August 4, 2002 - 11:18PM
Wes Ehrlichman

Hey! I have kind of a funny story from earlier today. This morning I went to someone's house for lunch. They called me up last night and brought over a really cool alarm, some rental videos, and some donuts from Mister Donuts. They were all very nice and had the cutest dog and the cutest kids. The family was huge though, and I brought some Omiage, but I wasn't prepared for the 15 or so people sitting around the table eating lunch. The focus of my conversation was with a really cool 31 year old guy who knew English really well whose name was Kôji and his 28 year old sister Rika.

Rika taught me each of their names in Kanji and I taught everyone the word poop.

At one point Kôji asked me if I knew how to dance Japanese. I said "Sure" and he asked me to go to a preparations festival that day in Miyanojô, as far as I could tell from the somewhat stilted translation that came out of my Japanese-English dictionary. I was down, so at around 4:00 we got into the car and started for Miyanojô, which is one town away. On the way there we stopped by my house and he told me to bring a change of clothes because I would probably get really wet. I started to wonder what kind of festival it was, but I put on some sweat shorts and a plain white t-shirt and packed a change of clothes in my bag anyways.

When we got there he reached into the back seat, pulled out a Hawaiian shirt that said Miyanojô on it, and put it on. He also grabbed a fan, a headband, and a set of wooden rice spoons. We then walked past a bunch of grown men in diapers that were preparing to carry the town's shrine (not actually diapers, but traditional Japanese loin clothes I think) and walked up to another group of people wearing Hawaiian shirts. Keep in mind that I am still wearing my cruddy Gym shorts and a plain white undershirt thinking that I'm going to get drenched. I see them spraying up and down one of the men with a garden hose. I meet a few of the guys in our group and they hand me a beer. I start to drink it slowly and then some music starts playing. My group of men in Miyanojô Hawaiian shirts makes me finish my beer really quick, then pushes me into a parade where I have to start doing some crazy Japanese dance that I said I knew!

It was nuts.

In order to understand the dance I tried to watch the guy in front of me. I could get the arm motions down ok, but then when I would start to watch his feet to get the foot motions down I would totally lose the arm motions. I still had no idea what I was doing when the song ended, then another song began and they pulled out their rice spoons and started clapping them together. I didn't have rice spoons though, so I just had to clap my hands. Whatever.

They alternated between these songs for a little while and then after they went through each one about 4 times they stopped for a break. I look totally lost and they handed me a beer. I started to drink it then the parade started again. I had to finish this one really quickly again so I gulped it down and got back into line. We started dancing and I'm noticing that I'm getting a little better at the dance. I can get the motions down on either the arms or the legs every time at least, and the claps are always spot on.

After a few songs an old Japanese man, or "Ojiisan" ran out of the crowd and into the parade and handed me a beer. I was dancing though so it was really hard to drink that one. I drank the beer, smacking the can whenever the song calls for a hand clap. I finished the beer as quickly as I could, and when I was done I REALLY had the songs down. I was dancin' it up! Gettin' my hips into it, and even smiling at some of the "Obaasans" (old ladies) watching the parade from the perimeter. There was another break then and I started introducing myself to everyone in Japanese and throwing in some English too. I turned down the next beer though. I try to stay in a good state of mind while I'm in Japan. The parade started again, and someone offered me his rice spoons. I took them and got totally into the spoon song.

When it was all over they took a picture of every one of the Miyanojô Hawaiian shirt group and me (Including a woman wearing a giant yellow Mascot costume that looks like Pikachu which I didn't see until the end of the parade). I'm guessing the picture will be in some newspaper somewhere.

We then went back to Kôji's house where I met his wife and three month old baby. We ate dinner and watched some nutty Japanese TV and then Kôji took me home.

All of this stuff happened on my first weekend in Japan! And next week is a festival celebrating summer where they shoot off 1000 firecrackers. Japan is nuts! Ok. Thought everyone would like that story. Later!