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.