I'll be Home for Christmas, You can Count on Me..

So, since I last wrote, I have endured two papers, two Japanese oral exams, and two Japanese written exams. I still have one more paper to write. So, whilst I procrastinate on writing yet another paper in such a short expanse of time (and since facebook is beign a brat and I can't do anything on it for the time being), I shall compose a list for you of words all family and friends are expected to know over the winter break. This list is of Japanese words that have entered my english vocabulary and are very difficult to delete.

A note about pronunciation. A=ah, I=ee, U=oo, E=eh, and O=oh. All consonants sound the same except r, which sounds kinda like a cross between an r and an l. a double vowel means that the sound is elongated. A slide is when a consonant gets a y sound before the vowel, such as kyo, which is like a ki and a yo smashed together into one syllable. Otherwise, syllables are made by combining one consonant and one vowel. ts and sh are considered one consonant.

And now that you're thoroughly confused, here is a list of words you must know before I return home.

Japanese Vocabulary List
おはよう - (ohayou) Good morning.
今日は - (konnichi wa) Hello (good afternoon)
今晩は - (konban wa) Good evening
何に？ - what? (usually said with a puzzled look)
どうして？ - why?
ちょっとまって - hold on a second
ちょっと - well.... (usually said when I don't want to do something but I don't want to tell you so)
すこし - a little
いつ？ - when?
いくら？ - how much?
今は何時？ - What time is it now?
何時？ - what time? (also can mean when)
だれ？ - who?
あの人 - that person... (usually said when I wish to start talking about some random person)
いてきます - said when leaving the house.
ただいま - said when returning home.
おかいり - said when a family member returns home (as a greeting)
じゃあ - then
じゃあ、まった - see you later
まった - later
そして - and
いこう - let's go
何にをしっている？ - what are you doing?
勉強している - I'm studying.
です - japanese verb whose closest english equivalent is the word "is"

That should be enough to get you started. Just so you'll know because we at Kansai Gaidai speak a very strange language of half-japanese and half-english. There will be a quiz the minute I step off the plane (not really). This list is mainly given to you so that if I suddenly say one such word as listed above, you won't give me a confused face. I hopes.

See you guys in less than a week!

A Trip to Nogi Shrine

Written as a field report for my Shinto class. The requirement of the report is that it be at least two pages and be about an experience I had with Shinto. Shrine visits are recommended. I chose Nogi Shrine because it seemed to me to be an oddity. This paper is written with the fact in mind that the intended audience (Kenny-sensei) has visited the shrine before.

A Trip to Nogi Shrine

Date: November 17, 2007

Location: Nogi Shrine; near Fushimi-momoyama station on Keihan Line

History: In 1912, General Nogi Maresuke, a hero of the Russo-Japanese War, positioned himself and his wife in front of a portrait of Emperor Meiji. As cannons announced the passing of the Emperor’s funeral procession, the couple committed ritual suicide in order to follow Emperor Meiji into death. The act was highly reminiscent of feudal Japan and shocked a public who at that time thought it had long since cast off such cultural values and stepped into a modernized and Westernized world. (McCain) I have yet to find an exact date for the shrine’s construction or who proposed the shrine’s creation and why.

Description: Nogi Shrine is small and made up of a few buildings and monuments that encircle a little garden. Starting with the gate, the nature of the structures flows in a clockwise motion from structures that have very little to do with Shinto to structures that are distinctly Shinto.

Memorials to Nogi

To the left of the gate are many memorials to Nogi Maresuke as a person. There is a bust of the man cast in bronze, a monument with a large anchor attached, and a museum dedicated to the artifacts of the once-living man. The only hints the shrine gives at first to the fact that it is indeed Shinto is the purification water stationed near the museum for visitors to wash their hands in and a distinctly Shinto altar on the second floor of the museum that houses a statue of Nogi and his wife. Everything else inside the museum is more reminiscent in nature to artifacts found at Graceland—even General Nogi’s dentures are proudly displayed on the second floor.

The Unknown Building

Next to the museum is a small and narrow building that seems to be either the priest’s quarters, a storage facility, or quite possibly both. The building is protected by Shinto ropes indicating the kami’s presence. Inside the door at the center of the building is a smaller Shinto altar that looks more like a family altar than anything else. An empty room with tatami floor can be seen through the window to the right of the door. In the room to the left of the door, however, is something quite interesting. The room is filled with wooden dolls, ranging from approximately two to three feet in height and all except one wearing a red cap and a slightly scary smiling expression that looks strikingly like Daikoku-ten (the one different doll had a white cap instead of a red one). Though the dolls may actually be someone other than Daikoku-ten, there are a few other strategically placed items on the premises that make me suspect that the dolls are indeed of him.

Additionally, in front of the Unknown Building is a small alter to a red-bibbed stone person, complete with a brass statue of Buddha sitting next to it. This raises some interesting questions: What is a guy like Daikoku-ten, who is clearly of Buddhist origin and one of the seven lucky gods, a guardian of children, and a miniature of Buddha doing in a Shinto Shrine to General Nogi Maresuka, of all people?

Clearly Shinto Aspects

Moving clockwise, the rest of the shrine is distinctly Shinto with only a few small nods to General Nogi himself. Directly next to the unknown building is a model of Nogi and his wife preparing for suicide. Next to that is a statue of Nogi in full priest’s costume, indicating that not only is he a kami, but the head priest of his own shrine. Next to that is a two-building complex that I would like to call the Outer and Inner Sanctuary. The Outer Sanctuary is the much larger building of the two and is accessible to the public. Located behind the Outer Sanctuary is a separate building that is off-limits to the general public and is most likely the Inner Sanctuary. Guarding the Outer Sanctuary are two statues, one of a mare and one of a stallion. This is the only shrine I have been to that does not have a statue of a horse inside a building, but instead has the horses on full display. The fact that there is one male and one female possibly indicates Nogi and his wife. Another interesting feature to the Outer Sanctuary is that it has an entire row of rice bags lining the building on the outside just below the rafters. Firstly, these rice bags reminded me of Daikoku-ten, who is often seen seated on top of them, and secondly, rice represents wealth. So a man who killed himself to follow Emperor Meiji into death suddenly becomes a kami of wealth?

Next to the two-building complex is a much smaller and much newer (judging by the color of the paint on the wood and the fact the paint hasn’t begun to peal) building that has a prayer bell and offerings to the kami inside. Interestingly enough, more of those huge rice bags are positioned on the structure. The food offered to the kami are red apples, a traditionally wrapped offering (similar to what I saw at the Kurama Fire Festival), two bottles of sake (one for each kami, I guess), and… a plastic wrapped bag of the local favorite doughnut-like candy? Maybe the reason that Nogi had dentures is because his teeth fell out due to eating too much sweets. In that case, it must be awfully hard for him to eat the apples offered to him without his dentures!

Visitors

Visiting Nogi Shrine on November 11, 2007 were two blond-haired foreign girls (myself and my history-buff friend Ruth who I had brought along for the company), two older women (who stayed approximately as long as we did), an older man (I never saw him actually leave but he was gone within fifteen minutes of my seeing him), a young woman (who visited the children’s diety for a very brief second and then quickly left), and a young man (who darted in with camera in hand, disappeared into the museum, and then darted back out in a matter of minutes). The place was surprisingly quiet and no one rang the prayer bell while I was there. At least a second visit is needed to be able to say for sure if the low traffic at the shrine is normal or if people did not visit Nogi that day due to shichi-go-san festivities going on at a much larger local shrine that is conveniently close to all three train stations (Keihan, Kintetsu, and JR).

Priests

There were no visible priests at the shrine during our visit but I am almost positive that there are indeed priests at this shrine. First, if you go clockwise from the prayer bell structure, there is a long and narrow building devoted to the sale of o-mamori and ema, items that are normally sold by priests. Second, the empty second half to the unknown building could possibly be a priest’s quarters. Third, there is an Inner Sanctuary that is off limits to the public. Come to think of it, I could smell faint incense coming from the Inner Sanctuary when I was standing nearest to it.

Thoughts

To be perfectly honest, Nogi Shrine is downright weird. It has the feeling of a Shinto Shrine crossed with Graceland and with a dash of Buddhism thrown in for flair. But because it is weird, it is really fascinating. I will definitely go again to see if I can find an answer to any of my questions.

Class Video

As an end of semester project, our Japanese speaking classes asked us to write, memorize, and present a skit entirely in Japanese. We of level three were given the specific directions of no more than four to a group (though you can bring in outside assistance for a very short period of time), and the skit itself had to be approximately 9 minutes long, videos prefered.

And this is what we came up with. Ruth, Autumn, Amanda, and Nikki star in a stunning film about a drunken salariman who comes home, hits his head, and dreams up a manga about beautiful women samurai. It has ninjas, samurai, honor, fantastic death scenes, and a few guest appearances from Jack. We called Johnny but he was too busy with Sweeney Todd so we got the monkey instead. We hope you enjoy...

The Genuine Life of Samurai

Time, why are you not my friend?

Life is insane and I certainly don't have enough of this little thing we call time. I have less than three weeks, three papers, a video that we have to make, as many interviews as I can fit in, a trip to Nara, two afternoon finals, and four Japanese finals (it's actually two finals with two parts but each part is a final in and of itself so...). And then it's back home to the States to spend Christmas with my family! I'm so excited about that! But there's still three weeks of stuff to do and stress is definately not fun...

It's been almost two weeks since I wrote last, and I'm sorry about that. So, here's what has happened. After I last wrote, I spent that Saturday shopping in Umeda with Ruth, where I saw a camera for 300$ that I wanted (since mine is old and starting to fall apart). It's a canon, and when Ruth looked it up on Best Buy's website, it is a 600$ camera in the states, available only by special order. It is a freaking awesome camera, with 10X zoom, image stabilizing tech (so no more blurry night photos), and really nice video capability. Thus this camera is staying in the back of my mind as a maybe. It's a fantastic buy, if I can come up with the money. But first things first, of course, so the camera must wait until next semester when I can finally assess whether or not I am capable of buying this thing. Because that's a lot of money and I don't impulse buy things that are that expensive. We'll see if I decide that I really need it.

That Sunday, the original plan was to go to Fushimi-inari and then continue from there. What happened was that for the two minutes we were at Fushimi-inari station the weather had decided to pour down rain. So, we got back on a train because the shrine has no cover and all those stone steps plus rain didn't sound like a fun idea. However, as soon as we left Fushimi-inari for Kyoto Station (where we would be dry), the weather cleared up and there was no need for an umbrella. So...

On the way to Kyoto Station, we stopped at a buddhist temple just a block away. It was described in Heather's guidebook as "the largest wooden structure in the world" but it was under renovation so the largest wooden structure was completely encased in a large steel structure. We could walk inside the steel structure and see the outside of the wooden structure, but heaven forbid we see the inside. I was not impressed. I'm sure when it's finished, it will be quite beautiful but... I probably won't get to see it. The interesting thing about this temple is that you don't have to pay to go in. (most buddhist temples charge you to go inside, which is why I have been inside so very very few) Additionally, inside the main gate is a stone courtyard that is covered in pigeons. While Heather resisted the urge to kick one, I completely gave into the urge to terrorize them. Yes, I acted like a complete two year old and ran to the center of the flock, hoping to make them all scared and fly away. But no, instead of humoring me, they all just kinda waddled out of my way. I was very disappointed. And I'm sure I looked like a fool but I don't care.

Now, on to Kyoto station. Kyoto station is an 11 story building about three blocks away from shichijo station, filled with shopping and, by the way, completely decked out for the holidays. We completely bypassed Thanksgiving and gone straight into Christmas. Which downright annoys me. Plus, Christmas here is completely the retail version of Christmas, so it kinda depresses me because Christmas here has no soul. Another reason I'm happy to be going home for Christmas. We did not actually go shopping in Kyoto station because it was fantastically busy and we felt no need to trapize through womens clothing that neither Heather and I can possibly fit into because we're both way too tall. We did travel to the top floor where we had probably the most fantastic pizza I've had in Japan yet. It was cooked by a real brick oven. Didn't think I'd find one of those in Japan but oh my goodness... fantastic.

Then, after Kyoto Station we decided to walk from Shichijo to shijo (for those of you who can't tell, Shichi is the word for 7 and shi is one of the two ways to say 4. Jo, I assume is either stop, street, or something along those lines. On the Keihan line, there is a Shichijo, Gojo (5), shijo, and Sanjo (3). Not sure where the other numbers ran off to, but this is Japan and I have learned not to ask. So from Shichijo to shijo was approximately 5 or 6 blocks. We stopped at the sister temple to the Tallest Wooden Structure in World Temple (I remember no names, I'm sorry) along the way, but that one was not anywhere near as impressive. Both were under renovation.

At Shijo, we walked back to the Keihan line and stopped at what Heather called the "incredible store of insane cuteness" and is actually an accurate description of this place. This is where I found a present for Yoshi, since Sunday was her birthday. I was quite proud of myself because when I gave it to her later that evening, I had apparently chosen the perfect gift. Makes me happy. That evening was spent with Yoshi and family, where we had a small cake, her favorite meal, etc. She turned 16.

Last week was downright busy. There was originally a plan to skip Shinto class and go see Nogi Shrine but we were tempted with a movie and decided to show up that wednesday. How I wish we hadn't! It was the most senseless movie I had ever seen! I could see where aspects of the movie had shinto references but in all honesty? It was pointless. And the sad part is that this was the highlight of that week. Not to say I didn't have anything to do last week, far from it, but that's the only thing worth writing about. Most of what I did that week was homework. And lots and lots of it.

Last Saturday, I finally did make it to Nogi Shrine during shichi-go-san. I am working on a feild report of that trip and I shall post it here when it is done. That will be one paper less for me to write. But for now, just know I went to Nogi shrine during the day, then left for home before it started getting dark. Then, I went to Kyobashi to have dinner with a friend over Subway (best subway sandwich I've had in my life, thank you). Sunday, I went to Seminar house four to watch Princess Mononoke. Then it was back home to do even more homework.

This week too has been characterized by two things--homework and cold. The homework is more annoying than anything else; our video is due next week so we are hurrying to get it videotaped and stuff like that. It will be a really cute video, so I'm happy with the plot and we've poured a lot of work on it. It's just the actual practicing the lines and filming that we have to do now. Sigh. And no one has time.

As for the cold... During the day, I am just fine, even without a coat that I stupidly forgot to pack. I just wear layered clothing and normally only need two layers to be quite comfortable. It's like a typical fall day in Arkansas. It's like the days when its warm in the sun but cold in the shade (which are the kind of days that I love anyway). But oh at night... At night there is no sun so it gets really cold. And the best part of it all? My room is the same temperature as the outside. Why? Because I have no significant heat source whatsoever. The only thing I have is a small foot-pad thing that's about a 3 inch by 5 inch square and even on its strongest doesn't get very warm. And my host mother has specifically warned me not to run it while I am sleeping. Well that's great and all but I kinda would like to keep all my toes thank you.

Now before you start freaking out, my friends, let me explain. It is quite normal in a Japanese house to have no central heating and air. For heat, most families use a variety of electric heaters and no one thinks this is strange. It is not normal, however, for those living in a Japanese house not to have some form of electric cover or electric rug under their futon. Many people say that they are actually quite comfortable at night with the electric rug or cover, depending on which they have. I am sure I would be comfortable too if I had such things. But I do not. All I have is that foot pad, which I guard with my life. But I still have to turn it off when I sleep (lest my host mother get angry and take it away) so... I generally end up doing my homework while huddled up under the covers, which is actually fairly uncomfortable because there is no flat surface to write on and not enough room to spread out whatever I am working on. In general, I look forward to going to class because at least in the CIE they keep things nice and warm. Sometimes too warm, but I can't be too picky. I'm just trying to last until the 16th, when I come home for Christmas.

I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me...
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

International Festival 2007

So. Last weekend was the International Festival, presented by the Japanese students of Kansai Gaidai for the community of Hirakata. It started Friday (Japanese students had Friday off from class, whereas for 留学生 such as myself, class was in session) and ended Saturday. Friday was spent having to go to those pesky things we call classes, say "yo, I'm here, k, see you, bye." Fortunately, most teachers simply took roll because they were forced to by the CIE and told us to go enjoy the festival. I saw a group of pre-kindergarden aged kids in their little pre-kindergarden sized band do a band preformance with such a high level of cuteness that it almost outdid the Razorback Band. Almost. I also watched the cheerleaders do their routine. As a competeing entity, their preformances were really good!

And then, instead of being a good little kid, I chose to go with Heather and Zack to Kiyomizu Temple in hopes that we'd catch it in it's bright red finery. Many photos were taken, but the maples on the temple grounds hadn't quite begun changing their colors so it wasn't as fantastic as we had hoped... Oh well, we'll just have to go again. I also discovered three very important things in Kyoto while I was there. First, there is a candy store near Kiyomizu where you can try the japanese candy before buying. Normally, the traditional candy of Kyoto is red bean paste wrapped in a soft floury substance. It is absolutely fantastic, but... Even better, I discovered, was the same thing essentially, but with chocolate instead of red bean paste and the floury thing flavored into either banana or strawberry. Oh goodness. Second, there is a little shrine at the bottom of Kiyomizu that was selling, of all things, candied clementines and red bean paste in fried pancake batter. Both were also absolutely fantastic, but the clementine was the best. And third, I discovered indian food. This being Japan, Indian food is much less spicy than the real thing, but that suits a spice weakling such as myself just fine. I had dal, nann, and a pomegranate lassi (I simply must learn how to make this amazing food), and tried butter chicken, and some sort of mutton curry (the mutton curry wasn't so great, but that's because that curry was the next step up on the spicy scale (which, in Japan, medium is nothing and high is OMGMOUTHONFIRE!!!). I also tasted mango lassi and blueberry lassi, and decided that I was the wisest of the three in choosing a pomegranate lassi. And decided that I must learn how to make this thing called a lassi myself.

Saturday, I spent most of the day at the festival. Justin was the gaijin-on-display for the opening ceremony, so of course I had to be evil and show up and take photos. Heather was busy being Canada for a day, so I of course went and harrassed her at the Canada booth as well. Nikki preformed for the world dance exhibit (more blackmail photos), and Ruth was America for the Fashion Show. Strangely enough at the fashion show, America was the only country besides Japan that got an excited applause. Interesting. I have photos of the fashion show too (evil laugh). I also watched Tomoko and the rest of the Cheerleaders one more time in an attempt to get better photos (a successful attempt too). After the fashion show, Ruth and I went and caught the last half of the Sound of Music, preformed in butchered english with cues and tones taken straight from the movie. And completely off-key, with the exception of Captain Von Trapp, who managed to sing Adelweiz fairly decently. Ruth and I have determined that we must watch this movie again soon. Especially since the Japanese preformance ended immediately after Von Trapp sings for the first time and tells Maria to stay.

I spent the rest of the day Saturday at home, working on the powerpoint for our presentation due on Monday. Mind you, my host family recently bought a new computer with windows vista on it, so nothing in powerpoint is where its supposed to be anymore (not that I was that familiar with powerpoint in the first place). Secondly, its entirely in Japanese, so I spent my time saying things like, "Hm, what's this say? Su-la-i-do. Slaido. Slide! Okay, slide, okay, I need one of those. *click* Okay, I have a slide, now I need a graph. Oh hello, random kanji that I don't know. Um... Kay. That looks like a graph, let's click it! *click* Oh, wait, no, that's not a graph, that's a picture, back up. Okay, that ALSO looks like a graph! *click* Yay! I found the graphs! So that's the kanji for graph. Okay, now how to enter data into the graph... Okay, that icon looks like the icon for excel, which is usually used to put stuff into graphs... *click* and she finds the data input! Yatta! ...more kanji I don't know. Hm. Kay. This one's on the left, so it probably means okay, this one is the middle and I have no clue what it means, and this one says Ki-a-n-so-lu... Cancel. No, I don't want to cancel, I want to click okay..." It went on like this for hours and by the end of it all, it was midnight thirty (yes, midnight thirty is a perfectly acceptable time word), my brain was mush, and I'm sure my host family (who doesn't go to bed until 1 I found out) thought I was absolutely crazy because I was saying all this out loud to myself to make sure I was doing things right. Then I had to figure out how to save it in a non-vista-compatible format. That was a real trip.

Sunday was spent sleeping, having lunch with Heather, and then going to Yawata to finish working on our presentation with Ruth and Nikki. I evilly added the blackmail pictures to the powerpoint presentation. Mwa ha ha. Anyway, we worked on that for a while, had dinner with her host family, and then Nikki and I went home.

Monday was presentation. We were first. Apparently we did freaking awesome and scared everyone else. We did not feel so confident. But then again, I hate presentations. Went home, went to sleep.

Tuesday and Wednesday were Kanji tests (of two sorts). My free time (what little I had) was spent making an emergency birthday gift buying run to Hirakata on Tuesday and an emergency birthday gift wrap buying run to Kuzuha on Wednesday. I love wrapping gifts, so naturally, I had fun.

Yesterday was a three person birthday day. Audra, Nikki, and Nikki's friend Sara all turned 21, so that evening I went with Nikki to her birthday dinner. We took her to a sushi restaurant where the sushi comes to you (see here). The sushi there wasn't as great because it had this little dash of wasabi they put in the rice under the meat. I didn't know until I bit into the sushi and went "what is this thing that's biting into my tounge? Oh, it's wasabi... >.< (<--unhappy face)" But for 100 yen a plate, it wasn't so bad. After sushi, we took Nikki and Sara to Ages Cafe. If you think coffee house and substitute the coffee for alcohol, you have Ages. You can order snack food at Ages, but the main menu is the bar. And by the way, peach snops with apple is fantastic.

This weekend is going to be busy too. On Saturday, I will be going to Umeda in the morning to go electronics shopping with Ruth. My headphones are a piece of crap and I can only hear out of one ear now so I'm going to go buy some freaking nice headphones in a country where quality electronics are their number one export. So for the same amount I spent on my good headphones that are sitting at home in the US, I will get not "good" headphones, but "freaking fantastic!" headphones. I likes this idea...

And Sunday is a trip to Fushimi Inari. We're starting out at Fushimi Inari but we might somehow end up in Shijo for candied clementines, indian food, and maybe this little place called Kiyomizu that we've all heard about but never been to... :) Have to be home before dinner though. I am eating dinnerwith my host family because its my host sister's birthday! I fully intend to do my birthday shopping while I'm going to shrines and temples (shrines and temples always have tons of shops around them, which of course is a fantastic business location because of tourists).

Thus is the extent of my plans. And before I end this blog, I must give a shout out to Reggie, being the bravest of us in the computer lab to complain to the staff that it is entirely too hot in this room (it's like 85-90 in here while the rest of the world is like 50). It's been like this for weeks and finally someone complained.

A Breif Recap...

１０月２３日、火曜日 - Transend Workshop

After the Kurama Fire Festival, I woke up around noon and went up to the university for the workshop hosted there for my Dynamics class. I signed up because the speaker of the workshop is the founder of the organization Transcend, which works for "peace through peaceful means." I thought that not only would I learn something, but I could put this event on my resume and it would make me look unique--this guy normally does not give workshops to college students.

At least I get the resume part. According to this guy, China is the best place in the world to live and America thinks that it is the chosen people, who choose the chosen president, who then is God's voice on earth. Oh, and apparently we're not an enlightened society either because a recent survey suggests that nearly three fourths of the United States still believes in a higher being.

Another issue is that whenever he would back his statements up with proof, that proof would be incredibly vague. For instance, he once backed up his claim that our media lies to us by saying that a Japanese reporter (no name, no affiliation given) once told him that the western reports of tiananmen square were horribly wrong. If I had not heard a comment (that was well backed up, mind you) before that sounded somewhat similar to his claim in this particular case, I would never have been inclined to believe his statement. A name and maybe the newspaper the reporter worked for would have sufficed but please, don't use a source if you aren't going to name it. Much of his dialogue in explaining China, Korea, and the United States was delivered with this vague approach to sources (I heard a friend of mine say...).

Another complaint is that he only answered the questions he wanted to answer, and if he didn't want to answer the question asked, then he would turn it into some other question that he did want to answer. Ruth asked how China intended to lead the world in health care and education for ALL of its citizens when it hasn't addressed its human rights issues--such as womens rights and the fact that people disappear whenever the government so much as thinks that they have said something against the government--and his responce was how health care and education would be accomplished in China because the Chinese government was capable of doing so. Human rights never came into the answer. Our resident representative of the former Soviet block (whose name I can't remember, but he's in my Dynamics of Modern Japan class and he speaks up frequently) is old enough to remember a time when human rights were ignored in his country in much the same way they are currently ignored in China. He asked basically the same question as Ruth, only his specific example was freedom of religion since he attributes that to a cause of unrest within his home country and he wanted to know how China intended to address the freedom of religion issue. The guy's answer had nothing to do with that question.

And lastly, according to this man, Johann Gultung (sp?), the model for peace in ALL areas of the globe should be based off of the model of the European Union. We should therefore have an Asian Union, a Middle East Union, a Central American Union... Etc. Which tells me that this man has yet to learn that just because you design something that works very well for you doesn't mean that it works at all for anyone else. Asia is not Europe. It does not think in the same way as Europe. Therefore a European model is not going to work for Asia because Asia simply is not Europe. Something based off the European model but made distinctly Asian by Asian countries for Asian countries might work, but I highly doubt we'll be seeing an Asian Union that looks just like the European version any time in the future.

I've said my piece, so I'll end my rant.

１０月２４日、水曜日 - Shinto Midterm
Studied absolutely none for my Shinto Midterm and received a B. So, I shall study for my second test and write a really good paper about my (hopefully soon to take place) trip to Meiji's tomb and Nogi's shrine, and I'll walk out of that class with an A. Provided her tests remain as simple and easy as the one she gave on this day. Went home and studied for seven hours for an Anthropology midterm.

１０月２５日、木曜日 - Anthropology Midterm
Seven hours of studying (which I never thought I'd ever have the fortitude to pull off in my life) payed off and I missed only five points on the quiz, four of which I am currently contesting due to the wording of the question. I want my 99! So, provided that I get started on my research project soon and survive the second test, I should also be able to walk out of the class with another A.

１０月２７日、土曜日 - Halloween Parties
I spent Saturday afternoon at my host mother's halloween party, where I finished carving a pumpkin for the children there and we dressed up in makeshift costumes. The only costume my host mother owned that would fit me was a witch's costume, so for halloween I was a witch. With a black trash sack tied around my neck as a cape...

Then, I left there, met Ruth at Gotenyama Station (the stop between Makino and Hirakata City Station), and road the keihan line all the way to Kyobashi, where we switched trains and headed to Justin's apartment where we were promised a small (maybe 5 or 6 people) party with pizza, cola, and a scary movie. It turns out there were at least 20 people there, and most everyone did not know everyone else. So, we introduced ourselves and sat on the floor (because there was no where else to sit) and had fun. We did indeed have pizza, from Dominos. It was probably the most expensive Dominos I've ever had (Ruth and I split what they called a medium but what we thought was a small, and the cost came up to 1300 yen). At Dominos Japan, you can order the ocean on your pizza (according to Kyle, Justin's roommate), but we ordered something remotely American, except for the fact it had corn on it. It also was no where near as good as any other pizza I've had in Japan either.

After interesting conversations and having to explain for the thousandth time where in the United States is the state of Arkansas (to an American, no less!--to which I said we're the little state better known as the state of Walmart and therefore we own your souls...), we finally turned off the lights and started our movie of the evening, the Descent.

The Descent is a movie about six rather unintellegent women who decide to go caving in Chattanooga, TN (I loved the images of TN; looked like home) in an undiscovered cave, without an expert among them, and after commiting several idiotic mistakes (Ruth and I were picking the movie apart at the beginning since she's a hiker and a mountain climber and I know just enough about caving to be dangerous) find themselves caved in and therefore have to find a new way out. What stands between them is mountains of uncharted underground territory, and a clan of (for lack of a better word) critters who were once humanoid, but having evolved in the darkness are now blind, hunt by sound like bats, ugly as all get-out, and oh, by the way, eat raw meat, including the unfortunate human who dares to try and discover their cave. I shall neglect to tell you the ending on principle but being a person who hates most scary movies, I shall also recommend not seeing this one.

So then Ruth and I had to endure the hour long train ride home, where we got home and stayed up until 2 texting each other back and forth whilst we tried not to be afraid of the dark. She somehow managed to go to sleep while I snoozed with the light on until 7:30 in the morning when the sun rose and I could finally turn out my light. Consequently, I missed Kamigamo Jinja on Sunday, and I'm told that I missed a lot of interesting things. I could care less; I wanted sleep and so I got what I wanted. I can always go to Kamigamo another day.

１０月３０日、火曜日 - Dynamics Midterm.
So here's the test: four questions, given to us two weeks in advance, and a requirement to write an in-class essay on two of the questions, which two being our choice. It can't get any easier than that. All you have to do is study for the two questions you think easiest to answer and then actually write the paper in class. Each should be approximately two pages. Time has yet to tell how I did on the test, but I am sure I did well. We'll probably find out for sure tomorrow.

１０月３１日、水曜日 - Halloween Proper
I spent Halloween Proper mostly in bed. I woke up and made it to my speaking class where apparently I looked so ill that everyone insisted that I go home and go to bed. I tried to eat lunch but found myself feeling too nauseous to eat. So, I road home, surprised my host mother (who promptly asked if I had a fever, to which I said I didn't think so), and went to bed. I woke up around 4pm starving and wondered why until I realized that I hadn't had anything to eat. So, I took the two second trip to the 7-11 two blocks away, got myself a sandwich, ate it, and got home just in time to go to the second halloween party at my host mother's school where I got my picture taken with the jack-o-lantern that I carved. I then went home and went promptly to bed at 8pm, without dinner.

１１月１日、木曜日 - Return of Anth Project Proposals
So we finally got our lovely anthropology project proposals back (after a month of waiting). I am now officially approved to interview college students on what they think of Meiji and Nogi (which will eventually become a small part of my honors thesis, I hope). And guess what! We have a month in which to do all these interviews, so I shall start moving quickly. Fortunately, I already have several contacts in mind.

I now currently smell (and hear the crackle of) home made tempura downstairs, so I shall leave you with that. My workload is ever increasing as we get closer to the end of the semester so I appologize in advance if updates get even less frequent than they have been. My best to everyone!

Kurama Fire Festival

All day Monday I debated whether or not I should go to the Hi Matsuri in Kurama Japan. Seeing as it only happens once a year and is supposed to be a really big and really beautiful festival, I finally decided to go. Since it is a fire festival, I had all day to decide since the fires aren't lit until dark anyway. So at 6:00, I boarded a train to take me to Kurama.

Well, actually the train doesn't go directly to Kurama. It goes to Demachiyanagi (henceforth called Demachi), which is in Kyoto. From there you have to switch from the Keihan line to the Eizan Line and take the train all the way to the other end of the line--Kurama. But, at Demachi, there is an absolutely wonderful little ramen shop where I can get what essentially translates into a Chinese steamed vegetables and meat donburi (rice bowl). It is absolutely wonderfully delicious. So, we stopped there to eat before we switched train lines.

Kurama is thirty minutes up the mountain by train and is a lovely little town (we're talking a town the size if Cass, Arkansas on a normal day) that once a year has a festival that makes it into a town the size of Conway, Arkansas for one night. The festival is a harvest festival that is meant to welcome the kami home (because apparently the Kurama kami are migratory and only spend part of the year in Kurama. Who knows where they go during the summer). Kurama is a surprisingly tolerant town for Japan--international students and non-Japanese are regularly allowed to participate in the festival, including pulling the portable shrine. While I did not take part in this, I saw several familiar faces pulling the shrine from one end of town to the other. For Japan, this is exceedingly unusual because we live in a group society that doesn't generally like outside groups trying to do inside group things. Normally, a non-Japanese participant is frowned upon, but in Kurama, they were welcomed in droves. But, this is Japan, of course, so non-natives of Kurama were NOT allowed to play the big drums.

When we arrived in Kurama, the torches had just been lit and were led from the far edge of town up the hill to the shrine. These torches require at least three people to carry them and are often three times taller than the men who carry them. They are brought to the other end of town where the shrine is located and cast into the fire at the foot of the shrine. This fire is a very large bonfire that is wonderfully warm on a cold night. Most of the night I always managed to be at just the right place for a perfect camera shot; however, my camera's batteries died so I only have three pictures to show for it. I have several that I took with my phone's camera but I cannot get them from my phone to the computer yet.

Once the fire is built, the portable shrines are brought out of the temple by the townsfolk, carrying the ornate gold-plated and highly detailed box on their shoulders. Actually, there are two of these gold boxes. Only men from the town are allowed to carry the boxes on their shoulders, but once the boxes have been moved from people's shoulders onto rolling carts, one cart is generally pulled by men of the town and the other is pulled by women and gaijin. Crowds are allowed to see the fire and the temple while the two portable shrines are moved from shoulders to rolling carts.

The shrine itself is absolutely beautiful at night. I have decided that I must go back during the day too because only the path is lit at night. But, you can hear many streams and waterfalls nearby so I imagine that it is quite beautiful in the daylight too. You climb up about one and a half block's distance to get to the shrine entrance, and then up about two stories of stairs to get to the main part of the shrine. Along that flight of stairs is a very VERY large tree. I had heard in Shinto class that trees sometimes become kami (gods) but until you actually see such trees, it is difficult to understand why. But when you see this tree, you are so struck by it's sheer size and height that you are in awe and it's easy to see why someone might call it a kami. It is a simply amazing tree! And at this time, it was 11pm and I missed my chance to leave and catch the last train from Demachi to Makino station. So, I realized at the top of the shrine that I wasn't going home until morning. Oh well, the festival was supposed to last all night, or so we were told...

Back down out of shrine, the carts are finally prepared and pulled down the main street to the bottom of the town (this town is built on a mountain, remember?) where there is a wooden stage that has been built in preparation for the coming of the portable shrines. There is where the rest of the festival takes place, where the shrines are put side by side on the stage and where preists offer the first fruits of the harvest to the kami. There is dancing and squid is cooked around two fires for the kami. None of this food is eaten by anyone. After the large torches are burned on top of the two fires in front of the two portable shrines representing the two returning kami, the festival slowly begins to die down.

And continues to die until about an hour after we finally left. We were tricked into staying with rumors of more festivities but that proved wrong, so we decided to walk down the mountain. At 1:00 in the morning. So we walked down the mountain until 2:30, when we were at least halfway down the mountain and still no where near Demachiyanagi. About that time, all the taxies at Kurama who had not found jobs carting people down the mountain made their way down the mountain. One stopped for us and took us the rest of the way to Demachiyanagi. Split four ways, it cost me 550 for the ride.

So, we found ourselves in Demachiyanagi at about 3 in the morning, where we were forced to wait until 5 in the morning for the first train out. That train was a local train stopping at every station between Demachiyanagi and Makino. To keep ourselves awake, we talked to each other, and to keep ourselves warm, we circled the block. When the train finally arrived, I can't begin to tell you how relieved I was. Though there are a great deal of stops between Demachiyanagi and Makino, I remember stopping at sanjo, then nothing until I got to Yawata. I'm not sure what woke me up, but I was fortunately awake to be able to announce, "Makino!" when we got there. Fortunately, we were the only people on the car (at that early in the morning, the japanese can discriminate against cars with gaijin in it). But, of course, falling asleep on the train is a quite normal phenomenon too among Japanese so I wasn't offending anyone either.

I arrived home at 6am the next day, utterly exhausted. I neglected to go to my morning classes--instead I slept until noon and got up to go to a workshop that I had agreed to attend on Friday. More later, my friends, because this has been an incredibly busy week!