Tomorrow night, J and I are going to see One World Taiko perform at the Seattle Sacred Music Festival, just down the street from the Ghetto Apartment. I haven't heard "real" taiko since I was in Japan and spend the weekend in Ookamura (OH-kah-moo-rah), a tiny village in Nagano prefecture. The weekend trip was one of the most rewarding excursions I ventured upon during my 10 months in Tokyo, though it was close to the end of my time there. It also afforded me the interesting, if surreal, experience of an overnight in an authentic Japanese farmhouse with a farming family.
Four other girls, two European, one Chinese, and I, stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Yano. The Yanos were apparently rice farmers, as evidenced by their spacious paddies. Their children had long since left home but they lived alone in their massive farmhouse presumably planting and picking away. It wouldn't surprise me if they did their own farming, but who knows, I didn't ask.
At the Yanos, we were treated to a stupendous feast featuring cuisine I couldn't quite identify as Japanese. Mrs. Yano, a tiny, hunched woman, prepared the whole thing herself, without an ounce of help. She even hand-made udon and let us try a turn at the crank. Mr. Yano, on the other hand was content to drink and smoke and then repeat in the reverse order. He was obviously disappointed that we weren't boys. He kept mentioning in a rather beligerent manner that they'd had boys stay with them during the same exchange a few years ago. The boys, he said, were quite happy to drink their asses off with him. While we, on the other hand, were not.
( Continue...)
The European girls were strangely reserved about drinking. The Chinese girl was just obnoxiously reserved in general. I wasn't against drinking with Mr. Yano per se, it's just that at that point I had been ceremoniously overfed and unceremoniously drunk so often that my heart wasn't in it. Also, I hadn't slept well the night before, despite being lulled into a stupor by crickets, and my tired eyes were dry with the smoke from his cigarettes. Nevertheless, I after a few small glasses of Sapporo, I agreed to drink with Mr. Yano and immediately became his best friend.
We got down to the business of drinking and making the type of awkward conversation one has in a second language with a stranger. It was hard to follow what he was saying not only because he was drinking but because he spoke in traditional Japanese male-speak. I wasn't sure whether to be pleased or offended that he didn't deem it necessary to clean things up for me, but either way he was damn difficult to understand. After five beers, my brain did a pretty good job of filling in the blanks.
Mrs. Yano just sat silently while Mr. Yano and I yammered on and on and the other guests stared in a food coma at the massive mountains of edibles in front of them. At one point, Mr. Yano told me how me how much he LOVED American women. Eyeing me hungrily, he told me that I had to be careful though, because American women are only so beautiful until they get married. Then they just let themselves go! Having eaten and drank WAY more than I could stomach (and packing an extra ten pounds from ten months of doing so), I retreated to the bath. I wasn't in there more than two minutes when Mr. Yano asked if I needed any help. Hmm... He hadn't asked any of the OTHER girls, when they'd departed sheepishly from our drunken banter, if *they* needed help in the bath.
I managed a suspicious "no!" through the door, which I thought would stay locked, and another fifteen minutes later when he asked the same thing as I was towelling off. I came out of the bathroom warm, fluffy, and quite a bit soberer, to find Mr. Yano peeing off the porch. Pretending not to have seen, I ducked into the empty tatami room where the four of us girls were sleeping on futons. I feel asleep quite easily (alcohol is at least good for that) and only woke once in the night to the insistent scrabbling of mice in the ceiling above me.
In the morning, Ms. Yano put us in their van and drove us faster than the fear of God back to the Ookamura Cultural Center.
Looking back, I realize how odd it must have been for them to have us in their home, as it was for us to be their guests. They gave me a fond impression, which is more than can be said for some of the other homestays... one friend stayed in a home where a snot-nosed toddler hacked & coughed all over them, then screamed for the entirety of their visit. I do wish that I'd seen the rest of their house, or had more time to learn about their lives.
They aren't the source of my taiko memory; that's the kids of the Ookamura Cultural Center. But somehow the taiko makes me think of them.
Posted on November 04, 2005 @ 6:04 PM | 0 comments
Four other girls, two European, one Chinese, and I, stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Yano. The Yanos were apparently rice farmers, as evidenced by their spacious paddies. Their children had long since left home but they lived alone in their massive farmhouse presumably planting and picking away. It wouldn't surprise me if they did their own farming, but who knows, I didn't ask.
At the Yanos, we were treated to a stupendous feast featuring cuisine I couldn't quite identify as Japanese. Mrs. Yano, a tiny, hunched woman, prepared the whole thing herself, without an ounce of help. She even hand-made udon and let us try a turn at the crank. Mr. Yano, on the other hand was content to drink and smoke and then repeat in the reverse order. He was obviously disappointed that we weren't boys. He kept mentioning in a rather beligerent manner that they'd had boys stay with them during the same exchange a few years ago. The boys, he said, were quite happy to drink their asses off with him. While we, on the other hand, were not.
( Continue...)
The European girls were strangely reserved about drinking. The Chinese girl was just obnoxiously reserved in general. I wasn't against drinking with Mr. Yano per se, it's just that at that point I had been ceremoniously overfed and unceremoniously drunk so often that my heart wasn't in it. Also, I hadn't slept well the night before, despite being lulled into a stupor by crickets, and my tired eyes were dry with the smoke from his cigarettes. Nevertheless, I after a few small glasses of Sapporo, I agreed to drink with Mr. Yano and immediately became his best friend.
We got down to the business of drinking and making the type of awkward conversation one has in a second language with a stranger. It was hard to follow what he was saying not only because he was drinking but because he spoke in traditional Japanese male-speak. I wasn't sure whether to be pleased or offended that he didn't deem it necessary to clean things up for me, but either way he was damn difficult to understand. After five beers, my brain did a pretty good job of filling in the blanks.
Mrs. Yano just sat silently while Mr. Yano and I yammered on and on and the other guests stared in a food coma at the massive mountains of edibles in front of them. At one point, Mr. Yano told me how me how much he LOVED American women. Eyeing me hungrily, he told me that I had to be careful though, because American women are only so beautiful until they get married. Then they just let themselves go! Having eaten and drank WAY more than I could stomach (and packing an extra ten pounds from ten months of doing so), I retreated to the bath. I wasn't in there more than two minutes when Mr. Yano asked if I needed any help. Hmm... He hadn't asked any of the OTHER girls, when they'd departed sheepishly from our drunken banter, if *they* needed help in the bath.
I managed a suspicious "no!" through the door, which I thought would stay locked, and another fifteen minutes later when he asked the same thing as I was towelling off. I came out of the bathroom warm, fluffy, and quite a bit soberer, to find Mr. Yano peeing off the porch. Pretending not to have seen, I ducked into the empty tatami room where the four of us girls were sleeping on futons. I feel asleep quite easily (alcohol is at least good for that) and only woke once in the night to the insistent scrabbling of mice in the ceiling above me.
In the morning, Ms. Yano put us in their van and drove us faster than the fear of God back to the Ookamura Cultural Center.
Looking back, I realize how odd it must have been for them to have us in their home, as it was for us to be their guests. They gave me a fond impression, which is more than can be said for some of the other homestays... one friend stayed in a home where a snot-nosed toddler hacked & coughed all over them, then screamed for the entirety of their visit. I do wish that I'd seen the rest of their house, or had more time to learn about their lives.
They aren't the source of my taiko memory; that's the kids of the Ookamura Cultural Center. But somehow the taiko makes me think of them.
Posted on November 04, 2005 @ 6:04 PM | 0 comments
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