is famous for a particular type of firefly, called kinbotaru, which puts on a spectacular display (mating ritual) for only two weeks a year. Needless to say the event was advertised on the local TV station and in the local paper, so when we arrived at Tenno Hachimangu Shrine in the aptly named Koo no Ie (House of Mosquitoes) village in the middle of nowhere, it was no surprise that there were crowds of people there to witness the event.
Approaching the temple on foot, we passed three parking areas and an incredibly rude gatekeeper who demanded 100 yen before telling us all of the dame (bad) things we could not do, say, or bring with us.

Walking silently up the winding incline lit with lanterns, futilely waving our fans to push the muggy air around, we saw flickers of light amongst the trees. Gradually, we were surrounded by fireflies making it seem as if we were walking through the stars. We wafted them around on our fans.

Arriving at the temple grounds we were confronted with crowds of people standing in a cordoned off area in the dark trying to keep quiet but not doing a good job of it. Small children were running around unattended, young couples stood in far corners, old folk gossiped and commented on how hot it was. The rest of us just wished everyone else would shut the hell up. Surprisingly, there were numerous professional photographers with their gear set up in the best spots making it impossible to get a nice 180 degree view.

After a while the flickering lights became denser, and started pulsating in patterns and rhythms that kept you motionless, mesmerised, and near dreaming. It was very Close Encounters-ish. The experience was interrupted three times by the roar created when someone accidentally let their flash off on their camera. Hilarious. After an hour, the patterns broke up and the fireflies began moving restlessly around. People followed suit, breaking into small groups and gradually filing down the trail back to their cars.

Kitty Kitty Kitty

The first time that Japanese cats are mentioned in literature is in one of the very first novels written (during the Heian Period, 11th Century AD), The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. From other early Japanese records, we know that cats were treasured possessions amongst the nobility and were living cosseted lives, some even being bestowed the rank of fifth grade of court. It is believed that cats crossed over on ships from the Chinese and Korean mainland in antiquity (indeed today's Japanese word for cat, neko, comes from the old-Japanese word O-Koman which means honorable Korean). As trade has been taking place between Japan and Korea since the 3rd Century BC, and as Japan is an isolated island chain it is inevitable that some inbreeding amongst the cats occurred, thus making headway for the recessive bobtail gene.

In 1602 disaster threatened the Japanese economy which was built up around the silk industry. The precious silk-worm was being killed off by disease carried by vermin in the form of rats and mice that were over-running the country. An imperial decree was issued that all cats were to be set free; it was made a criminal act to buy, sell, feed, shelter, kill or indeed own a cat. The previously pampered cats were suddenly flung out in the streets to become street, alley and farm-cats. Through natural selection, only the strongest cats survived, and today's Japanese bobtail is still an extremely hardy, healthy breed.

Of course Japanese cats have made their way back into peoples homes and live again as treasured pets, but they also still exist as the working cats and street cats of Japan. In Niimi, you can see the Japanese bobtail everywhere. Most of them appear to be strays, slinking along gutters and rooftops. They are instinctively afraid of humans (I've seen cats kicked, have stones thrown at them, and been chased by children) and often run before you get a good look at them. The cats with a perfect bobtail are the treasured ones. You can also see cats with kinky, bent, twisted tails, that look painfully dislocated, when in actual fact they are born like that. These cats generally aren't so fortunate.

Today, one of the students brought a box containing three kittens to school. She had found the box on her way to school, and had taken pity on the mewling bundles of fur and kinky tails. It was her hope to find good homes for them. The cats were promptly put in a corner and left to their own devices for the day. I took it upon myself (as I had no classes) to feed and entertain them. Occasionally a teacher would come up for a look, roughly grab a kitten and hold it by the scruff proclaiming its cuteness before dropping it to the floor again. I asked how often cats are abandoned. "Oh we find suteneko (abandoned cats) in the mountains all the time. We always find someone to look after them."

In actual fact, over 30,000 cats are purposely abandoned every year, along with over 20,000 dogs. These figures don't include the amount of usually domesticated animals that are born in the wild.

Boo.

A Walk to Remember

This weekend my one big expedition involved getting to a hospital in Ochiai, a small town in Maniwa City, the neighbouring city to Niimi. While very close to Niimi, the train line winds it's way through the mountains on tracks balanced precariously between rivers and mountainsides, making the train ride very slow.

There are many beautiful flower gardens in Ochiai.
And many rice fields. Can you see the tiny frog? It's only about 2 cm long.
There is a tiny church wedged between large ugly concrete buildings.
There are many swallows nests artfully glued under the eves of houses. These three baby birds were being fed by their mother who impatiently swooped around waiting for me to pass.
And at the train station, Tom and Jerry remind you that using your mobile phone while on the train is rude.

Tanabata - Festival of the Stars

When Orihime/Shokujo the seamstress (the goddess of the star Vega) fell in love with Hikoboshi/Kengyu the cowherd (the god of the star Altair), the king allowed them to marry. So in love were they that they neglected their work and the king became so exasperated that he forced them to live on opposite sides of amanogawa (the Milky Way), destined to meet only once a year on July 7th. But there is no bridge over the Milky Way and the seamstress, on her first visit, wept so bitterly at the impossibility of meeting her husband that she roused the sympathy of a kasasagi (magpie) who assured her that a bridge would be contrived for her. This was done, the magpies with wings spread forming a bridge on which the princess crossed. However, if the eve of July 7th is rainy the magpies will not form the bridge and the celestial lovers must wait another year before meeting.

As my Japanese friends' two children told me the story in broken English, Japanese, and pictures, we made origami and kirigami (cut paper) decorations to hang on our bamboo Tanabata decoration, much like a Christmas tree. Along with our decorations we hung tanzaku, strips of coloured paper upon which we had written our wishes for the year ahead.

Once the decorating was done, the children taught me the traditional Tanabata song:
Sasa no ha sara-sara
Nokiba ni yureru
Ohoshi-sama kira-kira
Kin gin sunago
The bamboo leaves, rustle, rustle,
shaking away in the eaves.
The stars go twinkle, twinkle;
Gold and silver grains of sand.

Regardless of when this festival is held, and in what manner it is celebrated, you can always wish upon a star.

The Visitor II

My apartment has been blessedly free of mukade, but I have seen a large spider, and today, my first huge gokaburi, or cockroach. Makes me think of a beat box song I heard at the Tottori beach party - gokaburi curry.