Tanabata, the Star Festival

This past Saturday (7/7) Japan celebrated Tanabata, the Star Festival. It’s a summer festival that revolves around the myth of Orihime and Hikiboshi. The story is as follows. Please note that this is not a cut and paste, but my own telling.

In the time of the Gods, there lived a beautiful maiden named Orihime whose name means Weaving Princess. She was the daughter of Tenkou, the Sky King, and spent her days weaving the most eloquent cloth by the banks of the Amanaogawa, the River of Heaven. Her only sorrow was that her work took so much of her time, that she had no chance to meet and fall in love with anyone.

Her father, Tenkou, was concerned for his daughter and arranged for Orihime to meet a shepherd named Hikiboshi, the Cow Herding Star, who worked on the other side of the Amanaogawa. It was love at first sight, and the couple was shortly married. All the stars of heaven danced at their wedding.

Sadly, their happiness was short lived. While the couple spent all of their time together, they neglected their duties. Orihime no longer wove her fabulous cloth and Hikiboshi let his cattle run wild. Enraged at such sloth from his children, Tenkou banished them to opposite sides of the Amanaogawa and destroyed the only bridge over the mighty rapids. Thus it appeared that the lovers would be separated for all eternity.

Orihime fell into deep despair and was prepared to hurl herself into the river when a flock of enormous birds surrounded Orihime and begged to know what the matter was. After hearing the sad tale, the birds agreed to form a living bridge across the river so that the lovers may meet. The plan was successful and Orihime and Hikiboshi rejoiced.

Naturally, it was not long before Tenkou caught wind of this. Furious that his orders had been disobeyed, Tenkou was about to exterminate the entire flock of birds when Orihime threw herself at her father’s feet and begged his mercy and forgiveness. Her words touched Tenkou and he spared the birds, but he could not stand to lose face by fully recanting his previous punishment. The sky king decreed that the birds may return one day a year to create the bridge and permit the lovers to meet.

This one day is the seventh day of the seventh month of the year, July 7^th, the Tanabata festival. However, if it rains, the birds will be too wet to fly and form the bridge, so the people pray for good weather. This year, for example, the weather was perfect! So the star crossed (literally, the river is the Milky Way) were able to meet.

That’s the story. The other major tradition is for people to write wishes on slips of paper and tie them to a bamboo tree. This has no connection whatsoever to the previous story. The only link is the fact that the word “Hoshi” can mean “star” or “wish” depending on which kanji you use.

My school had a tree set up for the students to use. As you might imagine, the wishes were an even split between wanting a Nintendo Wii and a sh904i cell phone (the thing the iPhone wants to be when it grows up) and wishing to be the best at a particular sport.

Anywhere you go, kids are kids. I'll leave you with that thought.

So, happy belated Tanabata everyone.

Please highlight the black portion of the previous post to read the whole story. And no, I have no clue why blogger is doing that.

Way Back Track 3: To HQ

Temporal Coordinates set for the last week of March 2007. Nicely done Sherman, good boy.

Today, we’re taking a look back at RyuSensei’s move from the training grounds of Narita to his full time base of operations in Niigata Prefecture. The first problem came when I woke up and realized that I would have to haul all of my earthly possession (in two VERY large bags, plus backpack, plus laptop) on to a tiny bus, through several train stations, and Lord knows what else.

The good news was that when I arrived at the hotel lobby, we were all told that we could mail some of our stuff ahead and that it would be at our apartments the following day. That’s the glory of a federally regulated and funded post office. It would have been nice to know this before having a mild panic attack over how I was going to get all my stuff from point A to point B, but that’s life. Interesting side note, one of the ALT’s that I trained with is from Canada and he refused to mail either his snowboard or his hockey sticks claiming that to do so would tarnish his sense of national pride.

Anyway, after cramming the whole gang into a bus that was clearly designed for far fewer people with far less stuff and who are preferably several inches smaller, add the “there's always room for one more” philosophy that permeates Japanese public transportation, and you have a rather unpleasant beginning to an unpleasant trip. But we were underway none the less.

The next phase of the adventure involved all 30 of us on the train from Narita to Tokyo Central Station, from which we would split up and depart for our assignments. That got a few stares from the locals, but not as many as you might imagine. This was still Tokyo and a gaggle of gaijin is not an uncommon sight, especially near the airport. The minor miracle was that no one was separated from the group during the trip. Japanese trains are very precise machines and the doors stay open for only a few seconds at any given station. If you aren't paying attention, the doors will close on you before you even realize that you are at your station.

Those of us destined for Niigata boarded the Shinkansen, the bullet train, for the next leg of our journey. This is where it gets fun! Please note the sarcasm in my keystrokes. You see, my company had bought us the tickets, but had failed to mention that the train was over booked and our bottom ranked tickets got us in the door, but did not guarantee seats. So we had to stand, but not in such a way that blocked the aisle. What is the solution to this you may ask? That's right, the toilet. A two hour, cross country, $115, train ride . . . standing in the open area of the bathroom car holding our luggage and periodically playing twister so that people could actually use the facilities. We managed to keep ourselves entertained by commandeering a sink and setting up someones laptop to play DVDs and by switching off access to the one porthole style window (as opposed to the huge window in the normal cars). Let me repeat: 2 HOURS!!!

Once we actually arrived at Niigata station, we me our coordinators. These are company employees that are supposed to help us find our way around town, act as translator for important meetings, and generally help us get settled. Now we are all tired and stiff from the uncomfortable trip, not to mention hot as the toilet car is not air conditioned, and each lugging bags that had up to 1-3 times our bodyweight (depending on the person). In other words, we looked like a bunch of refugees from a union meeting of the hitchhikers local 407. Not the best first impression. Thankfully, my coordinator was understanding and we hit it off fairly well.

By this point, I was on my own as all the remaining members of my group had left for their own assignments. What followed for me was a whirlwind of meetings I didn't understand, names I won't remember, and buildings I'll never see again. The end result is that I have an apartment and it is FANTASTIC! It's a 50,000 yen/month apartment that I'm getting for 38,000 because the view consists of 6 inches of dirty concrete and then the back end of the next building over. It also happens to be a two room, two story apartment with full kitchen and bath! Not to mention my own assigned parking space (considered a serious luxury). It will take/took me a few months to get everything set up and livable, but that's all part of the game.

The rest of the adventure of the day involved a lot of shopping for things like a futon, curtains, and other such things. Rather dull, but I will say this, I love one coin shops (100 yen shops).

The next, and final, edition of Way Back Track, will detail the entrance ceremony at my main school, and explain an average day in my life working at a Japanese middle school.