TAIKO: It's a man's world

Japan has many festivals such as HANAMI (cherry blossom viewing) in the spring; TSUKIMI (moon viewing) in September; OBON (respect for the dead) during the late summer; and OSHOUGATSU (New Year's day). The region I live in is famous for another festival known as TAIKO, held during the middle of every October. My city is especially famous for this event in which men carry large MIKOSHI (portable shrine)

on their shoulders and there is a TAIKO drummer inside. They do this in celebration of the rice harvest. The MIKOSHI is said to weigh over two tons and only men are allowed to carry it. Smaller MIKOSHI are made for children and women to carry. Whenever I ask people what their favorite festival is, they reply "Taiko". Everyone gets really into the spirit of things and dress up.
Neighboring cities have DANJIRI (portable shrine on wheels):
Men and women are allowed to pull these shrines. Following the DANJIRI are carts of sake (alcohol) and everyone chants and drinks while the crowd follows them around. On the first night they trekked from the center of the city up into the mountains.

Each city in my area has their own version of the festival that lasts for 3 days, including activities that carry on throughout the night. I was given Friday off in order to enjoy the holiday. I ended up going to this huge park with other foreign English teachers from around the local cities. What was funny was realizing just how many students I teach as every 5 minutes I heard my name being shouted and cameras flashing. I felt like a celebrity.

Autographs - OK!

We Speak Good English

Since I have arrived to Japan, I spent my evenings sharping my biking skills in order to prepare myself for traveling to work. As noted in my first post - I suck.

However, though I have dutifully reported on my nightly happenings, I realize that I never mentioned that my days were also filled with work. Unlike my fellow JETs in neighboring towns, I was put to work right away visiting different schools and giving guidance for the upcoming speech contests.

That's right kids! My "city" and prefecture both have English speech contests held annually in the Fall to stimulate an interest in English and help students improve their personal skills.

>insert smiley face here<

It was actually fun to go around to all the junior high schools and meet the teachers and some students. When I started teaching, I could find them in the class and be like, "BUDDY!"

The topics were usually club activities or a grandparent's death. There were occasional ones that were self-reflection and even fewer that included personal interests or opinions.

So the first half of the month of August was spent in this fashion: speech contest, lunch, speech contest, biking. My RA and fellow JET David would join me and slowly convinced me to bike to these schools where I would have mini-heart attacks trying to avoid students spending their summer days at school for club activities. The second half of the month was switched up since David went back to the States and I began Japanese lessons: Japanese lessons, lunch, speech contest, biking. It was during this time I got sick for the first time. It was not pretty...

Once school started, I would teach (OR give self-introductions and play games) during the day and assist the English teachers after school with the speech contest participant(s). It sometimes got repetitive but I did see improvement and that was cool.

The hard part was when I went to the actual contest and watched them perform. I felt like a mother watching her baby on stage and was so nervous. Plus, how does one determine who wins? I watched these kids struggle to memorize difficult English translated from a Japanese speech and spoken effectively with a strict time limit. I felt that there should have been more prizes because the crestfallen look on some of the kids faces was like,"AH!"

The city contest had an added bonus in that for the 15 minutes the judges were in the back room making decisions, David and I were asked to perform at the contest. Now, I refused to give another speech, although David spent his time talking about his paintings. I decided for mine to give a short skit on SOMETHING. I managed to recruit David and Juliana, a JET in a neighboring town that I met in New York, and we reenacted how students play tricks on new teachers: KICK ME! sign (and yes, Juliana actually kicked me and I face-planted), wet willie, wedges, noogies, spit balls, etc. It ended with me (as the poor unfortunate teacher) assigning detention and laughing evilly. Scarily enough, my laughter echoed off the wall. Two of my students won prizes and one of David's. All girls though.

Afterward, there was a party for the teachers (enkai) and some of the judges and other persons of important stature who attended. One man kept putting kick me signs on everyone. I expected this from the kids...but the adults were really into it too. Haha.

The prefectural speech contest was uneventful with a surprising win from a student in our city.