Kobe Winery- Obon Festival
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2006
1
10
93
Trip End
Ongoing
Kobe,
Japan
Saturday, August 26, 2006
After getting dressed in our yukatas we had more time to explore the festival grounds. There was a game of bingo with prizes as lavish as wine sets, or as small as paper fans covered in commercial advertising. I was doing great from the start with 3-4 rows where I could win, but my lucky numbers just weren't being called. In the end (after many winners shouted bingo and redeemed prizes) I walked away with some hoity-toity cooking sauce (that I'll probably never know how to use.) Still I was a winner! My friend Alison was a much bigger winner though. She won a whole bag of expensive rice produced by the locals.
Brianne and Alison Enjoy Wine Testing
There had been a 'guess the weight of the pumpkin' contest earlier and she actually guessed the weight within 1/10th of a kilogram. It weighed 63.4 and she guessed 63.5! Throughout the day there were 'translators' (volunteers from local universities that were trying out their English) present so we made friends with some Japanese girls. When it came time to participate in the traditional Japanese dances in the center of the festival grounds I insisted on dragging these girls out with me. I felt that, if the older women expected me to pick up the steps of countless dances, then surely two native Japanese girls could manage to do it with me. The dancing consisted of people standing around in huge circles- imagine the lineup for the hokey pokey. The Japanese women would dance to the music that was blared from speakers in the center of the grounds while slowly moving the circle counter-clockwise. The onlookers stood around and watched. My favorite dances were the fast ones that had a bit of action in them (keep in mind this was all set to very traditional Japanese music- if you'd like to hear what this sounds like please call Shannon, she has a wonderful CD.) Typically there were about 5-10 moves that would be repeated in unison over and over throughout the song. Supposedly one of the other JETs has a video of me dancing, if I can get my hands on this I'll be SURE to send it your way ;)
In the end I was applauded by the Japanese women who were around me dancing, they told me I was a very good dancer and 'very Japanese.' I think the cultural translation here was "Thanks for hanging in there till the end! You were absolutely horrible and danced like a block of wood- but at least you didn't give up!" * My Japanese 'translating' friends had long ago bailed out.
All in all, the event was fabulous. It was nice to get out of the JET lifestyle and experience some real Japanese culture. I enjoyed trying to speak to the elderly Japanese women about the dances and yukatas, and tasting some of the locally grown vegetables. At one moment I was even confident enough to stop a young girl (maybe 2 years of age?) to help her take off her shoes and get them on the right feet so that she could walk straight. This actually might have been the highlight of my day. While I was a foreigner, and therefore utterly terrifying, she knew the alternative wasn't working and allowed me to help her. Sooo cute!
*Side note on culture- Japanese people rarely say what they are actually thinking. To another Japanese person the meaning is clear as glass, but to a foreigner it's all coded, and garbled.*
