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Monthly Archives: May 2011

Behind the Scenes of English Play

31 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by scalesoflibra in Other Things JETs Do

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Bunkasai (文化祭 – Culture Festival) is now just 2 days away. The main thing the ALTs at this school have to work on for this day is English Play, which is put on by the English Course. The goal is to do a 40-minute play entirely in English. In the past they’ve done things like The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan. Last year, they did High School Musical 2, after having done the first one the previous year.

Now, it seems to me that the ALT’s role in “helping” has never been clearly defined. I know we’re supposed to help them read their lines, telling them how to pronounce difficult words, or explain to them difficult culture points, such as the meaning of sarcastic lines like “Her Highness awaits.” At the end of rehearsals, we’re asked to give comments. But beyond that, are we expected to stay hands-off so it’s a greater learning experience for the kids, since they pretty much do everything themselves? When they give totally flat readings and the director doesn’t make them do a scene over, are we supposed to stay mum? Or are we expected to guide them, since for the most part, the teachers who are “in charge” of the kids after school are hardly ever at rehearsal and the kids don’t actually know what they’re doing? When I ask the directors, they pretty much always say “yes” to any offers of help I make, yet they never tell me when they’re going to have rehearsal, where, or their overall progress in the play.

So I was mostly hands-off last year. I only intervened when things were getting too out of hand and the directors were obviously not doing anything about it. Considering the super massive amount or rehearsal time that was wasted in private conversations and dawdling, the play wasn’t the hot mess I had feared it would be. Even so, it could have been much better.

The Beginnings: Choosing & Casting

Planning starts, as far as I know, at the end of English Course’s first year. By mid-March, they’ve decided on a play and assigned roles.

I sort of regret secretly telling some of my kids not to do High School Musical 3 for English Play, because they instead picked Camp Rock, a low-budget, made for the Disney Channel movie whose script must’ve been written simply by using find-and-replace on the script of HSM2 to change the names of the characters. Well, I don’t know if it really was my meddling that made them ditch their teacher’s suggestion that they do HSM3. Either way, my main concern is that the audience will think it actually is the same play from last year.

Something I really don’t understand is the casting choices. None of the kids who speak English really well are in the main cast. @_@!?!?! I think the kids decide who they want to play, and there’s only an audition if two or more people want the same role. Everyone else becomes a dancer, stagehand, lighting operator, or audio operator. There’s also 3 directors, but this year, one of the directors is also the leading man. Last year, I remember that we had to have auditions for both male and female leads, as well as three or four others in the main cast. If there were auditions this year, we weren’t asked to judge them.

One kid told me that he chose to be a stagehand because he lived so far away that he wouldn’t be able to stay for rehearsal most of the time. I know many other kids are in sports clubs, and their practice seems to always take precedence over English play practice. We didn’t even rehearse with the whole cast present until last week!

The Script

This year, I think the kids are in a much better position because they seem to have understood from the beginning that they can’t just take a 90-minute movie script and it’s gonna somehow magically turn into a 40-minute script fit for the stage. When they brought me the script to check, they had not only already deleted some scenes, they had taken note of how much time they had removed! Even so, the script was too long, and there were things that were going to be hard to represent on stage, such as the two leads’ scene in a canoe. So I told the directors that same day, “I’m going to rewrite this script so that it’s doable in 40 minutes. You may not agree with the changes I make, so at that point we can meet and discuss it. But first I’m just going to do it.”

Since this time the cast hadn’t gotten the script yet I went ahead and made big changes, such as combining scenes and assigning lines to different characters. Thanks to this, I think I was able to pace the play well this time, more like a stage play than a butchered movie.

Rehearsals

At least, even something as banal as Camp Rock still has lots of natural English and American culture points that are hard to explain, so I gotta respect it for that. It’s easy for these kids to do the snooty dances such as “Too Cool,” because they see lots of that glamor-pop-princess crap here, but the hip-hop-ish track “Hasta La Vista“? Not so much. Most of them just don’t have the attitude for it, not even for fake hip-hop. That said, there’s some first year girls that have it down pat, and one second year boy who I could tell from the beginning had what it took, but until last week he was holding back.

The hardest thing has definitely been trying to get them to put emotion into their lines. They pretty much all just spit out their lines without thinking about the meaning of the words coming out of their mouths. I say to them, “Is that what you sound like when you’re angry?” or “Have you ever been sad?” At this point, I’ve at least gotten them to raise their voices a little when angry and smile during the dances. But I still can’t get anyone save the female lead to lip sync in a halfway decent manner, and I’m sure there’s still tons they don’t understand. Until last week, they didn’t know what “Hasta La Vista” meant and hadn’t bothered to ask, nor realized that the song “Two Stars” was actually the snooty character’s message to the male lead. (E.g. “Can’t you see, can’t you see / There’s never any us / Can’t you see / All we can become / We can shine like the sun / If we believe that two stars are brighter than one.” …and yes, I did just type that from memory. *Gags*)

Now, what I think will save the play from being a snorefest is that there’s two kids, those in the role of Jason and Nate, who actually do play guitar, and jam along on their Stratocasters during “Play My Music” and “We Rock.” There’s also a boy in the role of the mother who uses exaggerated gestures, which looks strange up close but looks okay from further back. And, the much talented Boy Who Should Have Been the Male Lead is pretty good as the camp director, even trying to imitate the original actor’s British accent!

But Then There was This Weirdness

With just two more days of rehearsing, the kids have started to practice the curtain call. During the curtain call, the different groups do little motions or gestures before they bow and step back. Today, for their motion, the three girls playing Lola, Sander, and Barron, busted out on stage with very real-looking toy guns. They pretend to shoot each other and fall back about before joining hands, bowing, and lining up with the rest of the kids.

I was like, what…just…happened…?

I grew up with gangster rap and real life gangbangers. I’ve seen someone get shot. I crouch down whenever I hear loud noises that resemble gunfire. It’s not that I’m squeamish at the mere sight of firearms, though being in their presence does put me on alert. (As it should anyone.) It was the pure dissonance of saccharine Disney channel Camp Rock and a mock murder scene executed with such realistic toys. To make matters worse (and I just now realized this)…Lola, Sander, and Barron are all portrayed by black actors in the original movie. -_-‘

I was pretty upset about it and went up to the girls when that run through was over. The following conversation took place, mostly in Japanese. I refer to the students by the roles they have in the play.

Me: What’s with the *making the gesture for guns*?
Barron: Hm?
Me: Why did you put guns in the play?
Lola: It’s cool!
Me: There’s already so many Japanese who think Americans all carry guns, don’t you think by putting this in the play you’re just adding to stereotypes?
Lola: *Worried* What? No, no! It’s just because it’s cool, it’s like we’re shooting an ‘I love you’ shot!
Me: But look how real this looks. *Takes one gun and steps back* From far away, doesn’t it look like the real thing? You know in the States there have been children who have been shot by the police because the police couldn’t tell that the gun was a toy?
Girls who had gathered around: That’s so scary!
Me: Look, this is just my opinion, but I was really shocked when I saw you do this; this has nothing to do with a Disney movie like Camp Rock, so as an American, to me it just looks like a stereotype.
Mitchie:
But I thought everyone had guns in America. I thought it was okay to have guns.
Me: No, not everyone has a gun, and people who do carry one have to have a special permit to do so. The laws are different in each state, but usually, people who have done bad things, or people who are sick in the head, can’t get a permit. There are people who have guns illegally, but those are usually bad people like gang members.
Mitchie: Do you have a gun?
Me: Of course not, I don’t wanna die!
Lola:
But didn’t it look cool?!
Me: Yeah, well, by itself it looked cool, but it’s inappropriate for Camp Rock. If this were Charlie’s Angels, I would say put more guns in it! But this just looks really wrong in this play.
Caitlyn: Should we take them out?
Me: Well, if it’s an ‘I love you’ shot, why don’t you paint the guns pink?
Lola: Pink! That’ll look cute!
Caitlyn: But can we…?
Me: Is it your little brother’s toy or something?
Caitlyn: It’s [a classmate’s].
Me: Or just go to the Hundred Yen Shop and buy toy guns that look like toys.

At this point the cast was called to gather before doing another run through, so I don’t know what they all thought of the discussion. I was so ticked off that I went back to the teachers’ room for a little bit not to let my dissatisfaction ripple out to the rest of the rehearsal. When I returned, Lola was sniffling as if she had been crying; I don’t know if she was upset with me for accusing them of stereotypical portrayals of Americans, or if the teacher had yelled at them in my absence. I’m not even sure the teacher heard the conversation.

Had this been the first time these kids do something like this, it probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much, though visually and thematically it’s highly incompatible with the rest of the play no matter what. But I had already told these kids last year that not all Americans have guns; when a group wrote a skit about Japanese students who do homestay in the States, only to get mugged at the airport by their host family, I asked them, “Do you really think this is what Americans are like?” and all most of them did was smile sheepishly. One asked, “It’s not like Jack Bauer?” while making some gestures, and seemed disappointed to learn that no, we’re not all creeping around corners aiming shotguns for 24 hours.

This was honestly one of those moments where I asked myself, “what the hell am I doing here?” My kids aren’t that good at English, and as long as they have no reason to learn it for real, the countless hours they spend being “taught” English are a massive, unfair waste of their youth. But if I can’t even get them to understand that Americans don’t all tote guns, even as they base their culture festival performance off of something as toothless as Disney’s Camp Rock, am I making any real impact in terms of at least internationalization, or am I just a panda sans six figure salary?

On the one hand, I do hope that the teacher heard me. Even if in this situation I overreacted, which I don’t think I did, it’s still the case that the portrayal of foreigners in Japanese media isn’t all that good, and if no one tries to get Japanese kids these days to understand the difference between knowing about a culture and respecting it, they will go on to become adults who perpetuate the stereotypes in the future.

On the other hand, I didn’t mean for these kids to get in trouble with their teacher, if that is indeed what happened, as Lola had shown no signs of impending waterworks when I had briefly left the auditorinasium. I just want them to understand where I’m coming from, and to understand the ripples that each person’s actions send out.

Will the Final Rehearsal Be Perfect, or a Mess?

Last year’s final rehearsal was stunningly perfect. I didn’t want to believe in the superstition, but unfortunately, it came true: last year when it came time to do the real thing, the male lead choked so hard, and all the kids were so nervous for the first 20 minutes. So, I’m kinda hoping this year’s final rehearsal will be terrible. ^_^;

☆

次回!The words you learn when you have to take someone to the ER at midnight, その1:麻酔 ~ masui ~ anesthesia

Chirp Chirp Chirp

24 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by scalesoflibra in Me Being Random

≈ Leave a comment

Oh dear…it’s all his fault.

I’ve joined Twitter  just to be able to quickly say something to GACKT if the need to do so ever strikes me. ^o^;;;;;;;

(Why couldn’t he just join Facebook like everyone else? ^_^;)

While I was thinking about how I don’t see what the point of Twitter is if you’re already on Facebook, I thought of something: “wouldn’t this be a great way to have fresh content appear on Lucky Hill more quickly?” There are many times when small things happen, things too small to deserve their own blog post, but interesting enough to be worth mentioning. So far, I’ve dealt with these bits of life by compiling them into posts known as “Random Life Stuff.” The problem with these is that I still take a good while to write them, and this blog ends up with updates only once a week, but often much less frequently than that. So, what with Twitter’s 140 character limit, I’ve no excuse for not saying something to the blogosphere at the *very least* once a week! ^o^

Also, I figured, some people might not feel comfortable leaving a comment on a blog, since they’d have to input their email address, but with Twitter, since (I think) you don’t see other people’s email addresses, just their usernames, it would be an easy way to speak up for someone who just dropped by and had a question but felt uncomfortable leaving their email address with a stranger. Well, that’s my theory anyway.

So, you’ll now find my Twitter feed in the sidebar under the heading “Birdsong.” Enjoy~

Random Life Stuff, Vol. 91

17 Tuesday May 2011

Posted by scalesoflibra in Living in Fukuoka, Me Being Random, Other Things JETs Do, Stuff That Just Happens

≈ 5 Comments

I just noticed that I tend to pick odd numbers to indicate the “volume” of these RLS posts, hmm…

Anyway, on to the small tidbits that make up my existence when I’m not involved in more picturesque undertakings.

Yeah, those are chopsticks on top of my tortillas. What?

Sizzlin’ Fajitas If I’m in the mood for good burgers, there’s only one place I can count on: a diner called Son House. The owner had gone to the States several years ago before opening his restaurant to study burgers, the quintessential American food. Well, I think that’s what he went to do. It’s been a while since we talked about this and my Japanese wasn’t as good back then, ahaha.

Ahem, anyway, these are definitely the best burgers around. But, Son House also serves some Mexican foods (Tex-Mex, to be exact), such as quesadillas, tacos, and chimichangas. There’s also Taco Rice, which is the inside of a Tex-Mex taco set on rice. ^o^; It may not be authentic, but if it tastes good, that’s what really matters, right?

However, the owner, with input from the local Hispanic community (which consists of, as far as I know, 4 people) has added something incredible to his menu: beans and rice! *Victory Fanfare* These can be ordered as a side dish. Also, if you make any of the Mexican food items a “dinner set,” you’ll get the beans & rice, guacamole, soup, and a salad. The other new items are burritos and the Sizzlin’ Fajitas platter. I got it a few days ago as a dinner set. Unfortunately, I’m not in the habit of carrying my camera around when I go eat out, so this photo taken with my iPod will have to suffice. (Note: the onion rings in the top left corner of the photo aren’t part of this set.)

Oh yeah…I finally got myself an iPod a little while ago! It was my present to myself for passing N2 of the JLPT back in December. (Though I would’ve gotten it if I had failed too. ^o^;) I didn’t get it sooner because I was worried about having to send more money home to cover medical expenses for my cat, but once I got word that what I had left back in December had sufficed, I went ahead and splurged on a 64GB iPod Touch. The first thing I did was load my iTunes Library into it, then I put a Japanese-English Dictionary app in, and last I set Sephiroth as the wallpaper and badda bing!

I changed its name from "Tome of Phat Beats" to "Tome of the Rhapsode."

I actually found this case with the help of some Brass Band students that I ran into at the mall. (Chibi GACKT strap not included.)

I’m impressed as hell with its internet capabilities, too. Even websites without mobile versions load relatively quickly.  I also love having sort-of access to Google Maps on the go. I can look up a location while I’m at home, but when I leave, even if I’m not online anymore, I can still see the map and make sure I’m going to the right place. Unlike:

Japan = Jakarta The other day I received a piece of mail from a cousin in the States that, before reaching me, ended up in Jakarta. ^_^; I don’t know where in the line the screw-up happened, but given that my cousin posted it on April 21st and I got it May 9th, it seems to have been redirected pretty quickly. Well, Jakarta’s not that far from here; I assume that they would’ve just sent it directly my way rather than sending it back to the States.

♪Where in the World is the Mail My Family Sends Me?

Gaming Again I finally sat down to play Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, which I picked up in my last visit to the States. As someone who was introduced to the franchise through Symphony of the Night, I did worry that I wouldn’t like it, given that it’s a reboot that bears not the work of neither composer Michiru Yamane nor illustrator Ayami Kojima. But so far…I’m really feelin’ it! Especially after the linear mess that was FFXIII, the freedom to roam of LoS is refreshing. Granted, it’s not as free form as SotN or even Curse of Darkness, but I still get the sensation that I’m exploring. There’s also the wonderful, fantastic, ultrasuperspecialawesome voice work of none other than Sir Patrick Stewart as the game’s narrator, Zobek.

Oh.

My.

GOD.

This is the first time I’ve played a game whose voiced narration didn’t feel like tiresome exposition. I enjoy just hearing this man speak. @_@ It’s crazy.

*Ahem* So far, the only unsatisfying thing about LoS is the music, but I’m hoping that will change as I progress further into the game. After all, I’m barely on Chapter 2 of 13.

The game was published by Konami, but developed by MercurySteam, a game developer in Spain. Wonder if they need anyone who speaks Spanish and Japanese? *_*

Art Imitates Life I’m currently reading the manga Bakuman, which is the story of two young boys who dream of becoming mangaka (comic book artists). It’s made by the same team as Death Note, artist Takeshi Obata and writer Tsugumi Ohba, and is available in the States as a Shonen Jump release. The anime version is currently airing on NHK, but I prefer to just read the manga.

At the beginning, there’s many scenes that take place in school, and I wonder, “how would I interpret these scenes if I had read this before working in a Japanese school?” I probably would’ve been confused over the following scene, which takes place when the characters are 3rd year chuugakusei, the equivalent of American high school freshmen (translation mine, as I don’t have the English release of this manga):

Moritaka (the main character) (narration): And then, a nightmare – no, happiness came.
Teacher: So, this will be the seating arrangement for second term.
Boy: Why do we have to put our desks together?! And with girls at that?!
Teacher: Because this is how it was when I was in middle school!
Boy 2: That’s no reason!
Teacher: I want you to reverse Class 2’s bad reputation of the boys and girls not getting along.
Student: We’re just gonna end up getting along even worse!
Student: Yeah!
Teacher: Students who gripe are going to get a mark on their student file.
Student: Awful…

Putting boys next to girls is like putting two north poles next to each other.

Moritaka (narration): Even without looking, I could tell that Shuujin [=Akihito], who ended up in the very back again, was trying desperately to stifle his laughter.
Moritaka (narration): Just having Azuki next to me, the air, the scenery – no, the whole world – changed completely. It was true happiness, but…
Moritaka & Azuki (thinking): What if my stomach growls in class?

…

Okay, so I understand if Moritaka and Azuki feel uncomfortable, they actually like each other and have made a rather unconventional promise. Akihito’s too damn cool to care about the change (he’s the top student in class – and he’s gonna give up a secure future to be a mangaka!). But what’s everyone else’s excuse for acting like the teacher just asked them to donate a lung to the person they hate most in the world?

At my school, in some homerooms, it’s not too bad; the kids will grumble and reluctantly work with a partner of the opposite sex. But in others, they’ll straight out refuse to work with their partner, and will either scowl at the floor, scowl at me, or work with a nearby student of the same sex. I don’t understand what could cause such a strong aversion to the opposite sex at their age. I really don’t. The Japanese teachers tell me, “they’re shy,” and I say, “but why that much?” They tell me, “they don’t want their friends to think they like someone,” and all I can say is “practicing a textbook English conversation with someone means you like them?” and remain mind-boggled.

But then stuff like this happens The other day, during rehearsal for English play, one of the kids was running the stereo, talking to his friend, and I was sitting nearby, importing the soundtrack unto my computer to modify it for them. The following happened:

Boy 1: On the internet I saw this song, ‘Find You,’ but instead it said ‘F*** You.’ ‘I wanna f*** youuuu!’ Ahahahaha!
Me: ?! What did you just say?
Boy 1: Oh! Nothing.
Me: … …
Boy 1: So anyway… ‘I need to f*** youuuu!’ Hahaha!
Boy 2: Aha…
Me: *Sternly says Boy 1’s name*
Boy 1: Sorry!
Boy 2: Maybe you shouldn’t say that in front of Eli…
Me: *Mental Facepalm*

While I suppose it’s possible some smart aleck really did take the Camp Rock song “Find You” and turn it into “F*** You,” I wonder if what the kid saw was actually the explicit version of Akon’s “I Wanna Love You.” ^_^;

Speaking of Rap Music Today a student asked me what “lollipop” meant. I told her, then asked, “Where did you hear it?” She said, “In a song,” and I immediately wondered if it was Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop,” which isn’t about candy at all. I was relieved when she said it was a song by K-pop group 2ne1 (pronounced “twenty-one,” but standing for something like 21st century New Evolution – I saw it on an infotainment show, ahaha), but now that I see the video for said song, I can’t help but wonder if they’re not thinking about lollipops in at least a similar, if not as explicit, way as Lil Wayne was. ^_^;

One thing’s for sure: for 21st century folk, they sure dress like they came out the 1980s.

☆

次回!Behind the Music

Cheerful Devils at the Lake of Blood

09 Monday May 2011

Posted by scalesoflibra in Rolling 'round Kyuushuu

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Beppu, Chi no Ike Jigoku, 血の池地獄, 別府

Besides hanging out with over-sized greenery, part of my Golden Week was spent relaxing in onsen (hot springs) in Beppu, Ooita Prefecture, which is famous for its many onsen.

Now, my friends and I hadn’t planned this trip in advance. Even if we had, if we traveled during the actual consecutive national holidays, we would have been price-gouged mercilessly. The cost of a one night stay can easily go up by one or two hundred US dollars during these days! So, to keep costs down, we decided to leave on the night of Monday, the second, even though my two friends had work that day. We had to buy dinner at a conbini because we wouldn’t make it in time to eat at the hotel.

The hotel was one of JR’s own accommodations, Beppusou, about a 5 minute walk from Beppu Station. We arrived at the hotel, chilled for an hour or so, eating our “dinners,” then went to the onsen. We mostly just stayed in the rotenburou, but there were no stars in the sky. Even so, it was very relaxing. Luckily, there were no other people in it, as by then it was 11PM. After an hour of soaking and chatting, we went back up to our room for ice cream and more yakking. We ended up staying up until 2 or 3AM! But we had to get up early for breakfast the next day.

The hotel breakfast was a traditional Japanese one, with fish, eggs, miso soup, rice, tsukemono (pickled vegetables), and nattou. The whole set seemed rather small, so I fought the sensation of eating watery boogers and consumed even the nattou. (I don’t mind the smell so much as the texture. So slippery…ugh.) Thankfully all the protein items filled me up.

<Random Side Note> At breakfast, we saw a man wearing a T-shirt that had a skull & crossbones and read, “Too fat to live Too young to die CREAM SODA.” </Random Side Note>

Given the price of just about 13,000 yen (161 USD at the moment) per person for round-trip train fare & hotel accommodation, I think we got a good deal. The hotel itself was pretty average; if we had paid more I might be disappointed.

I had wanted to go back in the onsen after breakfast, but alas, it was being cleaned. I wonder if something happened, as I had been told that it opened at 5AM and was available till 1AM. Too sleepy to go back to bed, I just chatted with the friend who was awake and packed slowly. Then we went down to buy omiyage and check out.

Our train back was at around 2PM, so we didn’t have much time. We wanted to see the 地獄温泉 (jigoku onsen – hell hot springs), which are onsen that are too hot to go into, and also have interesting features. The tour bus that hit all the spots took 2.5 hours, time we didn’t have. So we chose to just see one: 血の池地獄 (chi no ike jigoku – Lake of Blood Hell).

It wasn’t as red as it appears in official photos, but my photos do make it look slightly browner than it seemed in person. It was drizzling by this time, and the sky was hazy due to the dust storms from China, so I do wonder if it looks redder with no rain and direct sunshine.

Maybe Lake of Terra Cotta Hell is a more appropriate name.

I like how the little building back there has ogre horns. ^o^ They sell omiyage there, such as clay from the Lake of Blood.

温泉の足湯 (onsen no ashiyu - hot spring footbath). I just today learned the term 足湯 when I showed these photos to one of the secretaries. This little footbath is across from the Lake of Blood.

After that little soak, we got Lake of Blood-themed omiyage and headed back. We took a cab to the nearest train station (we had taken a bus there from Beppu Station because for some reason, there are hardly any local trains out of Beppu Station, it’s mostly just Sonics (AKA Limited Expresses) and Rapid Expresses, which don’t stop at Kamegawa Station, which is the nearest to Chi no Ike), and right as we were going in, the station master said to us, “Beppu? The train’s leaving right now, just run on in!” We just said “oh!” and ran down without buying tickets and even forgot to thank the guy in our frenzy. ^_^; But we sure were glad we didn’t get stuck waiting for an hour for a local train. We simply paid our fare at Beppu Station. We had lunch, then it was back to the tracks to head to Hakata.

A JR Kyuushuu ad in one of the cars of the Sonic.

I must say, I’m really feelin’ the art direction of JR Kyuushuu’s ads lately. The same neo-retro style that first appeared on the advertising for Steam Locomotive Hitoyoshi (you can see an example in the opening of my video about said train over at this post) is now on several Kyuushuu trip ads.

An inter-car compartment (if that's a term) on the Sonic. It's like the future yo.

Lemme stop talking about trains before I get called a train otaku. ^o^;

Well, that’s pretty much it for Beppu!

☆

次回!Probably an RLS post. ^o^;

Big Wisteria Festival

07 Saturday May 2011

Posted by scalesoflibra in Rolling 'round Kyuushuu

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

羽犬, 羽犬塚, 黒木, Hainu, Hainuzuka, Kurogi, Oofuji, Tsue Jinja, Tsue Shrine, Wisteria, 大藤, 津江神社の樟

I don’t know if Desperate Housewives is still on, but I sure did get a whole lotta “Wisteria Lane” last week and during Golden Week when I went with one friend to visit another friend and see the Big Wisteria (大藤 – oofuji) in the small, small town of Kurogi, which is now a part of Yame City. We had lots of fun eating, drinking homemade ume shuu (plum wine), exploring the mountainside, and watching episodes of The X-Files.

Usually, my friend told us, the wisteria is in full bloom by mid to late April, so we went down there one weekend before Golden Week. But since the winter had been unusually long, it had barely started to bloom, and I couldn’t even smell anything. I did get some interesting shots, however.

The plaque letting us know the big wisteria is a national treasure. Also, creeper cameramen in the background.

One of those reporters finally got the courage to go up to my friend and ask if she would do an interview, but she said no. Can’t say I blame her.

Don't know if these are roots or branches, but they're very interesting.

Looking up. It was a dreary day.

I named the file "wisteria gazebo" but it's not a gazebo at all. ^o^; It's more like a "viewing deck."

After looking around at the wisteria, we went to the various stalls and stores lining the main street. I got some yakiniku, and one of the shop guys asked me if I was from Sweden. @_@ Guess it was my lack of an English-speaker’s accent that threw him off.

Then we went to a coffee shop, got some lengthy stares (including one from a young mother who just looked surprised and delighted beyond her wildest dreams; it was pretty weird), scared small children and customers with our mere presence, and got ignored by the shop pooch. Luckily the friend who lives there said the people that know her are really nice and take care of her, and any of her students that we ran into greeted her cheerfully.

At the end of the day, since the wisteria had been a semi-bust, and none of us had plans for Golden Week, we decided to take a last minute trip to somewhere, and return to Kurogi as well.

When we did go back, the wisteria was in full bloom and exuded a soft fragrance. However, because it was Golden Week, there were many more people than previously, and I couldn’t get many shots without the wild assortment of kids running around, poorly dressed young & middle-aged people, and well-dressed old people.

Lush & Fragrant

Here you can almost see just how far the Big Wisteria spreads out.

Here's a crop from a much larger photo so you can see the flowers more clearly.

The Big Wisteria isn’t the only big plant in Kurogi, there’s also a huge Camphor tree (樟 – kusu) at Tsue Shrine (津江神社 – Tsue Jinja). It is over 800 years old, dating from the Heian Era. We didn’t really have much time to stop and look at it, so I couldn’t go to a spot far away enough to get the whole enormous tree in the shot.

I was kneeling down, hence the warped perspective. I swear I always try to straighten my photos before I post them! XD

So, that’s it, the expedition to see the purple hanging flowers.

Speaking of expeditions…

Side Post: Goggies R Owr Friends ~ Winged Goggies

(XD Sorry…too much time spent on LOLCats…)

*Ahem* Anyway…to get to Kurogi, we had to pass through Hainuzuka Station (羽犬塚駅). “Hainuzuka” means “winged dog mound.” There are several statues of winged dogs in the area, such as this one directly in front of the station:

When dogs fly!

So what’s up with these critters? There’s a board at the station explaining the origins of these winged doggies.

You can also see photos of some other winged dog sculptures on this board.

Here’s my translation of the board’s text:

Legend of the Winged Dog

There are various monuments of winged dogs scattered throughout Chikugo City. The origins of “Hainuzuka” lie in legends of a winged dog that have been passed down from generation to generation for about 400 years.

One legend is that a long time ago, there was a fierce dog who had grown wings that would attack people and cattle. The people feared this dog.

In the 15th year of the Tenshou Era (1587), when Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who strived to unify the land, came on an expedition to Kyuushuu, his path was blocked by the winged dog. Hideyoshi sent forth more and more troops, and after a great struggle, was able to kill the dog. Impressed by the dog’s wisdom and strength, Hideyoshi built a mound for the dog and properly buried it.

Another legend is that, when Hideyoshi came on an expedition to Kyuushuu, he brought along a dog he adored. This dog would run and jump about as if it had wings. But, the dog became sick and died here in Kyuushuu. Hideyoshi, overwhelmed with grief, built a mound to have a proper funeral for the dog and buried it.

Even now, the winged dog’s burial mound is at Sougakuji, quietly watching over this town as time flows on. How about taking a stroll while feeling the romanticism of history?

☆

次回!Every day is Hell.

Notice

As my time on JET has ended and I've said all I wanted to say about it, I will not be adding any new content to this blog. I leave it up for reference. However please keep in mind that the usefulness of this reference may drop as the years go by, because sometimes things change. Anyway, thanks for dropping by! ~September 2014

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