Category: Blog

Tanabata!

Published July 7, 2010 by Alisha

With summer in Japan comes heat, humidity, increasingly irritating insects, and festivals (along with some other stuff, I’m sure)! Tanabata is a summer festival observed every year on July 7th. This event is a celebration of the story of two lovers called Orihime and Hikoboshi (AKA the stars Vega and Altair). In accordance with the legend of their relationship, these two are separated by the Milky Way and can only come together once every year on the seventh day of the seventh month.

Tradition dictates the writing of wishes onto small strips of paper called tanzaku and attaching them to stalks of bamboo. Many communities will also hold parades or display streamers from buildings. After the festival, the wishes and streamers may often be burned or floated down the river.

Our office had its own bamboo stalk in the reception area for each student (and staff member) to attach a wish to:

Students began writing their wishes last Tuesday so we could ensure a full stalk by the date of the actual event. We tried to get most of the students to write their wishes in English, and for those unable to, we provided a little assistance. I peeked around at what some of the kids wrote:

This was written by one of my students (she wrote in English too, but her Japanese handwriting is nicer). It reads “I want to become a high school student”.

This one was written by Yusuke, a university student in his early twenties. His English is astoundingly good – he’s been studying at our school for the majority of his life and you’d think he’d spent time abroad based on how natural his English sounds. He stays extremely busy with school, but always manages to have a cheery disposition at his classes with my coworker.

The nature of the wishes written here is representative of the majority of the things written by the rest of the students. Countless “I hope I get good grades” or “I want to improve X skill” litter our now-bent bamboo stalk.

“I hope my family is safe” and “I’d like to have X profession” are also common. In fact, the only one I could find that mentioned receiving a new possession was the “puppy” note pictured above.

I couldn’t help but wonder what kinds of wishes American children would have written. How many would have chosen to write “I hope my family is healthy” or “I’d like to pass my final examinations”? How many would have scribbled a note for an Xbox or the new iPhone? I’m not saying Japanese children wouldn’t also go crazy to receive a shiny new toy, but I found it interesting when I noticed the different nature of these personal wishes. A little research reveals that traditionally boys and girls wish for an improvement in skills, or they express a desire for self improvement. Probably something we could all use now and then.

My wish was pretty simple:

“Happiness, success, and cooler temperatures”. I figure with a wish this vague at least one is bound to come true eventually.

Square (or circle) dancing, Japan-style

Published June 30, 2010 by Alisha

Last weekend I attended Guji Odori, an old-fashioned Japanese style dance party. This particular festival/party features dances originating from the Gifu prefecture of Japan. Gifu prefecture is located West of the Tokyo area. Throughout the summer months, Gifu prefecture holds a number of dance festivals for people to take part in these traditional shindigs. For those of us either unwilling or incapable of heading to Gifu for the sake of a festival, however, there is Guji Odori. This took place over the course of a weekend about a 5 minute walk from Gaienmae station in Aoyama.

This is one of those events you can literally let your ears lead the way to. The drums and music could be heard from the station exit, and I think many people who showed up may have just wandered to the area out of curiosity. This is the entrance gate – admission was free. Food and beer was available within the confines of the dance area, and many of the shops on the street had munchy-type food (gyoza, soba, shumai, etc.) available for purchase.

Many of the people attending the event came dressed in what might be described as the “summer variation” of the kimono. This is called a yukata. It’s easier to wear and lighter than the many-layered and formal kimono. The heat was intense this afternoon, and everyone was given a fan to use. When not in use, most people stuck them in the bow around the waist (called an obi). You can also just see some of the traditional wooden sandals worn by most everyone at the event. Both men and women wear the sandals and the yukata – the designs typically differ based on sex, but the style remains much the same.

All around the event area are lanterns like these. You can see a larger, similar lantern in the first picture. These lanterns spanned the entire event area – from all four corners of the dance arena to the box where the musicians sat in the middle.

This is the main event square and the musicians for the festival. On the other side of the hut, a sign is displayed to tell the dancers which dance is currently being performed. Just as the current dance ends, the sign for the next dance is displayed. The primary music at this event consisted of a drum, a singer, a shamisen, and a larger flute-recorder like instrument. The dancers also clapped where applicable in the dance, and their feet also provided a sense of rhythm. Simple, but goosebump-raising to watch.

The participants for this event were a varied group. As mentioned earlier, many attended wearing yukata, but a wide number of folks showed up in every day clothing – jeans and t-shirts, shorts and sneakers…I saw a girl wearing a Pikachu hat near the center of the circle, and even one salaryman still wearing his suit and tie. These dances all have some kind of historical significance – they’re very repetitive and easy to catch on to. They mimic everyday life in Gifu prefecture (OLD everyday life, I should point out). Dances depict simple aspects of existence like a man riding a horse, a girl folding the sleeves of her kimono to play, and a farmer plowing a field. The dances featured simple steps and clapping motions and were performed while moving slowly in a circle around the box the musicians sat in.

These dances are simple and anyone who wanted to participate was welcome to. There were very few foreigners present at this event and even fewer chose to join in the dance, but anyone could do it. Just watching for a few minutes to get the basic step in place should be enough for even the least skilled dancer out there.

While this event took place over the course of a weekend in Tokyo, these kinds of festivals continue throughout the summer months in Gifu prefecture. The internet is a great place to search if you’re interested in attending one of these events – rumor has it there are secret dance parties for those people “in the know”. I’m putting together a video about this at the moment and hope to have it up on YouTube shortly! Hope you enjoyed the photos!

’tis the season

Published April 14, 2010 by Alisha

It’s my first spring in Japan, and from the end of March to early April I finally got to see the sakura trees here in full bloom. I checked out a festival in my city’s park, wandered around my neighborhood, and in general just enjoyed things throughout the time the trees were blooming (a period of about a couple weeks, this year). These photos aren’t the best ever, but they’re something. Enjoy.

By now, most of the trees are losing their petals, and you can see them littering the streets and floating in the air. That, too, has its own kind of beauty. The whole transition into spring here feels like an event – admittedly, it’s an event that means a lot of people go out to the park armed with beer and blue tarps, but it’s fun. I’m looking forward to seeing all of this happen again next year.

There’s a video in the works about this – I’ve just been lazy about editing. It’ll be up soon!

Recap: Mt. Takao Firewalking Festival

Published March 21, 2010 by Alisha

This post is a little late in coming, because I put up the video first and subsequently became lazy about blogging it. Apologies. Here’s the written recap of the event.

On Sunday, March 14th, 2010, I attended the Takaosan Hiwatari Matsuri, or Mt. Takao Firewalking festival. This is a festival held at the base of Mt. Takao to pray for world peace and do some firewalking. I arrived about 15 minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin and checked out the surrounding area a little bit. This is a shrine near where the event was held.

The main event of the ceremony is to burn a huge leafy pile, rake the coals into lanes, and have everyone in attendance walk across them. This is the pile pre-fire.

At the beginning of the ceremony, the mountain priests head to the shrine to chant and pray before heading into the square with the giant grass pile.

After a considerable amount of time performing repetitive chants, blessings, and displays of symbolic weapons, the pile is lit with a couple of torches. It smokes for a bit, then goes up in flames. I felt the heat from where I was standing on the hill – I can only imagine what the priests on the ground down there were feeling.

Once all the material has burned, the fire is raked into two lanes for everyone to walk across.

The priests bless the lanes (at least, I’m guessing that’s what they were doing with their emphatic tree-branch-waving and low muttering), and they walk across first.

After that, all of us lesser, common folk get the chance to give things a shot. Should you choose to do this, you’ll remove your shoes, roll up the legs of your pants, stick your feet in some salt, walk across the coals, stick your feet in more salt, get a blessing from a priest, and be done.

I enjoyed the experience. I came away from things smelling like a campfire and I don’t really feel much more peaceful or enlightened despite my treacherous (NOT) coal walking adventure, but I was glad I went. The coals were only really warm when I walked across them – not hot. True to the form of Japanese ceremonies, the event was long. It was about an hour and a half to two hours before the coal walking actually began, and I had to wait around 45 minutes for my turn (which took all of 15 seconds). This is one event I’d recommend watching the video for the full effect.

In other news, classes are going great and I’m really enjoying myself! The weather is growing more warm and amazing by the day, and I can’t be happier with life at the moment. In my days off I’ve been sampling food, catching up with fantastic people, and enjoying the sunshine. I’m re-discovering my inner musical nerd and am loading up on history and theory. There’s nothing I can complain about and I hope it stays this way! Hope you’re all having a fantastic spring (or autumn, wherever you are)!

Recap: Pink Ball 2009

Published December 3, 2009 by Alisha

I’ve been lazy about finishing the video from Pink Ball, but there’s really no excuse not to put up some stills from the video and explain.

Pink Ball is a big fundraiser gala; different from the run in that it’s a black tie event where people are supposed to come and spend massive amounts of money, eat exciting food, and be entertained. The run and the ball were very different beasts to plan. This year’s ball saw about 210 participants attending. We organized somewhere around 100 prizes, entertainment from Taiko group Gocoo (again, yes, they’re great), bands provided by Janica Sims of J-cast (she’s fabulous), and a “surprise” performance by magician Cyril. Everything ran very smoothly, so most people working (me included) got to enjoy a little of the entertainment. I have pictures of nearly everything, save for Cyril’s performance (My boss instructed me to slay anyone taking pictures during his act, to be honest).

I spent the morning at the office wrapping up a few loose ends and cleaning off my desk because Pink Ball was my last day. Francesca and I had to wait around for our programs to arrive (they had been stuck in customs, as you may have seen on my twitter feed from that day). A few more last minute packages came in, I had a few things to prepare, but then we were off to the hotel. By the time I arrived, most things were setup. My only job was to guard a box we had prepared with hundreds of thousands of yen for caterers, the band, etc. So I sat and filmed/took photos. These photos are almost all stills from what will eventually be in the YouTube video. Richard the Irish designer definitely caught me filming myself. Oops.

These are photos from setup. The registration table:

Silent auction (and the corner of the jaguar on display):

This is the multitude of gift bags we had prepared for the guests to take after the party ended. I think most of the attendees completely forgot to pick them up (thanks for the tasty drinks, Bacardi!).

This Jaguar was part of a live auction package. It was combined with a couple of Tokyo hotel stays. The winner would get to take this Jaguar for the weekend. Sounds fun and all, but where in Tokyo can you drive this car like it’s supposed to be driven?

Rehearsals for MCs, speeches, etc. all took place a few hours before the actual event. My boss spent most of his time in here looking very worried. He’s the one at the right of the stage looking like he’s breaking into a panicked run (he probably was).

The ballroom was completely ready when I arrived at around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. The Westin Tokyo (the hotel where the ball was held) did a really amazing job preparing everything.

The star room (opposite the ballroom) played host to a band and the open bar prior to the ballroom being opened. I didn’t spend much time in here.

Live auction item descriptions were setup for guests to peruse before the live auction itself.

We had a wide variety of silent auction items available; everything from these “luxury products” to services and gift certificates for tons of awesome, awesome places. I found myself questioning the “luxury” aspect of some of the “luxury products”, but as long as people bid on them, I had to keep my mouth shut.

My boss organized one of his makeup artist friends, Teddy Lim, to do hair and makeup for performers and for people getting portraits taken. He snuck Naoko and I into the lineup too (sorry it’s blurry, he was moving fast):

Once we established that everything was prepared (and guests started to arrive), we changed into our attire for the night and got to relax, amazingly. There were very few mishaps (that I knew about, anyway), and they were quickly and efficiently dealt with. I was pleasantly surprised with how much of the evening I got to experience.

I received a backhanded compliment from the guy from the diamonds company (“you look beautiful! I’m surprised!”), but Naoko assured me he meant well, though she could see how in English it does sound a little mean. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. A band played in the star room at the beginning of the night. We ushered everyone into the ballroom after about an hour, where Gocoo played, and their amazingly passionate leader, Kaoly, gave a speech. Gocoo and Tawoo worked with us on a number of events. A couple of their members are breast cancer survivors, so they really identified with the work RFTC was doing, and they were happy to help. Fantastic group. I can’t say enough good things about them.

Our MCs for the night, Jason and Janica, did a fabulous job. Both were bilingual, and Jason was so inadvertently hilarious I couldn’t help but like him. I heard him in the volunteer staff area saying “I’m worried my hair is too pointy!” When he’s not doing MC gigs, he is a cheerleader coach at a high school. Mmmhhmmmm. By the end of the night he was trying to give out dance lessons to drunk guests. Sheer magic, I tell you.

Mark Ferris (our auctioneer for the event) did a fantaaaastic job. I saw the video of the guy who did the auction last year, and it was over in about 10 minutes (there were about 10 items). This year’s guy was energetic, funny, and wasn’t afraid to harass guests into bidding. We had some really interesting prizes; trips to Beijing to stay at a summer palace, a stable tour from a sumo legend, and that Jaguar/hotel stay package I mentioned earlier. We also had a last minute donation of a helicopter ride to and from Narita airport. Crazy!

All in all, a fun, interesting event to attend. I didn’t really do much on the actual night. I was finally able to busy myself once everyone went home – taking everything down was a pretty quick and painless process. Taro, Naoko and I were due up at the top floor bar for the afterparty, but unfortunately when we finished at around 2 AM, the bar was closing down. Too bad. But it was yet another unforgettable experience.

I did try to sum up my feelings about the whole internship when I was alone in the volunteer room, but the sound is really, really horrible for some reason so I doubt I’ll put this bit in the video. But it was nice to have a bit of reflection about the experience. Quite the whirlwind.

I had some actual photos and some more video from the event, but I’m having a hard time finding them on my camera. I’m not sure what happened, but the only images I can find are from a couple of the ladies at the event and one of the jaguar. I’ll keep looking and see if I can find them and get some better quality photos up. Bummer.

As I mentioned, this was my last day of work. It was surreal and I still can’t believe the whole thing is done and over with. As some readers may know, I’m back in the states at the moment. I won’t lie; I didn’t want to come home. The last few months were like nothing I’ve ever done before, and the time I had was far too short. A lot of things changed in that small period of time, but I think ultimately they were changes for the better. Coming home has been a bit of a shock for me; so much about life here just doesn’t mesh with my personality anymore. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad. I’m still not sure. But either way, I’ve made plans to return to Tokyo at the beginning of 2010 for a much longer-term stay.

I guess that about finishes up the posts about the internship. Wow, there it goes! It’s done and over with! It all feels like a blur right now, and I think in some ways it was a blur when I was working, too. I remember reading complaints from people about working occasional overtime in the states, and then I’d laugh to myself and look at a clock in the office that read 2:00 AM. Strangely enough, I really, really miss it. It was so easy to complain about not having enough sleep or not having enough time to do the things I want to do, but I found that I thrive on that sense of purpose. I need that pressure all the time to get up in the morning and motivate me to do things. Since I’ve been back I haven’t been the same. I’ve done nothing but apply to any and all jobs (including plenty of crappy seasonal ones around here) just so I’ll have something to do. It’s driving me crazy! Sure, watching TV shows and sleeping in is great to a certain extent, but I have to have something to do.

I’m working on securing employment in Tokyo for next year, and until then just hanging around at home with my family. Things could always be worse! For those who are interested, the blog will still be updated. My parents came to Japan for about a week and a half after my internship concluded, and I have tons of photos to ramble about. I’m also going to put up some “home for the holidays”-ish stuff. I have to find things to do! So keeping the blog updated is one way to go about it, I guess. I’ve tried to confine my snark and short non-blog-worthy musings to my Twitter feed, and may do an occasional blogtv show here and there (trying to convince my brother to join me). So I’m still around! YouTube will be updated with the same stuff that gets posted here, I think.

Thanks for reading about this experience. It was a life changer in many ways for me, and I can’t wait to get back.

Recap: Run for the Cure/Walk for Life 2009 & Dance for the Cure

Published November 15, 2009 by Alisha

As promised, a real-real update! It’s about time I write about the happenings from the run. There’s only so much about the day the YouTube video can convey. I was going to do a play by play, but that might be painfully long. So I’ll go for the highlight reel version instead.

I woke early and headed to Hibiya City in the morning to help with setup. Tents, banners, sponsor boards, signs, and products went up. We organized a small army of volunteers to stuff the goody bags for the participants.

Participants started to show up around 9:00. We were still unprepared. We had a challenge with the t-shirts this year. 1,200 t-shirts were printed for the anticipated 1,200 participants. However, the closer we got to the run, the more we realized we were going to be well over the number. We had expected about 1,000 people to register online and via company group registration forms, and then about another 100-200 people on the day. Instead, we had about 1,300 people register online, and another 240 people register on the day. Needless to say, we were short t-shirts. We’d already contacted groups that sent their registration forms late about the possibility of not receiving t-shirts or receiving an alternate t-shirt, but we just didn’t have the inventory from past years to cover this amount of people, and we didn’t have the time or budget to print additional shirts from this year.

In an attempt to make up for this, we had to put together several different kinds of goody bags for the participants – special non-t-shirt bags…bags for people with alternate t-shirts…you get the idea. I was responsible for spending the previous several days counting, recounting, and adjusting t-shirt inventory for every new group registration form that came in. Taro and Naoko had made previous jokes about me being the “counter” for the office in the past, but it went to a whole new level right before the run. I told them that if nothing else, by the end of the internship I’d definitely know all my numbers. 🙂 The night before the event, I had it all set – who would get what, and how many, etc. On the day, of course, it all went to hell. There just wasn’t adequate time to go over the specifics with the volunteers.

I manned the group registration booth for the first part of the morning, switching between yelling at volunteers behind me for certain t-shirt sizes and answering questions every three seconds from the clearly-out-of-her-element Japanese girl at the table next to me. Once the group registrations had wrapped up, I firmly took over for her and watched a visible sign of relief appear on the faces of the next several people in line. We were well behind schedule due to the fiasco at registration, but thankfully most people were understanding and remembered the reason they were there.

After things started running more smoothly, someone came and got me from the registration table and hauled me off towards the Imperial Palace. That walk was so gloriously refreshing after clambering around in the madness that was registration all morning. People had already gathered at the starting line and immediately started asking us when the race was going to start (we were about 45 minutes behind by this point, I think). We began assembling the groups of runners (one 10K, one 5K, one 5K walkers). I put together the start/finish line and hauled it up to much cheering, only to be shut down not a minute later by the guard at the Imperial Palace screaming at us all. I called Taro asking what the hell he wanted me to do (he was still at Hibiya City managing the madness there). We ended up taking down the banner, although I think Richard the Irish designer got some photos of it while it was still up. It was kind of infuriating to have people coming up to me (who had seen the pissed off guard) asking if I’d put it back up so they could take a picture. Uh, no. You’re not special. And they were Japanese, so I knew they understood what the guard had been saying too.

Taro appeared out of nowhere and started herding remaining participants into their appropriate groups. He had me get the cheerleaders to start the first group, and off they went.

Taro had me push the starting times forward for the next groups, and then we had a glorious couple minutes to breathe. I’m still amazed at how not-mean Taro was despite being the most stressed out person on the day of the race. It was an interesting comparison to make…I’ve seen other bosses in the states screaming at their employees in similar situations…but I’m glad Taro isn’t that kind of boss.

I held the finish line ribbon while people ran through. That part was easily the best part of the experience. Although we’d started almost an hour and a half late and there had been mix-ups and confusion, almost everyone passed through that finish line with a smile on his or her face. I may have gotten a little bit sniffly.

It was a great end to a hectic afternoon. Taro sent me back to Hibiya City to help with what I could there, but it was thankfully under control by that point in time. There was food and drink, entertainment, and raffle prizes. The cheerleaders who started the race performed, and we also had a gospel group (I missed it because I was still at the course, but I’m told it was great). Our taiko friends Tawoo spent about 10 minutes performing. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of taiko. There’s just no way to experience it but live.

It was extremely loud in Hibiya City because of the tall buildings surrounding the plaza. The echoing boom from the drums was drawing salarymen out of their offices to come and gawk at the giant, bizarre pink spectacle taking place here.

Taking down everything took considerably less time than putting everything up, thankfully. Naoko and I headed back to Yurakucho station in a delirium from lack of sleep. I still remember laughing madly with her on the way there and on the train. We both headed home to try and snatch a couple hours of shut-eye before the all night party in Shibuya. I went home and collapsed immediately. I woke up to her phone call a couple hours later, but cannot remember for the life of me what I said to her. When I spoke to her later that night, she said “Alisha, you were in another world when I spoke to you. I don’t know where you were.” At least she called and got me out of bed so I could drag myself to Shibuya. I’m so glad I made it to the Dance for the Cure part of the day!

This was the first ever Dance for the Cure. Organized by the awesome Ubdobe, this was a fun-filled night of awesome music, great food, and various other entertainment. Ubdobe (pronounced Ooh-boo-dough-bay)’s “leader”ish guy Yuuk did an amazing job organizing everything. He too, was surprisingly calm the entire evening…but then again, his event went extremely smoothly. He even had time to harass me about being tired. Everything was very, very well done (at least, from my perspective behind the RFTC table).

4 fantastic bands performed that night. The genre was mostly funky/reggae-ish music. I can’t say enough good things about these artists. I was so pleasantly surprised! I got the chance to speak with this woman, Keyco. She spoke some English, but I mostly just listened to what she had to say in Japanese – she was a lovely, super-talented woman. I wish I’d purchased her CD that night…there’s none available on her website as far as I can find. Next time she has a show in Tokyo I’ll have to hit it up!

Our MC for the night was “VJ Chris” of MTV…I have absolutely no idea who he is, but he was from MTV, so that meant we got to use their logo on our promotional stuff. Hehe. Gocoo (the “parent” taiko group to Tawoo) performed along with belly dancer Kiki. Super cool.

Other random performers included a guy doing a glass ball balancing act (think David Bowie in Labyrinth, only with less spandex and glitter), full body massages, and nail art. Fantastic food was provided by Lauren, former owner of Fujimamas (now operating To the Moon and Back Catering). Every time I meet her she’s so mellow and pleasant. Awesome woman.

It was a really fantastic night, despite being dead tired. Taro brought me a Heineken around 2 AM. He always has a sense of humor. While we didn’t really sell much stuff at the table, some proceeds from the event went to the foundation. About 200 people showed up, so Naoko and I handed out 100 copies of PiNK as they exited…at 6 AM. There were a few people who were hilariously drunk, but fortunately everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I think it was a success in terms of an awareness-raising event. Lead singers (males) were yelling about how much they love boobs right in the middle of their songs. Unexpected hilarity! But hopefully effective.

I watched the sun rise in Shibuya that morning on my way to the station. I crashed on the Fukutoshin line heading home, but magically woke up at my stop. I don’t really remember the walk home. I slept harder than I’ve ever slept that day. I didn’t wake up until 11PM Sunday. It was an exhausting experience, but worth it when you consider how much we raised and (hopefully) what it’ll mean to some families out there. The run generated about 7.6 million yen, or about $84,000. Woo! Record breaking for the foundation.

Two weeks later came Pink Ball, but that’s for another post. The run was quite a day. But I’m glad I got to be a part of it. I’ll do the Pink Ball recap soonish!