Go Hanshin!!

Thursday I finally got to see live what I’d been watching on TV ever since I got to Japan in the fall: a Hanshin Tigers home game. The Hanshin Tigers are the baseball team for the Kansai region, and have the most fanatical fans of any other team in Japan. I’ve heard them described before as the Red Sox of Japan, which seems to be a good comparison. The train to Koushien Park was absolutely packed with people in yellow and black (Tigers’ colours), all chattering excitedly in heavy Kansai accents. Outside the park itself were the souvenir and bentou (lunch-box) vendors and masses of people. Inside the park itself there weren’t really any areas to just walk around, which I was a little surprised by. It seems to me that most parks in the US that I’ve been to have had areas where you could walk around, buy food, and watch the game while standing, but at Koushien you could only watch the game from your seat, and the inside areas seemed reserved exclusively for the bathrooms and the masses of people taking smoke-breaks. One step inside and I was enveloped in a cloud of cigarette smoke. The seats that we had were not very good, to be honest. We were seated behind centre field, which was one reason that it was so hard to get into the actual game action, the second being that it wasn’t a very exciting game. Almost every fan has a pair of little plastic bats, used in choreographed patterns that accompany each player’s personal song. When a player comes up to bat, the entire stadium sings that player’s song in unison, conducted in some sections by people wearing white gloves, and accompanied by trumpets and drums, which seem to be played by fans rather than stadium employees. The fans also, naturally, cheer at any good play or hit and have special songs for those as well, but since Hanshin only had one hit during the entire game, most of the cheering was done when the other team dropped a foul pop-up or walked someone. Behind where we were sitting were a couple American guys, who were annoying when the game began and became less charming as the night wore on. The main problem was that they were speaking loud, crude, English that they were counting on no one being able to understand. As one of the only people who *did* understand, I wanted to punch them before long. My friend and I were both getting pretty tired, but we made sure to stay for one of the big events in any Hanshin game: Luck 7th. Because I knew about this from watching it on the television several times, I bad purchased ahead of time a cheap package of balloons outside the park, which I distributed to my friends as the bottom of the 7th drew near. At a game at Koushien Park all of the Tigers’ fans blow up these long balloons during the break between the top and bottom of the 7th inning, sing the Tigers’ fight song, and then let them go all at once. It’s really cool to watch, though when they come back down one does get pelted with spent balloons. Apparently the shrine next to the park has real problems when it gets windy. After the 8th we decided that we were pretty much satisfied with our baseball experience and headed home. We were not the only ones, but as we had purchased our return tickets for the train when we had arrived at Koushien we were able to just pack into the train and head back to Osaka. Maybe one day I’ll make it to a more eventful game and see the Hanshin fans at their best.
-My friend’s host parents had told her that the best place to get dinner for the game is actually the Hanshin Department store in Osaka right before you board the train for the ballpark. There was a great variety of good, cheap prepared food that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
-There is a special train for Hanshin games that is easy to find and easy to use.
-Just like at any American ballpark, you are not allowed to bring bottles or cans into Koushien. Unlike any American ballpark, however, the staff at the door will pour any bottle or can of drink that you bring with you into a big plastic cup so that you can enjoy it at your seat.
-It seemed as though more than half of the seats in the park were benches, which were a little lacking in the comfort department and very densely packed.
-There is almost no food to be had in the park itself, as far as I could tell, and what food stands there are close well before the end of the game.
-Since I have always associated the Hanshin Tigers with Osaka, I was surprised to learn that Koushien Park is actually in Kobe.

The Never-ending Bowl of Ramen

Wednesday my friends and I went down to Kobe to meet a couple of other foreigners who are were in the area. One of them was a JET teaching English in Nagasaki, but touring the area around Kyoto (Kansai, which includes Osaka, Nara, Kobe and others) while the other is currently studying at Osaka University. Well, we had decided to go visit Kobe’s ‘Nanking Town’ in hopes of scoring some Dim Sum, my absolute favourite type of food. Well, Nanking Town is not very big, only a couple of blocks long with not many side streets, and very expensive, especially since I’m used to Boston or San Francisco Chinatown prices. 600yen for one (5-piece) order of shumai is ridiculous, especially when they aren’t even all that good. Well, the people selling from stands on the street were a little less expensive, but as it was terribly hot we resigned ourselves to eating in one of the restaurants, where we could at least get out of the sun. This is where I had the never-ending bowl of ramen. As part of a ‘set meal’ at the restaurant, I got a bowl of ramen. Now, ramen noodles tend to be tangled together in one dense mass when they first arrive, which means that you have to kind of work them free in order to eat them. Well, because of this, it seemed that the more of this ramen I ate, the more noodles were in my bowl. I just kept eating and eating (not very good) ramen until I couldn’t eat another bite, and yet my bowl was still full. It was like some sort of nightmare. Well, after our lunch adventure, we walked down an extremely long shopping arcade in the area. I didn’t know this before coming, but apparently Kobe is famous for its proliferation of shoe stores. I have never seen so many shoe stores in one location before. Sadly, my feet are too big for most all Japanese shoes, so I was not able to buy a souvenir pair of Kobe shoes, but I did buy an amazingly bright blue-green fedora. After our shopping half of the group went home and the rest of us decided to do an hour of karaoke, which was fun, and then head to Umeda in Osaka, because I needed to buy an external hard drive. With my new hard drive in-hand, we wandered around for awhile looking for a place to have dinner, though by this point I was exhausted. We found a really nice and reasonable Italian restaurant across from the Umeda Arts Theatre, which had very tasty garlic bread, but I was unfortunately faced for the second time that day a bowl of noodles that I simply could not finish. When I got home it was all I could do to get up the energy to take my shower before falling into bed.
-Kobe has traditionally had a lot of foreigners, so in addition to a Chinatown, it also has some old mansions that European traders used to own. I’ll have to look into them next time.
-I had thought that the vendors on the street were fairly cheap until I realized that I’d never pay almost a dollar for a single sesame ball in the states, and would definitely not pay $4 for a moon cake
-Afternoon karaoke is amazingly cheap: for an hour it was 220yen per person, whereas an hour in the evening can come to easily 1000yen per person.
-Most karaoke machines only have a small number of mostly older Takarazuka songs, but there is apparently one in Osaka that has tons of songs, including some from the shows that I’ve been to since being here. We’re going later next week.
-I never want to eat ramen again.
-Yodobashi Camera in Osaka Umeda has 320GB external hard drives for 10,090yen, which is just under $100.

Ann Karenina

Monday was my second-to-last time going to Takarazuka on this trip, but I have to say it was a real winner. The play was ‘Anna Karenina’, based, naturally, on the book by Tolstoy and also, naturally, a musical. This was one of the shows in the smaller theatre, and of the three shows that I’ve seen there it was by far the best. The other two were amusing and had good acting and music and the like, but this one really pulled me in. The music was very good and had a suitably ‘epic’ feel to it. The actresses all seemed to throw everything that they had into their roles, which is perhaps a little easier when there are so very many passionate characters. I was also very impressed with the set and lighting this show. I am no expert in either of these categories, but I felt that they did a very good job creating an atmosphere for the piece. The set was extremely simplistic, really, consisting mainly of tall panels painted with bleak winter landscapes in such a way that they could either be construed as being painted interior walls or actual scenery. There were also other pieces that were dropped down to make specific locations like, for instance, a train station. All of the light was rather dim, which is unusual for Takarazuka, and they seemed to use some sort of smoke (I’m sure it wasn’t really smoke, steam? Fog? I don’t know) so that light came in beams instead of seeming ambient. Before the show itself, a couple friends and I wandered about the town, did some shopping and had some lunch. My one friend was going with a bunch of ‘first-timers’ from our program to see ‘Me and My Girl’ while the other friend, myself and one other person went to see ‘Anna Karenina’. After the first friend left for her show, the remaining friend and I sat down inside the theatre building to wait for our third person. While we were waiting, these two women sitting across from us seemed as though they were talking about us, but my usual policy is to ignore things like that. Well, finally one of the women got up, walked over to me and asked in English: “Pardon me, but are you Brooke Shields?”. I was a little surprised. I said ‘no’, and she apologized for being rude (I told her that I was flattered, but she still apologized) and she and her friend left. It was pretty amusing. People have told me that I look like Brooke Shields before, but this is the first time that I’ve actually been mistaken for her. After the show we did some more shopping, stopped in at a cafe for a cup of tea which we immediately followed with dinner at a place that had a “7 gyouza (potstickers) for 150yen” deal going on. I wasn’t hungry, and the gyouza weren’t that good, so I was feeling slightly ill as we left the restaurant. As we walked out, though, we saw these two very fashionable looking women, one of whom was quite tall and had short hair and I thought aloud ‘I bet that they’re Takarazuka actresses..’ to which my far more outgoing friend answered ‘we should ask!’ and bounded up the escalator after them, leaving me fluttering in consternation in her wake. I looked distressed enough that an older couple going up the escalator asked me if I needed help, to which I said that no, she’d be back soon enough. Not a minute later the same couple beckoned me upstairs to show me that my friend was coming back. She had met the two women, asked them if they were actresses, and they said yes. She came back with their names and, sure enough, when I got home and checked my program from ‘Me and My Girl’ there they were in the chorus section! I wish that I had the courage to chase after random people.
-This show answered a long-standing question of mine: with the shear number of shows that they do every year they need astronomical numbers of costumes, but do they actually re-use them? Well, in this show I clearly recognized two, and maybe even three, costume pieces from other shows. I knew that they couldn’t possibly make all-new costumes for every show, especially the smaller ones, but it was nice to have this visually confirmed.
-The new school year at the Takarazuka Music School just started, which meant that we saw several students in their uniforms. I adore the uniforms, mainly because it appears that they haven’t changed at all since the ‘60’s. They even have little hats.
-When I thought a little more about what time I was actually seeing these students, it occurred to me that they were leaving school at about 6pm. That’s really late, and if they were first years they were going to have to be back at ridiculously early o’clock to clean the school top-to-bottom. Pretty strict.
-Just because gyouza are 7 for 150yen does not mean that they are a good deal.

Uji

Saturday my host mother and sister took me to a place outside of Kyoto called Uji. Uji figures prominently in the last ten chapters of the ‘Tale of Genji’ and is also famous for its tea. Our first stop was at a temple called Byodoin, a Buddhist temple that dates to the 11th century AD, and is a designated World Heritage Site. It’s also on the 10-yen coin. Because we were going to have to wait a full hour to walk through the building itself, we contented ourselves with looking at the outside of it, and then the museum, which has replicas and originals of several national treasures associated with the temple, including a host of bodhisattvas on clouds, each one playing a different instrument. After this we took a leisurely walk along the Uji River, bought the best green-tea ice cream that I’ve ever had, sampled some teas and looked into some tea stores. After that we caught a bus to another temple called Mimurotoji, which is famous for its flowers. The temple itself was up some very steep stairs to the back of the compound, but the focus everywhere was clearly on nature. The courtyard of the temple building was filled with urns of water, which I was told would all have blooming lotuses in them before long. The hillside by next to the temple was entirely covered in flowering bushes. The azaleas where almost all in bloom, though it was a bit early for them, and I was told that the hydrangeas that came next would also be extremely beautiful. We stopped at the little tea-stand in the middle of the garden to have some green-tea gelatine with red bean and whipped cream before heading back to the station. Unfortunately on the train ride back my host sister started to feel ill, so we stopped in at the station office for awhile to rest. The people there were really nice and attentive. We made it back in one piece and my host sister went straight to bed. On the train back I had the …opportunity? To speak English with a retired professor who spoke fluently but rather inside my comfort bubble. He seemed nice enough, I guess, but I was still glad to get off the train.
-Uji is very nice and very peaceful, which is apparently why a number of old aristocrats had summer houses there.
-Byodoin is actually famous for its wisteria, but a sign outside of the temple apologized that the wisteria this year was not up to par. It seemed fine to me, but I’m no wisteria expert.
-If I could retire from the world and spend my time thinking about profound things, Mimurotoji Temple would be a good choice of retreat.
-The station attendants take their jobs very seriously. When they heard that my host sister was ill they got one person to check out the situation, and then three people came with a wheel chair to convey her to the station office.
-I believe that I washed my hands with mouthwash at the station office. The bottle was by next to the sink, and was mostly soap-bottle shaped, but it had a distinct minty-freshness that I don’t usually find in hand soap.

The Farewell Party

Friday was a VERY long day, but a good one. The first order of business was to thank the god of Shimogamo shrine for a good year. I don’t know if you remember, but one of our first outings of the program was to ask the god of Shimogamo shrine for a good year, and since the year was pretty wonderful we needed to show our appreciation. It was pretty much the same process as in September. We all filed into a small room where a priest chanted something while we bowed, then we moved into the bigger room in front of the central shrine building. The priestess danced, one of the students offered a branch, there was more chanting and more bowing, then a small bowl of sake for everyone. We got party favours, which included food for our host family’s house-dieties, a little wooden plaque which you can theoretically write a wish on and then hang up at the shrine for it to be granted (I’m keeping mine, because it’s really cute), a small arrow talisman, and a protection charm. After this, my friend and I hurried over to Kitano Tenmangu. The 25th marked my last Kitano market this trip to Kyoto, which was a little sad, but I made the best of it. We only had a couple of hours before we had to start heading in the direction of the next event, the farewell party, but we still made great progress. My friend bought some necessary kimono accessories and some hakama of her own, while I bought a new kimono that caught my eye. It was because I found this kimono so late in the afternoon that I was late for everything that came afterward: if I’d found it earlier I would have had time to find an obi to match, but as it was I found myself slowing down at every stand that sold obi on my way to the bus. I was very late for meeting people at the party, but it turned out alright. For the party I was in two different acts, the first being Japanese dance with the other people I took the class with, and the second a scene from Takarazuka that I was doing with a friend of mine. For the party itself, before the entertainment began, I wore a kimono of my host family’s, which was extremely beautiful: pale, lime-y green with large, hand-painted pink-red peonies on the hem and sleeves. I wish that I would have had more time to wear it, but after dinner and the dance performance, I had to rush down and change into my costume for the Takarazuka bit. My friend and I were performing the ‘confession scene’ from ‘Rose of Versailles’, which is probably one of the most famous scenes in Takarazuka. I was playing Oscar (actually a female character who was raised as a man to carry on in her father’s footsteps as a general), while my friend played Andre, Oscar’s childhood friend. I wore the costume that I’d bought in Harajuku that had caught the notice of the Snow Troupe #2 actress, which is, I think, part of the reason that people liked our skit so much. After the act we had every host parent coming up to us telling us how much they liked our act, and after everything was finished everyone wanted their picture taken with us. There was even an adorable little girl who apparently kept asking her mother ‘Where’s the prince?’ referring to myself, but was almost too shy to have her picture taken with me. I was a little worried about how my dance teacher would react to the whole thing, as we hadn’t had much time to practice our Japanese dance before the performance, but she seemed to be in a good mood when she came over to say ‘hi’ to me afterward. Our teacher was Senrei Nishikawa, a world-renowned dancer who oozes elegance, so I’m always a little nervous around her. Now, after most everyone had left we were all pretty tired, but my host family offered to carry home my (considerable) luggage if I wanted to go out, so a group of us did. We left the hotel with 8 people, had three people back out at Kyoto station, managed to get to Shijo station before two more people called it a night, and finally reached the karaoke place with 3 people. We only sang for an hour, but we made the most of it. Did I mention that I was still wearing my costume? We got a lot of interesting stares, and when we left the karaoke box a group of salarymen stopped dead. I pretended not to notice them. Or the other people staring and pointing.
-The actual words to the scene are pretty ridiculously cheesy, even in Japanese. Consider the following:
Andre: Ah! My unfulfilled dream! I wish that I could freeze forever this moment in a sepia-toned fossil!
Oscar: Andre!
Andre: Oh, how wonderful that I was able to live to see this day!
Also, about half of the dialog consists of them saying each other’s names.
-I am more popular with the older women of this country than ever.
-If you ask the women helping people with kimono if your collar looks alright, they will completely rearrange your kimono. If you ask one of them to tighten something for you, they will proceed to entirely tie your obi for you. They are very helpful.
-They have Handel’s Messiah in the karaoke machine at Karaoke Kan. My first thought was ‘who comes to karaoke to sing something like that?’ but as my second one was ‘Let’s give it a shot!’, I guess that I had my answer.
-A Japanese-style parfait at Karaoke Kan is the usual green tea ice cream, red bean, cornflakes, mochi, some fruit…and is about half whipped cream. On the bottom. I was a little surprised.

Finals are done!

Wednesday was, coincidentally, both our last day of exams and my friend’s birthday. To celebrate both we went out for Indian food and then to karaoke. It was a real blast. We sang all sorts of songs, drank some *very* watered-down sake and caught the last train home. The Indian restaurant that we went to was one I’d been to a couple of times before, and every time I go I think that I won’t have enough food, only to barely finish what I’ve ordered. We all got free lassi with our meals, which I think must have been compliments of the owner, because he was very nice to us and I saw no mention of any such special on the menu. They were pretty tasty, but I think that drinking both mine and my friend’s was a bad idea. At karaoke we got something called ‘nomi hodai’ or ‘all you can drink’, which does not only refer to alcohol, you can order anything off of a limited menu, which includes tea and soda and the like. I tried their sake, but it was not particularly good and came in a ridiculously small glass. Clearly the way that they make money on this is that the drinks are small, and people get distracted by their karaoke or just don’t feel like calling down every four minutes. It was nice to have hot tea available, though. The room itself was pretty amazing. The walls lit-up with a big outer space-themed ‘painting’, there was a little stage-like thing in the corner with its own karaoke readout, and flashing lights overall. Also, I thought that I wouldn’t be able to read the karaoke book in the dark room, but there was a black light or something that made the pages glow enough to read them. It was pretty cool.
-‘all you can drink’ karaoke is really not worth the money.
-Just because you’ve heard a song once does not mean that you can sing it.
-From the song ‘Me and My Girl’ I only know the words ‘Me and my girl’ and ‘happy’.
-The karaoke machine at karaoke kan has a small-scale production from 2000, but nothing recent.
-‘Where in the World?’ from Phantom is a LOT faster than I thought it was. I wound up basically just mumbling melodically.

Tayuu Procession

Today was mostly devoted to studying (and procrastinating) for my final exams, which start on Monday, but this morning my host mother took my host sister and I to see a procession of three Tayuu. I’ve doubtless mentioned before that Tayuu were Edo-period courtesans, and that while the ‘real thing’ doesn’t exist anymore there are a few women who dress up in the specifically Tayuu style of kimono, hair and makeup, and basically perform the same function as geisha do, which is to say going to parties and performing traditional music and dance. The Tayuu also, however, have a couple public appearances, which today was one example of. North of the main part of the city is a small temple, the main gate of which was donated by a famous Tayuu. This same Tayuu’s grave is inside the temple precincts, and it is for the purpose of paying respects to that grave that the three Tayuu this morning were out in public. Now, Tayuu of old used to parade down the main street of the pleasure quarter on their way to a party in a slow, stately fashion befitting a noble woman. They had a specific way of walking where they drag the side of their rather tall shoe in a figure 8 before placing it just barely in front of them, the result is that they move extremely slowly, but in an oddly snake-like manner. They were usually attended by several other courtesans, musicians, their house owner, servants, and an umbrella-bearer, which must have been quite a spectacle. Not that today wasn’t. There was a big crowd gathered the sides of the street, and the bus to the temple was ridiculously crowded. Policemen held a sort of roped enclosure around the Tayuu as they walked to keep the masses of people back, and it was very much a necessary measure. Each Tayuu was elaborately dressed and coiffed and attended by two child attendants and a man with an umbrella. The first one was, in my opinion, the most convincing in the way she walked and the way she stared straight ahead as if there was no one in front of her at all. The second woman was also pretty good, but the third one was talking to her umbrella guy, and broke out of the traditional walk when she wanted to catch up. It was very exciting to see actual people wearing these clothes, and to see an actual person do the walk that I’ve read about in several books. Tayuu are rarer by far than geisha or maiko, and as far as I know can only be found in Kyoto.
-My host mother confirmed that non-maiko dance students fill-out the ranks at the Miyako Odori.
-The Tayuu whose grave they were visiting actually married a wealthy Kyoto merchant. I thought that that sort of thing only happened in Kabuki plays.
-Crowded buses are their own sort of exercise.
-I really need to remember my sunglasses when I leave the house.

Dances at Kitano Shrine

Saturday two friends and I had tickets for the Kitano Odori, the dance performance for the geisha and maiko of the Kamishichiken geisha district. Unlike the Miyako Odori, this show was in the evening. This time we had 1st-class tickets with the tea service included, which was very much worth the extra money. As we were walking to the theatre, we passed a group of maiko who were leaving. I believe that the maiko are split into batches, with one group performing the early show, one the afternoon show and the last group performing in the late show. This would make a lot of sense, especially since the maiko only had a couple dances in the program. Compared to the Gion theatre, the one in Kamishichiken was a lot more intimate, though it might have helped that we were seated on the first floor right at the entrance to the walkway that runs up the side of the theatre to the stage. Before we took our seats, however, we went to our tea service. We were seated in a room with benches and tables organized around a tatami platform which was laid-out with tea ceremony implements. We were shown to empty spaces and given a small Japanese tea cake on a nice plate and a cup of matcha. After a moment a very young maiko and a young geisha came out. The geisha set about doing a tea ceremony, while the maiko sat and was pretty. After we’d had our tea and taken our plate (which we wrapped in the paper that they had helpfully provided for us) we made our way slowly to the theatre itself, walking through the little garden in the courtyard on our way. The performance was made up of several short pieces based (I believe) on folktales. The first piece was about two women, a plum blossom spirit and a cherry blossom spirit, demanding that a young male wisteria spirit decide who was the most beautiful. They started off flirting with him, but soon started fighting with each other in earnest, which seemed to scare the male spirit, who ran off with the two women’s ladies-in-waiting. The next piece was about a young woodcutter who helped a swan by removing an arrow from her wing. In return, the swan wove the woodcutter fine fabric out of its feathers. This made the woodcutter greedy, however, and he demanded of her first more fabric, and then a famous bow that was in the bottom of the nearby lake, figuring that (because she was a water bird) she could get it for him. He bullied the swan into getting it for him, and then, once he had it, decided that he should shoot more swans down so that she could use their feathers to make more cloth. This made the swan (understandably, I feel) unhappy, so she threw herself in front of his arrow. The woodcutter, feeling pretty bad about this, pulled out the arrow, but the swan was extremely displeased and, wrapping the cloth that she’d woven around his neck, dragged him into the lake. The next piece was a comedic one about a fox spirit in the form of a lovely woman trying to trick a hapless traveller, and then, after intermission, was a dance by the maiko set to a song about the Kamishichiken district. Next was a dance piece that, I believe, was about a geisha and her progressively drunker customer enjoying Gion Matsuri, while the next one seemed to about a rabbit, a frog, a monkey and a fox having a good time, but the exact details were hard to understand. It was pretty funny, though. The final dance had all of the geisha and maiko in full formal dress against a backdrop of cherry blossoms, and ended with all of the performers throwing (I believe) handtowels to the audience. I didn’t catch one, which is probably okay. After the show we found some dinner at a lovely little restaurant not far from Kitano Tenmangu shrine. We were the only customers, but the owners were very nice, the food delicious, and the prices quite reasonable. After that it was time to go home, and after wearing kimono all evening it was pretty nice to get into some more comfortable clothes.
-Certain obi knots simply cannot be executed by oneself.
-It is hard to walk quickly in a kimono and zori (kimono shoes, kind of like formal flip-flops).
-I think that a couple of the Kamishichiken geisha are unusually tall. In the finale I saw one who was a good head and shoulders taller than the maiko standing by next to her. I think that she played one of the male roles.
-The kimono were, as expected, extremely beautiful, and I especially liked the hair ornaments for the senior maiko, which were butterflies made out of silver and hung all over in sparkly things.

Dances of the Capital

My study abroad program was nice enough to buy 2nd-class tickets for the Miyako Odori on Thursday for anyone who wanted them, and so naturally I signed up. The truth is, I had wanted 1st-class tickets with the additional tea service, where you can be served matcha and mochi by a maiko on a special plate that you get to keep, but there were no tickets left when the program called, so I took what I could get. 2nd-class tickets have no assigned seat, and are located on the second floor of the Gion Theatre, which is partitioned into tatami-mat boxes, which are supposed to fit about 10 people each. The Miyako Odori is the annual dance program put on by the Gion geisha district, and originally started to revitalize Kyoto after the capital was moved to Tokyo in the mid-19th century. This is one of the only chances that the average person has to see the geisha and maiko of Gion perform live. The program this year was made up of pieces based on ‘The Tale of Genji’, as this is its 1000th anniversary. The program opened, with a dance by all of the maiko in the district in bright blue kimono arrayed along the two walkways on either side of the (1st floor) audience. The next piece was more like a mini-play than a dance, and was the story of the Genji chapter ‘Young Murasaki’. After that was ‘Yuugao’ which was a more dance-oriented piece with three geisha and four maiko, the Geisha with ‘yuugao’ (a flower that looks like a white morning glory, I’m not certain of the English name) patterned kimono, and the maiko with beautiful yuugao flower hair ornaments. The next piece was ‘The Lady Aoi’, one of the more famous chapters from Genji, that was also rather play-like, but suitably creepy. The story is basically that Genji’s wife (Lady Aoi) is attacked by the vengeful (living) spirit of one of his (many) mistresses, the Lady Rokujo. In the original story, Rokujo’s spirit kills Aoi, but in most all adaptations that I’ve seen for theatre, this one included, the spirit is scared away by Buddhist chanting. This piece had rather modern (in my opinion) lighting used to show Rokujo’s attacks, including coloured and strobe-y lights. I actually found this a little disconcerting, as every other part of the performance was very traditional. The next piece was another one with all of the maiko, this time against a beautiful backdrop of Kyoto in the autumn. After this came a dance piece about ‘Ukifune’, a winter scene, which set up the grand finale which had every dancer onstage, and all surrounded by cherry blossoms. It was a lot of fun, and I am very glad that I went. I’ve been reading about these performances for years, so to actually see one was extremely exciting.
-You can still see quite well from the second floor, only the very beginnings of the walkways are obscured.
-I was surprised at the number of maiko that performed, there are 30 listed in the program, which is quite a lot.
-Like in Kabuki, the stage that is used for geisha performances has several platforms that can be used for lifting set pieces and dancers to stage level from below.

Spring River Poems

Most of this weekend I spent in my room finishing up a big project for one of my classes, but on Sunday morning I managed to get out of the house. A relative of my host family’s was in town for a waka performance at Kamigamo shrine, and so we all went down to see her there. The relative is part of the same waka singing group as my host mother is, which meets at the house of an aristocratic Kyoto family but also performs here and there. I’m not certain that I’ve explained here what waka are and why one would sing them, so I guess that I’ll explain now. Waka are poems that have been written from before 900 AD until the present, with syllables in a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern. These poems were written in vast numbers by the Heian period aristocracy, and are still written (though naturally not as frequently) but people today. These poems were not only read, but also chanted to music, which is what my host mother and her niece do. The morning of the performance I dressed in my hakama and we all three went down to Kamigamo shrine, a major shrine in Kyoto on the upper Kamo river. It was a beautiful day, and all around the massive cherry tree in front of the shrine people had spread out blankets and were enjoying the nice weather. We walked past the festival-like atmosphere towards the side of the shrine, where there is a beautiful moss garden with a stream down the middle. It would have been very peaceful if there hadn’t been masses of people pressed up to the bamboo-fenced enclosure and cameramen everywhere. The main players came in soon after we found decent places to stand: The Kamigamo priestess, the two girls there to help her, a group of young children in Heian page-boy costumes, a group of costumed musicians, the waka group, and five waka masters, also in full Heian costume. The five waka writers took their places along the calculatedly meandering stream under umbrellas, and everyone else took their places over to the side. The Priestess gave the theme that the poems for the day were supposed to follow: The river in spring. With the theme announced, all of the masters went to work grinding their ink, and a little wooden raft with a single cup of sake on it was let loose at the top of the stream to be guided down to the bottom by children using bamboo poles. When the sake reached the bottom, it was retrieved and brought to one of the writers. This was all accompanied by ‘mood music’ from the musicians on the side. Theoretically, the writers in a gathering like this have until the sake cup meant for them reaches the bottom to write a poem, the idea being that they have to trade the waka for their sake. In this gathering, however, at what appeared to be a designated span of time a couple of men with a lacquered tray came by and collected the poems, bringing them to the master of ceremonies. Here the waka singers came in, positioned themselves around the waka, and sang it out for everyone to hear. Each writer stood when his or her poem was being sung. In this manner we heard five waka, and every writer received at least one cup of sake before everyone paraded out again. There was only one obvious mishap, which was inevitable. At one point the sake raft met with some sort of trouble, causing it to sink or fall over, at which point the kid pushing it along tried to go in after it, which caused some consternation among the priests running things. One minute there were two puzzled looking kids, the next there were two kids and three priests crowded around a single manicured bend in the stream. The day was all a lot of fun for me, as I’ve read about gatherings like this in ‘The Tale of Genji’ and my various history texts. After it was over we took some pictures, and then went to feed the shrine’s horse, which is supposed to be for the shrine’s god. He was a very ill-mannered horse, but a handsome one.
-I learned afterward from my host sister that the poem that each writer was going to show had been decided upon beforehand so that the singers would have time to practice, which makes sense.
-The Kamigamo (“upper-kamo river”) shrine is a sort of ‘sister-shrine’ to Shimogamo (“lower-kamo river”) shrine. The famous Aoi Matsuri (one of the ‘three great festivals of Kyoto’) held in late May moves the shrines’ god between the two shrines.
-Traditional Japanese music with drums and flute is very nice. When not amplified. In my opinion everyone would have been able to hear just fine without the microphones (okay, they might have had to use on for the koto) as it was really not that big of a space. The amplified flute was extremely shrill.
-There is some sort of famous cake from Kamigamo shrine, but it sells out quickly. We didn’t move quickly enough.

Beer, Dance, and Red Bean Jelly

Sunday was a very long, very tiring day. The reason for this was that Sunday was the final recital for my Japanese dance class, which I have been taking all school year. The performance was on an actual Noh stage, and for the occasion all six of us exchange students were dressed in beautiful kimono that we were able to rent for free from a bridal company with which our teacher has a long-standing relationship. Mine was bright red with a rose pattern, and my obi was gold and dark brown. Everyone looked amazing. The only thing is, once we were dressed, we could not eat or slouch or use the bathroom. For almost six hours. The first piece that I danced was called ‘Takasago’, which was the dance that we’d all learned during the spring semester. Five of us learned it, but we were split into two groups, one with two people (my group) and the other with three. The most difficult part was staying the same relative distance away from my dance partner the whole time, especially because I had about four inches on her in height. The second piece that I was in was ‘Sakura’, which we’d learned during the fall semester, and which also went very well. In between the two dances, and then between ‘sakura’ and the end of the program, there was a very long time spent sitting still in full view of the audience, on a bench, where we were supposed to wait. That was the hard part. After a couple of hours, my back got very sick of being held stiffly in one place, and my legs hurt from trying to sit without crossing them at all. I only realized that I was ravenously hungry when we finally got undressed because the obi was extremely tight. I don’t believe that I’ve mentioned here my beer saga. Because we were able to rent our kimono free of charge, we were told by our dance teacher that we were to get a gift of Asahi beer, the price to be split between all six of us. The gift was supposed to come from a nice department store, where they would wrap it nicely and put a special sort of paper on it called a ‘noshi’ that would have all of our names on it. I volunteered to find this beer, and for the week leading up to the performance I went to every major department store that I could looking for a packaged Asahi beer gift of the correct price, to no avail: everywhere I went was sold out. Finally, I asked my dance teacher if the gift could come from the somewhat less than glamorous Liquor Mountain, which I knew would have a decent stock, and might even deliver the beer (it was going to be a significant amount, about two cases) to the theatre itself so that I would not have to attempt to carry it myself. This was okay, so I went there, bought the beer, told them to wrap it nicely and have it delivered. Well, when it arrived at the theatre I was shocked: in a country where wrapping things is quite culturally important, the two plain cases of beer had been wrapped in hideous paper that didn’t even cover the whole box. The stickers from the delivery service were prominently stuck onto the top of it, and I could tell from looking through the wrapping that they had only put *my* name on the noshi paper. After the performance, I brought the beer down to show to our dance teacher, so that I could apologize for its hideousness. My teacher looked at it and said ‘Ah, you bought the actual beer? Not a beer ticket?’ I wanted to cry. We took off the paper, everyone wrote their names on the noshi, and then, because our teacher said that it was too heavy for her to take to the kimono rental place herself, she asked us to get it there instead. Now, the rental place is within easy walking distance of the theatre…if you aren’t carrying two cases of beer. I volunteered. I got about two blocks before my friend said that I should just call a cab. By the time I got home my whole body ached and I was positively starving. My host family had been kind enough to come see me dance ‘Takasago’, and even gave me a congratulatory gift when I got home. It was a learning experience, but I’m glad that it’s over.
-Make sure that you completely understand your instructions before attempting to carry them out.
-A case of beer is very heavy. Two cases of beer together are much *too* heavy.
-Liquor Mountain wraps things like a frat boy, do not buy gifts there.
-‘Toraya’ (a famous Japanese sweets store, most famous for its red bean jelly) has service that makes you feel like someone very important, but don’t go there in a hurry, as it seems to take the entire staff to ring up and wrap two gifts.
-When in doubt, buy food at the convenience store.

On the Flower Road

On Saturday I went to Takarazuka (“Again?!!” yes, again) to see another grand theatre performance, this one called ‘Me and My Girl.’ The show itself is based off of a British one with, I believe, the same name, about an aristocratic English house that discovers the only heir available is an illegitimate son of the former patriarch who has grown up in the wrong part of London. He comes complete with no sense of how to act in polite society, a cockney accent (approximated in Japanese as a very informal sort of dialect, I believe) and a girlfriend from the same part of town. The show is only nominally about trying to reform the future heir, choosing to focus more on his relationship with his girlfriend, Sally, who is not deemed a fit companion for a future Count of Hereford. Before the show, my friend and I decided to enjoy the cherry blossom trees that line the ‘hana no michi’ or ‘flower road’ that leads from the train station to the theatre. They were all in full bloom, and since we had lovely weather we sat awhile underneath them and ate ‘hanami dango’ or ‘flower-viewing dumplings’, which are sweet glutinous rice cakes in three flavours (sakura, which is pink, a white one, and a green one that is some sort of sweet herb) arranged in a stick. We also ate lunch at a little café near the station, which was England-themed. The play was extremely fun, and was my first time seeing live one of the two-act variety of Takarazuka play. You might remember this from descriptions of other shows, but frequently the first act is a play with a plot of sorts, whereas the second is a revue. In the two-act type, the play itself is, of course, two acts like almost all plays that I’ve gone to see in the US. The very end, however, is devoted to revue-like numbers set to different versions of the music from the preceding play. The intermission falls between the regular Act1/ Act2 break, with the revue beginning directly after the usual end of the play. Interestingly enough, this was the first play for the newly-graduated class of the Takarazuka Music School. This meant that before the play started their class representatives gave a little speech (nothing fancy, just about how they were going to try their best and work hard) and sang a song called ‘Our Takarazuka’. At the end of the first act there was, of course, a big feel-good number with the whole cast. I was sitting in a better seat than usual, but I was still on the second floor. Now, the view from the second floor is still great, but one does feel a little disconnected from the action onstage, and especially envious when the actresses step into the aisles. As such, I was extremely surprised when, in the big first act finale, the new graduates poured out into the central aisle of the second floor seats! I could not have been sitting any closer. It was very exciting to be brought into the atmosphere, and it was the closest I’ve ever been to a professional actress of any sort, though I had to remind myself afterwards that they were probably about 19 years old. The part of the show that the new people appear in is actually always the big can-can line-dance in the revue, and they did a great job, I felt. There was, however, one little mishap: one of the dancers’ shoes flew off during the middle of the number. Luckily it flew all the way into the orchestra pit, because if it had landed onstage it would have been a hazard to the dancers and would have to be removed by someone, and if it had gotten all the way to the audience it could have taken someone’s eye out. To the girl’s credit, I didn’t see her miss a beat, she just kept dancing with one shoe on as if nothing had happened. After the show we waited around a bit for some of the actresses to leave the theatre, but some of them must have snuck around the back or something, because not nearly enough people came out where all of the fans were standing.
-The flower road is definitely worth seeing in spring. I’ll have to be back again.
-I had seen some of the actresses from this troupe when I went to see ‘Tales of Hoffman’ a couple months before, and it was exciting to see people I recognized on stage, even if they were in (much) smaller parts. This really is part of the fun of going to the smaller shows.
-If you can find used Takarazuka magazines at Book-off or some other general used book store then they’ll be about 100yen, but at the official used Takarazuka goods store they are about 380yen. Back issues at the gift shop, which are new, are 600yen.
-After the run of this show, the lead female-role actress for the troupe is retiring, which doesn’t mean a lot to me, as I’ve only ever seen her in this one show. I am, however, sad to see that one of the older actresses (she debuted in 1983) is retiring after the run as well. I’d seen that particular actress in this show (where she was very good), but also in my DVD of ‘Phantom’, where she played Carlotta extremely well.
-The people at the okonomiyaki place closest to the grand theatre are really nice, and the atmosphere is cute, but their okonomiyaki is not very big or thick, and tends to take awhile.

Shimabara and the Sumiya

For my architecture course we had a field trip to Shimabara to see a place called Sumiya. Shimabara was a red-light district established in the mid-17th century outside of the precincts of Kyoto, and the Sumiya was its most high-class establishment (called an ageya) where those with enough means could hold lavish banquets with Tayuu (top-rank courtesans) in attendance. The city of Kyoto has, however, enveloped Shimabara in the years since it was built, so what was once a safe distance from any respectable location in the city is now an easy train ride away from Kyoto station. Sumiya is very big. While it was still a functioning ageya it bought up the buildings on either side and behind it until it almost filled the block it was situated on. The first floor, which has a massive kitchen, a beautiful garden and two very large rooms for partying are open to the public, but if one wishes access to the top floor, where the most lavish and famous rooms are located, a reservation is necessary. On the second floor there is one beautiful and unique room following another, starting with a small room sporting a backsplash made by layering silver over crinkled-paper for an unusual texture and sliding doors decorated with paintings of hanging bamboo screens. The next room’s ceiling is covered in hand-painted paper in the shape of fans, with no two alike. This fan motif is echoed in the door pulls, and the sliding doors on the far end open to reveal a little stage for musicians, which could be entered from an outside passageway. The next room’s most interesting feature was the latticework on the paper screens that let in outside light, which had been carved (rather than bent, as is easier and more usual) in a wavy pattern that tricks the eye into seeing moving, 3d waves. The final room is the most famous, and for good reason. The plaster and ceiling are completely black, partially from a century or so of candle smoke, but also, I believe, by design. Into the wood and plaster all over the room is inlaid mother of pearl in intricate patterns. The windows on the far end are almost gothic in shape, and have glass that was hand-made in Holland back in the 18th century. I can’t even begin to imagine how much that cost. Sumiya was actually a popular hangout for the Shinsengumi (the Shogun’s police force in Kyoto at the end of the Edo period), as their headquarters was not far away. In the mother-of-pearl room, there are several sword slashes on one of the posts, the result of one of the samurai getting angry and/or very drunk. The house as a whole is the only example left of an ageya, and is one of the very rare buildings that has survived from the Edo period intact, having never (even once!) burned down. It is a protected cultural property of some sort (there are many levels), and so is kept in very good condition.
-This was the most beautiful single building that I think I’ve been to since being here. I especially liked its eclectic feel, and the way it combines elements from all the native schools of Japanese architecture freely.
-So as not to disturb the customers’ view of the garden, the roofs over the terraces and porches were made without posts, using a sort of leverage system inside the roof itself to support the overhang.

Sakura, Sakura

I feel that I should say something about Japan’s most beloved flower, the cherry blossom or ‘sakura’, as it has recently come into season. For the weeks leading up to the trees actually blooming all weather conversations commented on how the current conditions were going to affect the sakura. The weather report itself started predicting blooming times in different regions in Japan weeks ago, and for the last couple weeks there has been a special segment showing where the sakura are at their best. I went to see some of them myself on the Imperial Palace grounds one weekend while I was taking a break from work, and was quite impressed by them. The Imperial Palace has a wide variety of species of sakura, allowing for the longest possible blooming season. The flowers precede the leaves by a fair span, it would seem, making the trees look as though they were blanketed in pale-pink snow. All sorts of people were under the trees when I went, eating, talking, playing with their children and, of course, taking pictures of each other. I’ve heard, however, that sakura are at their best when the petals begin to fall, as happens not long after they bloom. The poetic allure of the sakura is due mainly to its impermanence, a theme that is extremely pervasive in Japanese literature as well as Buddhist teachings. In ancient times the aristocracy would sit under the cherry blossom trees and write poems about their delicate beauty, and in the modern day every company, student group, and family seems to take time out to eat (and drink) under the falling petals.