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The naked truthFebruary 2003
It was the best looking piece of meat I've seen on my school lunch tray in ages. Maybe my senses were sharpened for having woken up late and missed breakfast that snowy Wednesday morning, but when I saw that meat arrive on my desk at 12:15, I was momentarily in paradise. It smelt good. It looked delicious. I was assured by my fellow teachers that it was indeed tasty. Then someone said the three magic syllables which made my appetite disappear faster than a naked man on a cold night in Okayama. KU-JI-RA.
It used to be common fare in a Japanese school lunch, maybe 30 years ago, but this was the first time I had been served whale since coming to Japan. School lunch isn't exactly a buffet smorgasbord, so it was either eat it or go without. It's not something to make a huge deal of in a setting like my school and I don't badger my Japanese friends about the Japanese whaling industry either, but when faced with the choice, you've just got to decide where you draw your own line. It was already cooked, it was sitting there waiting to fill my tummy or someone else's, one way or another it was going to be eaten so why not me, butc Sorry, tummy, just wait a few more hours for some microwaved curry goodness. Maybe the students who saw me refuse it might store that image away somewhere and think about it one day, as if these mountain children might then be able to decide whether another whale is spared or speared in the open ocean. As if I made a difference.
I've been thinking about trying to make a difference lately and have put my hand up to join the AJET National Council. The NC is essentially the guiding body of the various JET clubs that operate around Japan. It coordinates a few activities, organises a major conference or two, publishes some helpful books for JETs, and represents JETs to the government bodies that run the JET Programme. I thought about nominating for Chair, but then found that I was the only person from Shikoku who was interested. I was therefore able to walk straight into a position as Shikoku representative without worrying about an election. The voting for several other positions is underway online as I type, but I'm already working on NC business as the incoming rep. It could end up being little more than a year of playing politics in the sea of whingers that is the JET Programme, but I'm happy to be focused on Shikoku and looking forward to meeting lots of interesting people. I get a few trips to Tokyo on the side, too. Not a bad deal. :)
Before I do too much on a national level, however, I've got a musical to finish here in Tokushima. Preparations for "Harry Potter and the Big Beckham Rescue" are entering their very final stages now. I've had some success in whipping our dancers into shape as choreographer, and am looking forward to playing a bit part myself as the referee. We had a TV crew at one of our rehearsals this past weekend, which I think made everybody step up a gear in mental readiness for hitting the stage properly this coming weekend. We also had a long weekend off a fortnight ago, to break up our busy schedule of rehearsals and give everyone a chance to recharge the batteries. It's all go for Harry!
I put my long weekend to excellent use by hitting the snowy slopes of Daisen with a group from Nishiiya. Daisen is a mountain in Tottori-ken, on the mainland about 5 hours drive north of where I live. If you stand looking out from Daisen to the north and west on a clear day, you get a great view of the Sea of Japan - ski fields with an ocean view, or so they say. I had to sit down to capture the view on film, because standing up on my snowboard was a bit of a challenge. I staggered back to our hotel at the end of day one with more than a few embarrassing tumbles under my belt, but am proud to say that the end of day two saw me handling the board with some confidence. Or at least, enough confidence to get myself into trouble - my good mate Seiji and I almost got lost in deep snow when we took a wrong turn at the bottom of the international course. It was fantastic snow, though, and I'm thoroughly hooked on snowboarding. Glad I'll be around for at least one more season of skiing in Japan.
As if a weekend in the snow wasn't big enough, I'd have to rate the weekend just past as the biggest I've had in a long time. Friday was, of course, Valentine's Day - happily, I received my fair share of chocolate! For the JETs of Tokushima, it also marked a slightly late observance of Burns Supper, a Scottish tradition of having a gathering, eating some haggis and reciting poetry in honour of the life and work of Scotland's most famous poetic son, Robert Burns. A poetry party, if you like, which turned out to be a cracking night, except that I ended up sleeping on a wooden floor.
I was nevertheless up early and off to a handmade sushi event at a friend's elementary school in the morning. "Temakizushi" is great stuff, made tastier by the good company of genki kids, and I duly kept eating until I had to go to musical rehearsal in the afternoon. We got in a couple of hours of dance practice before it was time to jump a train to the craziest traditional event in Japan - the Hadaka Matsuri, otherwise known as the Naked Man Festival.
The idea of wearing nothing but a loincloth as you run around outside in the dead of winter is, well, pretty silly, but for many centuries now, the Japanese have seen this as the ideal way to prove their masculinity. Festivals founded on this basic theme are conducted at temples all over the country at this time of year. For some 500 years now, Saidaiji temple to the east of Okayama city has been known for making particularly effective good luck charms, but the only way to get your hands on them these days is to get naked, run around the temple a few times, pay homage to its Buddhist deities, and fight over just two sacred sticks with 2000 other similarly outfitted men. There was something said about a substantial cash prize for whoever claimed a stick and lived to return it to the town hall the next day. With a reputation for being cold, bruising and possibly dangerous, how could I resist?!? :)
I wasn't alone in making the pilgrimage to Okayama for this naked madness. Three other boys from Tokushima came with me to join a team of thirty JET men making a threadbare assault on Saidaiji, supported by a crowd of some fifty spectating JET women. It was an opportunity like no other to experience Japanese culture, but all we had to prepare for it were a few stories, words of advice from boys who were coming back for a second time, and a short time to drink as much sake as we could handle before getting into it. We got off the bus, walked to the temple precinct, collected our "fundoshi" loincloths and "tabi" running socks, and said goodbye to the girls and our sanities as we entered the changing tent.
We re-emerged wondering if we'd ever be able to retrieve our loincloths from our backsides, having been wrapped up not-too-kindly but quite effectively by the assistants in the tent, but then forgot about our discomfort as we strode into a light rain and the cold night air. The girls had their chance for a laugh and a few choice photos before we gathered and ran off down the street to the temple, chanting "Wasshoi!" and staying close for warmth as we went.
Through the temple gates, turn right and head down the stairs to wade a lap through the pool, just deep enough to be cold in all the wrong places. Back up the stairs, around the other side of the main temple building to the shrine to offer our prayers - mine were for survival. Run back around and do this twice more before making your way to the main platform. The mosh pit. The epicenter of naked insanity where 100 men at 11pm turned into 1000 men jostling for position and spilling down the stairs by 11:40. I lost my left tabi at about 11:15. It wasn't much use anyway.
Hanging onto a pole to avoid being swept away by the heaving mass, my buddy James and I looked at each other and decided that one hour on the platform was a pretty good effort. We didn't want the sacred sticks - having one just makes you a target. We got down from the platform and joined the more sedate participants in the temple grounds for the last twenty minutes before midnight. As the clock struck twelve, the lights were cut, the sticks were thrown into the heaving mass of bodies, and mayhem broke out as 2000 men fought to clutch the prize and earn their share of good luck for the coming year. After fifteen minutes of wheeling around with the packs surrounding each stick, we broke off and headed back to the tent to reclaim both our warmth and our sanity. Back at the hotel and in bed by 3am, I fell asleep still not quite believing I'd done it. In the morning, however, my slightly bruised left foot was testament to my night of nakedness. And someone out there's got photos. I can't promise that you'll ever see them. :)
On the train home by 11 o'clock, we had time for a bit of lunch before kicking onto another musical rehearsal in the afternoon. Playing a bit part has its benefits, such as catching sleep between scenes, but what little I was awake for looked pretty good. By rehearsal's end I was quite ready to go home and sleep it all off - 3 hours and an onsen later, I was safely back in the valley, falling asleep under my heated table. What a weekend!
And what an email! You can expect a full review of the musical in late March. Until then, take care, lots of love,
Dave