One Life Japan

Sunday we joined a local bike group for a ride along the river. A friend from the hamlet across the river joined us, and asked me to lend her a helmet. Being the bastish that I am, I brought her my volunteer fire brigade helmet. [sinister laugh]

The riding was not so great, as I had a lot of other to-dos on my mind, but the area we met everyone for lunch made me feel like we have made a big mistake purchasing this house. Another area just twenty minutes down the road is so nice with all the old houses left, and the best thing is the lack of concrete. Every yard is a field, unlike our neighborhood where concrete reigns.

We always tell ourselves that we made the right choice because we have good neighbors, but does that mean that anyplace else would have bad neighbors? I suppose it is possible, as there are a few people in our hamlet that I would not like to live next to… Anyway, I guess I can’t complain too much, and heck, at the price of a house around here, we probably get one over there too.

Anyway, gotta run. Its time to put up the chicken fence and get their room ready. They haven’t even arrived yet, and I am already anxious to get a goat.

Thanks to people who responded to the translation post I felt really good today about going out and working in the field. No more anxiety about that translation project that I don’t have time for! Yeeeeeeehaaaaaa!

Today Tomoe and I spent the afternoon working on a pile of fertilizer that we had hoped to be ready for our rice field, but it was not fermenting as planned, so we are guessing it will simply be used to feed our backyard field.

We were happy to find that the nearby dam sells a truckload of composted leaf and organic debris that gets caught in its filters, for only 100 YEN! That’s about $1 - for a truckload! Until now I have been making daily trips to the mountain with my shovel and wheel barrow in order to gather good soil. It would take me DAYS to gather a truckload that we can now buy for only 100 yen!

So, I would like to say that we are going to spend the next few days getting and spreading the soil, and building a fence around the portion of our yard that we want the chickens to tractor, but… I have to go to the opening of the volunteer fire department opening ceremony tomorrow, and for a few days after that we have customers coming to help work on an old thatch-roof house.

The photos are: Tomoe in the yard X 2, a carrot that has been trying to grow all winter, and our dairy farmer neighbor with his vet who was visiting today because of an udder infection in one of the cows… cow flu???????

I feel like we have just had small victory in the battle to take our dream back.

When we moved out of Tokyo, the dream was to have zero cars or trucks - maybe just a little scooter. Instead, we would use the spare time that we have from not working to pay for the vehicle, to peddle our little wagon to and from our field. Having so many guests, however, means having at least a small van, so the dream was crushed. Having the van means that we become lazy, and instead of riding the bike to the field, we throw our tools in the back and drive up. Instead of pulling a log down from the mountain, we throw them in the back and drive them.

After a while, we noticed how dirty the inside of the van was getting, and don’t like the impression it gives customers so started thinking about getting a little “k” pickup truck - considered an indispensable farm tool.

We asked our friendly neighborhood car-dealer if he could find one within our budget and he came back a week later with a sturdy little truck for a reasonable price. In the end, however, we passed. While we can afford it, and it would be very convenient to have, we started thinking about having yet another cost to think about - imagined how much more we would have to work to pay for it, and, considering that we have already basically missed spring, decided that even working one more day a month was unacceptible.

The plan now is to get more use out of the wagon (photo above) I hobbled together with stuff from the dump, try to figure out a better to way keep the van clean, and save the money the truck would have cost, to buy a bottle of sake for whatever neighbor lends us his truck if we ever really need it.

It feels good to be a bit freer.

And, finally, I couldn’t resist sharing these great remixes of old cartoons: (via Drawn!)

It’s a Pup Dog from Word Worms on Vimeo.

This clip explores the joy of owning a puppy. It stars a group of animal rights activist gnomes that live in the wallpaper.

Many more cartoon remixes here.

Alex Gorosh has created a project called WordWorms in which he takes old public-domain cartoons and remixes them, adding his own beats and lyrics to create fun rap cartoons geared towards kids.

This one is great too.

Panchito the Gaseous Donkey from Word Worms on Vimeo.

For our monthly newspaper column, Tomoe and I decided to focus on the election. For a while we were struggling to find something to photograph that would not be biased toward the local candidate that Tomoe is helping to campaign for (such as a photo of him or his car with his name on it). To make it look more fair I followed another candidate for a half-hour or so, but got nothing good so I decided to drop by our neighbor’s (Tomoe’s candidate) home. While the candidate is out disturbing the peace with his loudspeaker, there is always a group of men sitting in his living room, I can see them from our bathroom window, and was under the impression that the were “strategizing”.

When I knocked on the doo,r I felt bad, as if I was interrupting some important work. It only took a few moments to realize that the important work everyone was doing was sitting around drinking tea, watching TV, and talking about mushrooms and other farm-related matters. I took a few shots of them, but soon realized that a more interesting story was going on in the kithcen.

The wife of the candidate seems to be committed to much more than that candidate himself. The day I was taking photos there were only four women (the wife, the sister, and two volunteers from the neighborhood) who were working in the kitchen preparing meals for all the men who were “strategizing” in the living room. I’m told that the day before there were six. The volunteer women take turns helping out. The sister came back from Tokyo to help out during the campaign time.

Its not just the election though. The council member is expected to host many guests throughout the year. One candidates wife threatened to leave him if he ran, and our other neighbor (the wife of the departing councilman) turned to tranquilizers because she could not sleep with all the work and stress - and this is a woman who was used to sleeping only four hours per night for 15 years as she raised her kids and tended to her farm. If she can’t handle it without drugs, what hope do I have when Tomoe decides to run for mayor?

Well, its that time of year again. Yesterday I started harvesting the rice, and I didn’t get very far. I could have gotten a lot more done if the weather report hadn’t called for rain that never came. Due to the likelihood of not actually being able to harvest, a fellow international couple living in the countryside of Nagano didn’t come up for the day to help out. But have no fear Mrs. Shinshu Life, judging from how lazy I have been today, despite beautiful clear skies, there will be plenty of rice left to be harvested next weekend!

In the photo you can only see part of the fields that need to be harvested. Yesterday I, with the help of a neighbor, finished one-half of one of our seven fields, and since the neighbor is not available to help today, and also since I am wasting time writing this instead of working while it is daylight, I can only expect to complete another quarter of that field today. At this rate, I will have to worry more about snow than rain!

OK. Seriously, I gotta get going.

I’m a bit late with this, but here are some photos from the Obon holiday along with a very dry explanation.

Last year I did not know about the “shishi” dance, so I had already booked customers for the time and was too busy to participate. This year I kept the two weeks before pretty much open so that I would have time to join a group of about ten other men from the village in practice. A few practice dancing, a few practice flute, and I and two others practiced drumming. There are also a group of “retired” shishi who offer their advice and criticism of the others dance or music.

Every year at this time, in order to offer a relief from the heat, a group of guys get together at the local meeting hall every night and practice playing the flute, drums, or dancing with a lion mask. The relief from the heat comes in the form of lots of cold beer after the practice. On the night of the festival, we walk through the hamlet as children carry lanterns. The men play drums and flutes, while others walk around with a bottle of sake pouring it down people’s throats. Once we reach the shrine, much drinking of beer ensues. In the one photo you see me competing in a chug-a-beer-with-a-straw contest. I am pretty sure this is illegal in the US.

As this is my first year, I am not skilled enough yet to play the drums at the main festival, but the next day we walked around the hamlet visiting all forty homes, playing a song and dance to drive the evil spirits out of the house. As we walk between houses we are also drumming and fluting, so it makes for a very unique atmosphere that day, because the music can be heard from all around the hamlet.

Several houses along the way had prepared snacks and drinks for us to take a rest and cool off, so we were drinking from morning to night. That was nice. It takes all day to cover each house, and it is hot with all those clothes on, so each house donates about 5,000 yen so that the “shishi”men can go out for a party that night. We all took a bus to the nearby village (apparently getting OUT of our own village is highly valued to everyone who has lived their whole life here). There we have a bath and big meal with the added benefit of “companions” - girls that are hired to pour us drinks and laugh at our jokes. This time they even let some of the men touch their XXX.

All in all it was the funnest festival I have ever attended in Japan. Being a part of the festival really makes a difference. The only annoying thing was the TV crew that was following my every move. They did not get enough footage of Tomoe and I together the last time they were here, so they came back for more. Unfortunately, during this kind of festival time, men and women have very different roles so we spent very little time together. They spent most of their time following my preparations and playing at the festival. The other people of the village were good sports though, and faked a konmpai at the end of the day for the sake of the TV crew.

The festivities start in the morning when all the men have to gather at the shrine to set up. There is not enough work for that many men, but if you fail to appear you have to pay a fine, so everyone shows up and either stands around, or pretends to be doing something useful. Next, the men from each group of houses in the hamlet (5 groups) gather at a designated place and build a big umbrella with a painted lantern. This time I was in charge of painting the lantern, but with the TV people watching me I was pretty nervous and didn’t make a very good painting. Upon seeing my painting of a girl eating watermelon (a typical summer theme) one old man said

“Oh! Its obake (ghost or monster)!”.

“No,”

“Oh! An obaachan (old lady)!”

“No.”

I doubt I will be asked to paint again next year.

Later, the “shush” men practice their flutes, drums and dancing, and we have a BBQ, being careful to leave a few hours for the alcohol to vacate their system before the festival. Then, once it is dark, we meet at the shrine, change into our costumes, and parade through the town playing our drums and flutes.

Below is the song we played at each house, but there are also other more fast-paced songs and dances for the festival, and another one that we played as we walked from house to house.

The photos you see here are:

1. Lanterns used for the festival
2. Everyone gathered around pretending to work in preparation for the festival.
3. Chillin’ at a BBQ after our final practice for the dance. We had spent every night practicing and drinking for the two weeks prior.
4. Photos from the procession as we walk around the village the next day. I played drums at some of the houses (not very well, I might add)
5. Photos of some of the kids getting “bitten” by the shishi for good luck.
6. Children at the festival

Everyone’s worried about the lack of sunshine recently. The Koshi Hikari rice is behind schedule, making us very glad that we planted the equally as yummy, but still looked down up Akita Komachi variety of rice. Ours seems to be doing well and pretty much on schedule. Yesterday I even saw some drooping stalks, meaning that the kernels have started to develop. It is important for us to harvest our rice as early as possible, because the typhoon season might cause the river to flood, washing away all of our rice.

Our non-rice crops are moving along slowly. I like to blame the lack of any veggies even though its already August, on the lack of sun, but I guess it has more to do with planting them so late. Oh well, we get enough from the neighbors, and once this rain and cloudy season ends, we will have our own cucumbers to feed to the chickens.

Because we get so much from the neighbors, we tried to plant things that no one else grows, or that are in high demand. The peanuts are all doing well (though I really have to weed there), and the popcorn seems to be going great. We planted a lot of hot chili peppers so Tomoe can make lots of her famous Tabasco, but they seem to be waiting for the sunlight as well.

We did just harvest our potatoes which were not stolen by the monkeys (as they were last year), so we have way too many again, and this year they are huge (compared to last year). I would be happy if only we had not just received two big bags from neighbors. Now we will have rotting potatoes in our hallway again this winter and next spring. The chickens don’t seem to like the potatoes that much, but I suppose if we boil them or douse them in nuka (rice husk powder)…

Or, maybe the reason the chickens wont eat the potatoes is that they now have free roam of the entire garden. While all the plants were small we locked them into their own little section of garden, which they quickly depleted of any bug/plant resources they might need for the next two months. Now that the plants in our garden (and more importantly the neighbors’ gardens) are big and strong enough to withstand the chickens scratching and pecking, we let them run free. If I had a ticket to fresh worms and ant larvae every day I wouldn’t eat potatoes either! (or is it the other way around…?)

Just finished up a great trip last week with a really great family of five. Aside form being tired from lack of sleep, everything was a breeze because the kids (6,8, and 9) rode further than any of our past 11 year olds. The best part though, is that no matter what activity I suggest, the kids say “Cool!”

They love everything. We even spent one morning at the local grade school (which I originally was not sure if they would want to do since it was their summer vacation) sitting in on English and swimming classes and playing with the grade schoolers, followed by joining their school lunch. Everything was “cool!” and they would rather go to school here just because of the pool, but the fact that the kids have to do all the cleaning of the school themselves (no janitor) was a bit of a turn-off.

I know I have been doing too much self-promotion recently, but please allow me a few more. Here are a few great summaries from past customers complete with photos and movies. I particularly love that Carissa put her ride to Shonen Knife (My favorite Japanese band and the only that I ever saw in concert, way back when in Ann Arbor)

• Spring Bike & Hike by Carisa Aoki
• Private Bike & Country Experience

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Dang! Now I have to update the website and fix the broken blog layout!

So the family is gone. We drove them three hours to a bus stop where they could catch a highway bus direct to the airport rather than have them carry all their luggage and two babies through three transfers up and down lots of stairs. I wonder if it was a good choice though, as highway traffic is high and there may have been traffic jams around Tokyo. I hope they caught their flights.

I have hundreds of photos from the ten days they were here, but those that probably best represent the time are my mom’s least favorite. Irene would cry and cry every time grandma held her. I really felt bad for my mom, so I tried a little trick I had read online…

It seemed to have worked.

Just wathcing me administer the therapy to Irene made oscar smile as well.