IrishOboe

I have to say this was the most unconventional Holy Week of my life given that school started the same week, we had the farewell party on good Friday and the Easter church service on Saturday night. I managed to make it work by using the Jewish way of counting days – with sundown. Still, I can hardly imagine a party on Holy Saturday being quite appropriate . . . But praise God I do not serve a god of legalistic rituals, so such a disturbance need not interfere with my worship.

So, back to my Holy Saturday 2006. Nikko picked me up for the Ryuo festival, which would have been faster to walk to since it was along the river I cross everyday to get to school. But since I came with her we were able to meet her Uncle (he gave Mom and Dad happi when they came) and his connections got us lunch. We talked with a few important people, which I’m never good at, then looked around the festival, which was much like any other festival only with all the local flavor you’d expect of a small, well, local festival. We had to leave before they carried the omikoshi (portable shrine) up to the shrine, but we got to see all the men who were waiting to carry it all dressed up in bright colors. The reason for the rather feminine colors is that the god is female. It still made them look rather funny, though! The weather was fine and it was nice to walk around and watch children play. I was certainly the only foreigner and I actually met some of my new students there, too. I also got a picture of myself sitting in an old-style carrying cart (I don’t know the name, sorry!) supported by two men (no wheels!). Ah, the joys of being a foreigner.

We had to leave early since I wanted to get to hippo, I suppose I could imagine what a bunch of guys dressed in pink carrying an omikoshi would look like . . . Actually, I got to see the children carry a small omikoshi down my street that morning. That was far more interesting, I’m sure!

It was great to be at Hippo again. I’m picking things up a bit at a time and it’s always great to be around loving families and playing children. This was a bigger group meeting where clubs from various places in Yamanashi joined us to talk about a conference in Tokyo. So, I was a little bored with all the Japanese speeches I couldn’t understand, but I had fun watching the children be resourceful children. If only my third year students would attack their projects like the little 2 year old boy attacked the problem of being too short to draw on the blackboard. I could describe the sequence, but it would lose its beauty. Kids are amazing!

The Easter service was like none I’d ever been to, and was much like any other service, but it was Easter and that’s what mattered. Some people knew how to answer to “Christ is risen” and that was enough to get me through. We had a lovely Easter dinner at M’s Diner, and I believe I had meat for the occasion, though it certainly wasn’t lamb.

Easter Sunday I had planned to go to a Japanese flute concert with Yuko and friends, but she couldn’t go at the last minute so Josh (ALT) picked me up and we met up with people there. It was at a hall in Minami-Alps where many of my students are from, but of course I didn’t expect to see any at a concert like this. I was right, but I did see a new ichinensei who was at the community center for other reasons. I was proud to remember his name!

The flute concert was certainly different from anything I’d heard before and I wish I could have read the program notes. Only a few pieces sounded traditional to me. Otherwise, I could have been at a Musica Nova concert at Eastman! It sounded so much like the solo wind literature of the mid-late 20^th century. We were allowed to take picture during one song, so I did. It’ll get posted when I am suddenly gifted with a lot of time . . .

I learned a cool tune from Estonia (at least I think that’s where they said it was fun – this is all Japanese, remember!) and after the concert pulled out my whistle to make sure I’d got it right. Three cheers for my Irish music training that allows me to do that now! Josh got a picture of me playing my whistle next to the statue of a bear playing a flute. It’s too precious!

The rest of the day I enjoyed my Easter Sunday Sabbath and ate Easter candy, thanks to Mom and Dad! I’m not sure if I love SweeTarts chicks even better now than I used to! They’re already gone, by the way . . .