Today I went to see something called Mibu Kyogen, which is a style of kyogen that it is performed only (as far as I know) at the Mibu temple in Kyoto, and which has been declared an ‘intangible cultural asset’ or something along those lines. Basically, except that one of the shows was of the same story as one I’d seen the night before at regular kyogen, this was a completely different animal. It was entirely pantomime with rhythmic accompaniment by flute, drum and gong, with all of the actors wearing masks, and performed outside during the afternoon for only ¥800 a head. There were also some exciting special effects in the second piece, where a spider demon shot handfuls of rolled narrow strips of paper, rather like those that come out of party poppers, to simulate spider webs. At the end of the piece, the demon leapt off of the stage entirely, which was exciting because the stage was a sort of platform with a separate platform where the audience sat facing the it. This meant that the actor jumped into a space of indeterminate depth. The final piece that I saw was actually the same story that my dancing teacher had presented when she came to give her talk at Doshisha, just entirely pantomime and a completely different dancing style from Noh, Kabuki, Mai or modern.
Besides the performances that happen there, the Mibu temple is famous for being where the Shinsengumi trained back before the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and is I believe where some of them are buried. Because of this, there were a great many Shinsengumi-themed shops in the area, including one that had the full range of Kyoto regional Hello Kitty’s, including Hello Kitty wearing the Shinsengumi uniform and carrying a sword. I am seriously considering buying this, but I also want the maiko Hello Kitty, the Murasaki Shikibu Hello Kitty, the Shinto priest Hello Kitty and the rickshaw driver Hello Kitty. This is the sort of choice that I must grapple with daily in this country.
On my way home, I was having some serious issues figuring out how to pay for my bus fare (after I was already more than halfway to my stop) and again encountered someone really nice. An older woman sitting by next to me noticed my trouble and gave me a ticket that would cover my fare, without ceremony and just as we reached her stop, which was a couple before mine. I know that some of the other students have had problems with how they are treated here, but the nice people that I’ve met here have truly outweighed the difficult ones.
-Neither the bus driver nor the fare machine will take any higher denomination of money than a ¥1000 note.
-You cannot throw a rock in this city without hitting a shrine or temple. On the short side street between my bus stop and the Mibu Temple I went by a shrine and two temples, and two of the major stops on the bus itself were large shrines.
-Hello Kitty owns this city.
-They make Andy Warhol obi. The woman sitting next to me was wearing one with the series of pictures of Marilyn Monroe in different technicolor shades.