Halloween!

Halloween is not a very big holiday in Japan, which is understandable. Unfortunately, this meant no trick-or-treating or pumpkin carving, but I did manage to go to a party. I had been a bit ill the night before, but was luckily quite well enough the next day to dress up and go out. I had been planning my costume since before the 21st when I went to the Toji market, and was luckily able to pull it off. I went as a Tayuu, which is an Edo-era (around the 17th or 18th century for my costume) courtesan. The main features of a tayuu as visible in woodblocks of the period are the obi and hair. The obi is always tied in front, and the hair is usually a veritable forest of ornaments, ranging from long lacquered pins to large clusters of silk flowers surrounded in strips of silver. Of these two, I could only really manage the obi and a couple representative hair pins, since my hair could certainly never support the shear numbers required to pull off the real deal. I addition to these, tayuu wore massively tall ‘geta’, which are essentially wooden flip-flops with blocks of wood on the bottom. These sorts of shoes are really not available for purchase, and even if they were they would be a little out of my price range, so I borrowed a pair of normal geta from my host mother. It was very fun, really, and since I had opted out of the full white makeup I could actually speak and the like without being afraid of cracking my makeup or something. Unfortunately I still didn’t feel like taking the chance on candy after being ill the night previously, so it was a healthier Halloween than I’ve ever had. So many of the costumes at the party were great, and though I arrived too late to vote on any of them for the contest, one of my friends won first place! She had made a really great ‘Princess Mononoke’ costume, including the mask, from scratch while here. After it all, many people headed out to go clubbing, but I wasn’t up to it, so a friend and I went to a Thai restaurant instead.
-There is an amazing capacity for people in this country to decide to take no notice of something that doesn’t really concern them. I walked by tons of people in my costume and no one mentioned it, asked me where I was going, or even stared. Maybe they were just being polite?
-When you’re not feeling well in Japan, they make a dish that is rice warmed with water into a sort of porridge, cooked with broth and a pickled plum. It’s delicious.
-If you want to buy traditional Japanese shoes in Japan and are over a women’s size 8 American, you’ll probably have to buy men’s shoes. I wore my host mother’s, but I was hanging off the back by about an inch.
-There are women in Japan today who are engaged in preserving the specific dance, music, and dressing arts of the old Tayuu profession, and who essentially work like geisha, entertaining at parties and making appearances at events.