Fireworks, festivals, and Deep Purple

When I was about 15 or 16 I was attending a punk rock show at Bareville fire hall. My friends and I walked down the street to a Turkey Hill minute market, and I recall a car full of d-bags with too much testosterone and only a hint of a neck (the variety of which I would later regularly see in college that would cause me great confusion as to why women find this attractive, but that's irrelevant right now) being rowdy, and one of them asked our group if we were Amish. At the time I was wearing a faded t-shirt of the album Machine Head by the kickass rock band Deep Purple. I wondered then and I wonder now if Amish people ever get to really experience the power of electric guitars, Fender amps and pyrotechnics.

Anyway. This past week has been a whirlwind of an adventure; a roller coaster of discovery, emotions, reflection, and sweating through my shirts. Early upon my arrival in Sano I attended an impressive fireworks show held in the nearby town of Ashikaga. There were droves of people. I'm not a fan of crowds (Gandhi, the great mover he was, did not like crowds as he knew ya can't control a mob, and I share his sentiments on that, but not his wardrobe choices) but here in Japan there's something about them that isn't threatening. People are calmer, happier, just looking to have a nice sweaty evening out eating donuts with chopsticks and occasionally dressing like sexy cartoon schoolgirls. So I didn't do my usual verification of adequate nearby exits, and it was refreshing. Check it out before reading on:

I also had the uncomfortable pleasure to dance in a Sano City parade. Apparently, and maybe this would have changed the negotiations of my contract a little bit had my employer reviewed this detail with me, the city employees, as well as other organizations and groups around Sano, participate in this annual festival. Each group had its own attire and ours (shown below) consisted of a blue robe thing (hell if I know what it's called) and a white ball cap. My head isn't designed for ball caps, so you can imagine my (well-controlled) horror when vain little me was handed my urban jungle fatigues. But hey, I can roll with it.

I was told the dance itself was easy and I'd just pick it up and follow along. Wrong. So twenty minutes into this parade my mouth was as classically colorful as the fireworks last weekend. But I can deal. And actually, it was a lot of fun. The spectators again were lively, their big brown eyes full of joy and their little bellies full of mochi. At the end of a series of dances performed to traditional Sano songs — whoa, just as I was typing that there was an earthquake, second one since I arrived — a lady with a microphone, kimono, and camera crew approached me and Melissa, the other ALT from Lancaster, and asked for an interview. Our boss was standing nearby and I grabbed him and said, "we need you." He happily translated for us when we were asked our thoughts about the festival (in hindsight I should have responded that I was expecting something more along the lines of Carnaval; plastic surgery, crime and all). So a week here and we're basically famous.

The following day I was invited by Hiro, my new friend from downstairs, to go to the river with his friend Chris, an American guy who's been here twenty years and learned Japanese by ear because he needed to find a job. I thought about my short swim trunks — just shy of being a little questionable, and DEFINITELY not appropriate for business meetings — and the company I was with, but let it go. I was accepted whether or not my ass cheeks were at risk of an afternoon cameo.

There were a lot of people out to enjoy the sun, water and scratchy weeds this day, and Hiro was curiously the only Japanese person there. There were people from India, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, and the United States of Goddamn f'ing America, son. I made friends with a Brazilian guy (who was clearly Brazilian yet said his father is American and his mother German, hmm) and we chatted in Portuguese. He speaks Portuguese, English, Spanish, and Japanese. Pretty impressive really. That's a lot of grammar rules to keep straight.

Later that evening my supervisor stopped by to bring me a laundry pole to hang my clothes out to dry. My apartment has a little balcony which is essentially just designed to do that, and to house the air conditioning units for the apartment. She reminded me of the festival and so I rode my bike (or rather the bicycle that was issued to me by the Board of Education) over to the festivities and strolled around a bit. The day before it was dancing, and tonight it was groups of people carrying these shrines and following some chants and song. I bumped into some of my new pals and joined them on the walk. There was a little float of taiko drumming and just as I was saying how that's something I wanted to learn, a man pulled me over and handed me a Shime-daiko drum, similar in appearance to a talking drum but played differently. He asked me to join in, so I did, and he explained to me the technique and rhythms before each song. Then he said, "and smile: camera!" And before I knew it there was a lady with a video camera within arm's reach, focus set to my skull. I quickly put on my best cheese, thinking how my girlfriend always says I look miserable in photographs. It's true. I'm working on it. The band cheered me and handshakes and bows and high fives were exchanged, and they gathered around for some group photos. Again, famous.

Further up, there was live music and some games and other festival activities. I walked to the stage to watch the performances, and there was a middle-aged Japanese man on stage with (I think) a Gibson Les Paul and shredding some ear-splitting, hold-onto-your-underwear-lest-they-be-torn-to-shreds-and-found-in-the-next-zip-code guitar riffs to some prerecorded backing tracks. He announced his last song and bent down to cue his iPod® or something, I don't know, and the unmistakable opening grooves of Deep Purple's "Highway Star" came blasting out of the PA system. Curiously, it wasn't like a karaoke song with the vocal track removed, but rather the actual song just turned down in volume enough so that Jumpin' Jack Japan and his buttery guitar solos could be heard over the music. He started to sing along and I thought, "this is okay, yeah." But as I watched his mouth and listened to his words I realized he had no damn clue as to the lyrics of the song, and at times would just sort of fade out all together, the concentration hanging on his face like a baby koala clinging to its mother as it's ferried around the eucalyptus canopy. And the audience loved it. They cheered, they threw their fists in the air, they screamed and applauded. Even over the slightly dissonant solo that battled the original one on the actual song, which could be heard plain as day to any discerning fan, they cheered. I looked around for a telltale beard and horse and buggy, but saw nothing.

Japan, you're welcome at my place any time.