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 ..from
Ewa Manek's blog..
For
something that basically consisted of a string of minor irritations,
this was surprisingly fun. I even shocked my staff people by
saying that I'll be happy to do it again next year.
My day started at 10 (well, a bit before
that, cos I had to wake up, shower, get dressed, etc.) when I went to
the information center by city hall to start getting dressed. This took
longer than I thought should have been necessary due to all 18 of the
girls needing makeup that took about 20 minutes to half an hour to put
on and only 3 (later dropping down to two and then 1 as they got bored)
women who were doing it. Still, at least the first hour and a half were
interesting because the other marchers were all my students and thought
that the ALT being in the parade was the most wonderful (and hilarious)
thing ever.
There were three groups of people.
The musha, or male warriors, the onna musha, or female warriors, and the
koshimoto, or handmaidens. I was an onna musha, which meant that I got
to wear a little red underthingy (which had all of the girls talking
about Inuyasha) some arm guards (the kind that cover your arm and
shoulder and are tied under your other arm), a breastplate (just the
front bit), a big orange over shirt/kimono thing whose sleeves were
tightened into poofs around the elbow, some doubloon looking poofy
orange pants and shin guards. It was all very...orange. And difficult
to breathe in. And pretty stiff. How in the world could anybody fight
in that thing? I could barely move my arms! And what about going to
the bathroom? It would take, like HALF AN HOUR) And hot. Does all
this material actually protect me from harm by, say, sword? No? Well,
then I really don`t see the point. Why not something not as bulky? Or,
you know, serving a protective function? Mind you, the latter would be
heavier, so I shouldn't really be asking for it.) and... orange (not my
favorite color)
Eventually,
we were all dressed and made up and had been informed that the danger of
typhoon had passed so there WOULD definitely be a parade. (this was,
incidentally, the first I heard of the typhoon) There was much rejoicing
and in short order we went down to the buses and were whisked off to the
Hasebe shrine.
There, we got to wait around
for half an hour. Except NOW, instead of waiting around in a nice air
conditioned room, we got to wait outside during the ONLY TWO HOURS of
sun that day had. Fun times! But, as all things must, the fun
eventually had to end, and we strode off. First went the soundtrack
car, which played the same 8 measures of music over and over and over
and over and over again. I can no longer remember the melody, but go
listen to Ravel's "Bolero" on repeat for about an hour and you'll
probably get an idea of how I felt about that song by the end of the
march. After that went the boys, and then then the female warriors,
followed by a horse with a guy dressed as the feudal lord on it on it,
and then the handmaidens. Then a wagon with the feudal lady and children
on it.
I'd just like to say at this point that it is a well known
fact that it is much better to walk in front of the horse than behind it
because you don't need to pay as much attention to where you step.
HOWEVER, people should also be aware that if the horse is
overenthusiastic you do NOT want to be directly in front of it because
it will eat your hair and then possibly the rest of you. The people
marching will be picked off one by one, dreading their fate but being
unable to do anything about it; each time they look back, there is one
less of them and the horse is That. Much. Closer.
But I digress.
We walked through the town
and joined up with the "Make the town brighter" parade which had a bunch
of lion dancers from Kobe and the Anamizu yosakoi group. I was a little
put out about not being able to see it, but into every life a little
rain must fall. Or a lot, if it's the rainy season and you're in
Japan. Or even more than that, if it is monsoon season and you are in
India. And speaking of rain, as mentioned before, it didn't. Instead
it was hot and sunny and completely lacking in any sort of breeziness.
Which makes me somewhat
confused as to why I quite enjoyed it. That is a lie, actually, I
enjoyed it because of the expression of shock that I put on the face of
nearly everyone in Anamizu. That was pretty awesome, let me tell you.
Also, funny. Many of the other high school students were there.
Several of them said I looked very cool, which was nice of them even if
it was a blatant lie. (one of the stupid 1B boy-monkeys called me a hag.
Possibly thinking that I didn't know that word in Japanese. But I do,
and you can all guess who is going to be my new favorite "dialog
demonstration assistant" in that class. *insert mad cackling here*)
My middle school students
were especially prone to starting to screech when they saw me, which was
cute. Most of the reactions were along the lines of "oh look! a gaijin!
hey, she's looking over here - take a picture!" from people who didn't
know me and "is that...Ewa? It IS! Hey, she's looking over here - take
a picture!". Then they would all be quickly distracted by the guy on
the horse, who, had a better costume and was, you know, sitting on a
horse and therefore more exciting.
We walked down the main road
and ended the parade at the police station where we got wet towels and
drinks (tea of course). So that was Hasebe Matsuri. I would definitely
do it again, especially since I got paid for my pains (3000 yen! or 500
yen an hour...not exactly great pay, but hey, part of the payment is the
memories, or something like that.) I also wrote an article about it for
the school paper. Apparently all of the normal article writers were all
out at baseball games or something. |
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