Gosha Shrine's summer festival

Heeeeeeey, everyone.  It is grossly hot here.  It is so hot that I am literally dripping in sweat.  There is literally swear dripping off me.  IT IS DISGUSTING.

Anyway, have some random purikura pictures from a million years ago (I'm really unclear on why Blogger highlights things randomly):

(These were taken during Louki's birthday.  Someone had the smart idea of picking the ~sparkly eyes~ setting, which, uh, made our eyes sparkly.  These are some of the less disturbing results.)

(Also, for anyone who can't read Japanese, our names are written on our foreheads, so we have:
Meredith (purple), Gitari (pink; that's his nickname), Ashley (light blue), Grace (blue), Hali (yellow), me (green), Louki (red), and Mariko (dark purple-ish).)

(Also, I totally stole this picture from Mariko because I am a THIEF.)

ANYWAY, Sunday was the summer festival at Gosha Shrine!  And I am all about summer festivals, so I headed on over.

Fortunately, it wasn't raining!
Unfortunately, that meant it was about a million degrees at 8:30 in the morning and everyone just wanted to go home and hide in dark holes.

A bunch of stands were already set up when I arrived:

They had a stand selling a bunch of used clothes and dishes and books.

Taikoooooo.

This, by the way, is the shrine office where I have calligraphy class!  And since the doors were open, you can now see the beautiful interior~

There was a short purification ceremony that mostly only the soudai and the performers participated in, and then a girl sang a song and then Nakano-san's daughters (who are the shrines' miko) performed a dance.

And then the main performances started.

Taiko!

So this was at about ten in the morning.  As you can probably tell, it was CROWDED.

The next group of performers were a bunch of little girls from a baton-twirling school.

They were kind of adorable, in the way that small children who never turn the correct way generally are.

There was also a group of older girls who were performing.

(This was the oldest group of girls.)

Tambourines are batons, right?

And then the little kids came back with pom-poms...

This was literally all that I could think of...

The next group of performers was a storytelling troupe...

They set up a tent so that they wouldn't die in the baking sun.

Unfortunately, their entire audience was dying in the baking sun instead...

Unfortunately, they were having some serious microphone feedback issues...

They told the story of Susanoo and Yamato no Orochi and also the story of Okuninushi and the rabbit.  Definitely the best version of the Yamato no Orochi story I've ever heard.  It was so exciting!  (Apparently I was one of the few people who actually enjoyed it, 'cause a bunch of middle schoolers told Nakano-san that it was boring.  Ohhhh dear.)

One of the older women at the festival turned to me after the story was over and said, "...are you actually interested in these kinds of stories?" to which I had to respond, "YES," because who ISN'T into stories about Susanoo fighting a giant dragon with his future-wife-turned-into-a-comb in his hair?

So then I bummed around the shrine for a bit longer, talked to some people, and got some ice cream so I didn't die of heatstroke did research on festival food.

A bunch of kids were shooting each other with water pistols, much to Nakano-san's consternation.

These kids are super ball fishing, which is the more animal-friendly version of goldfish fishing.

This random guy was selling vegetables...?

These kids were selling homegrown grilled corn.

...this was the line for ice cream.

It was really hot, okay?

Aaaand here's the front of the shrine, where all the special lanterns were hanging.

So, yeah, that was the festival!

On Tuesday it was Pay 1,000 Yen for Movies Day, so I went to see the new Spiderman movie!  It was interesting.  I feel like there were some things that were definitely better than the old version, but there were things that were definitely worse.  It's much closer to the original canon, which...isn't...necessarily...a good thing.  I also feel like it didn't come together as well as the old version, 'cause there were some things that were giant question marks at the beginning and still giant question marks at the end.  Gwen is kind of amazing, though (although I have a lot of FEELINGS about her last scene, bah).

I had calligraphy class yesterday, and Itou-san dropped by,* which led to the largest concentration of Shinto-nerding I have ever seen in a small single room.  We had a big, long discussion about how kids weren't considered human until they turned 7 in the Edo period, and how that led to a lot of interesting stuff like legal infanticide and shortened funerals for kids.  Hurrah for interesting discussions!

And then I went home and submitted all my papers for Fulbright except for my research paper, which is 15.5k and still growing uggggggh.  I need to turn it in within the next week, so I'm just trying to clean up what I have right now and hoping that it turns into something semi-coherent.  I think right now I'm only missing the conclusion and some transitions in the middle, so it's not a huge amount of work left...

In final news, remember how I decided to fly out of Tokyo so that A) I could have my exit interview face-to-face rather than over the phone (I HATE PHONE CALLS, especially extended ones; it's so hard for me to figure out what's being said without being able to see the other person) and B) I could FINALLY go see the Ghibli Museum?  Well, within the last 24 hours I just found out that Dr. Satterwhite, who does the exit interviews, will not be available when I was planning on being in Tokyo, so I have to do a phone interview, AND that the Ghibli Museum is sold out of tickets until mid-August.  AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.  Excuse me while I flip over the UNIVERSE.  I am fairly sure that I am going to wind up going to the Ghibli Museum when I'm a million years old at this rate.  WHY?  WHYYYYYY?  So now I'm trying to figure out when to go up to Tokyo.  BAH.
</drama>

Well, I should get back to my paper...gosh...

*Why she dropped by is a long story involving a guy giving her a bunch of calligraphy sets years and years ago and telling her to give them to foreign students...?  Oh, and then she's supposed to take a picture when she gives them to the foreign students and send him a picture so that he knows that the set is going to a good home.  And apparently she hasn't managed to pawn all of them off yet, so when she found out that I've been taking calligraphy she was like, "YOU ARE TAKING ONE OF THESE."  So I got a calligraphy set!  Thank you, mysterious benefactor man!


EDIT: Oh my gosh, I just went to check keywords people have used to find my blog, and, uh:

"break up with boyfriend to become fulbright scholar"

I'm crying from laughter here.  Why was someone searching that...?  DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MY QUOTE ON THE TECH HOUSE QUOTES PAGE?  'CAUSE IT'S NOT TRUE, YOU GUYS.

BEST. DAY. EVER.

YOU GUYS.

I kind of had the Best Day Ever yesterday.

Unrelated to the Best Day Ever: Steven returned to the States yesterday, which means that we're down to eight Fellows remaining in Japan.  It's a little scary to think that I'll be the next person to leave.  Oh noooooooooooo.

Okay, now the actual Best Day Ever:

So I spent the morning slaving over my paper, which is now longer than I feel comfortable admitting.  It's also still not done, because I am insane.  But it's getting there!  I really only have to finish writing/organizing the interpersonal relationships section and write the introduction and conclusion and then do some smoothing out in the middle and I am DONE.

In the afternoon I headed over to Kawahara Shrine for the second day of their summer festival!

Everyone had been freaking out the previous day, because the weather forecast called for ~OMINOUS THUNDERSTORMS~, but it actually didn't even rain!  It sprinkled a little bit at one point, but otherwise it just stayed grossly hot and muggy.

Anyway, the moment I arrived I was spotted by a couple of the soudai who were chilling under the tent that had been set up (they were in charge of selling the offerings for the festival) and they called me over to chill with them.  As it turns out, chilling with soudai is a much easier way to people-watch than hovering awkwardly!  The more you know!

There was a special ceremony occurring at one of the auxiliary shrines at 4, but before that all the soudai gathered to take a picture and I got dragged into it because apparently I hang around the shrine enough that I count as...something having to do with the shrine?

After that everyone lined up to walk around the grass-loop and then walked over to the auxiliary shrine for the ceremony.  It was potentially the most cramped ceremony ever, 'cause there were roughly forty people trying to stuff themselves into a space that could comfortably hold maybe five people.  But nobody was crushed, so all was well.

After the ceremony, everybody was chilling under the tent again and drinking tea and talking about various things.  Then Yamauchi-san (who works in the shrine office) came up and said, "Hey, Dana, do you want to try on miko clothes?  'cause all the other foreign students got to."*
And I said, "...sure?"

So then I got dressed up as a miko.

FOR THE RECORD, miko hakama are more like a skirt than pants!  Also, if you tie hakama correctly, you will not be able to bend your back easily.

So, yeah, I got to dress up as a miko!  It was pretty exciting!

And then I was chilling in the shrine office and talking to various people about various things while Yamauchi-san and Itou-san whispered together a bunch.

And then Yamauchi-san was like, "WEEEEEELL, as long as you're dressed properly...want to help out?  We'll pay you in dinner."

And I was like, "YUS, FREE FOOD."

So I got to sit at the window of the shrine office and make shide** and I told a guy where the toilet was when he asked.  (...I don't spend too much time at the shrine.)  Oh, and a bunch of the soudai did a double-take when they walked past, 'cause they were like, "Oh, hey, we need [whatever]" and then they were like, "....waaaaaaait a second."
(Needless to say, everyone else in the shrine office was terribly amused by all of this.)

So then I got free dinner!  Which was delicious bento.  And I got to talk to the musicians who were performing!  And I had a lovely conversation with Itou-san, because all my conversations with Itou-san are lovely.

So then we were done with dinner and Itou-san said, "...so the other miko need to eat dinner...  Do you want to take their place doing suzubarai?  'cause we don't really have anyone else to spare..."

So I wound up doing suzubarai???***
Suzubarai, for anyone who doesn't speak Shinto-ese, is a purification using a bell-stick and a fan.  It is...not actually that hard to do!  I even learned how to give directions to people with the correct level of politeness.  (ようこうそお参りくださいました！)
So, anyway, Yamauchi-san and I did suzubarai for a while, and then Itou-san took over for Yamauchi-san.

As it turns out, the draw of getting suzubarai from the head priest and a random gaijin is pretty strong!  We had SO MANY PEOPLE coming for suzubarai.

Perhaps the best moment, though, was when this little boy (he was probably about 4) and his mom came to ask us for suzubarai.  We did it, and when we finished:
Mom: It's very unusual to see a head priest doing suzubarai!
Itou-san: Yes, this is a one night-only special.  You get suzubarai from the head priest and a one night-only miko!  (to the little boy) Where do you think she [meaning me] is from?
Little boy: AMERICA.
Me: Yes, I'm American.
Little boy: I CAN TELL FROM HER FACE.
Mom: (pretty obviously confused) Oh, is she...doing...some sort of...self-purification???
Itou-san: No, she's just studying Shinto.  She's going to Harvard in the fall!
Mom: Wow!
Itou-san: (to the little boy) Since you got suzubarai from her, that means you can go to Harvard too!
Little boy: O.O
Mom: Wow, it's so unusual to have a foreigner studying Shinto.
Itou-san: Yes, she knows a lot about things having to do with shrines.
Little boy: I KNOW A LOT ABOUT CARS.
...so then he started telling us all the things he knew about cars until his mum had to drag him away...
...but he came back later in the evening...
Itou-san: Yes?  Did you want suzubarai again?
Little boy: YES.
Little boy: But I want it from HER.
Little boy: SO I CAN GO TO HARVARD.
So I did suzubarai for him, and then he ran away and then ran back and then waved at me and then ran away again.

It.
Was.
Adorable.

So, yeah!

Then the other miko came back from dinner and took over, so I got sent to the honden to stamp people's heads.  It was EXCITING.  Some of the children were terrified of the stamps, possibly because they thought they were shots?  And then there were a bunch of people who wanted to know if the ink was permanent, because they didn't want to go into work the next day with a red circle on their foreheads.
Also, there were a lot of people who wanted stamps from the gaijin miko.
(Although there were also people who didn't realize I was gaijin.  Or at least not at first.  Some of them would get a stamp and get halfway out of the honden before stopping and backtracking to stare at me.)

Anyway, it was kiiiiind of amazing!  And I got to see a lot of bits of festivals that I wouldn't normally and it turns out that it's way easier to observe people when you're working (you turn into FURNITURE**** and no one looks at you twice until they have to interact with you) than when you are hovering awkwardly!

By the way, here are some pictures:

Outside the honden!

Inside the honden with some of the head-stamping soudai!

In the shrine office!

I'd like to the note that I was the only miko who had long enough hair to wear the hair decorations properly without having to wear a wig/hair extensions.
(I'd also like to note that I am holding my hands in the correct position in every picture LIKE A PRO.)

Itou-san also took a bunch more pictures, which she said she'd give to me the next time I visit.  So...look forward to that?

Anyway, after that the festival was winding down so everyone got dressed in street clothes and ran around turning off lights and locking up buildings and trying to find missing bicycle keys for kids (you would not believe how many kids came to the shrine office saying they had lost their bicycle keys).  And then Itou-san drove me home, because "I wouldn't let you walk home in the dark if you were my daughter."

So, all in all, a pretty fantastic day!

And right now we are having an incredibly intense rain/lightning/thunder/even more rain storm.  YAY, RAIN.
...and now I have hiccups.  Boo, hiccups.
Right-o, off to bed for me.

*There was a day when all the other girls from the dorm went to Kawahara Shrine to observe a wedding and then got dressed up as miko afterwards, but I had another commitment that day so I couldn't go.

**Those little zigzag paper ornaments that you see everywhere at shrines.

***Ultimate full circle moment: A little more than a year ago I was in the Tech House kitchen having a discussion about miko and Fulbright scholars that WOUND UP ON THE TECH HOUSE QUOTES PAGE, but, anyway, I was saying that I was actually eligible to be a miko but would never get picked.  OH, HOW WRONG I WAS.

****I just had really weird Umineko flashbacks.
Um.
Ow.

Independence Day, also known as Wednesday

Hey, everyone.  Long time no write, I guess.  I've been working on my paper, which has sort of consumed my every waking moment, and is now 42 pages long, SO.  That is where I have been.

Other stuff I've been up to!

Calligraphy!

(The black characters are mine.  The orange characters are Nakano-san's corrections.  At least...not the entire sheet is orange?)

This is a non-corrected sheet.  As long as you don't look at the first character, it's probably okay!

...and here's what Nakano-san gave me right before class ended.  Oh noooooooo.
I really like brush pens, though!  I feel like I should get one before I leave...

In other news, on Friday, in my religious history class, I got to use my crazy awesome English skills to help my group read a section of the US constitution.  I basically had to translate almost every word, because "grievances" and "redress" aren't exactly common English vocabulary.  Oh well, in the end everyone had a pretty okay grasp of what was being said.

Today was Independence Day, also known in Japan as Wednesday, July 4.  My day was not completely devoid of excitement, however, as Kawahara Shrine is having their summer festival today and tomorrow.

The festival is called Akamaru no Shinji, which means "Red Circle Festival."  You'll see why in a second!

Anyway, I headed over mid-afternoon, to find a million food stands already set up:

This ring is the main part of the festival!

So, basically, you're supposed to walk through the ring, first around the left side counterclockwise, then around the right side clockwise, and then around the left side clockwise again.  Then you go inside the honden, leave a monetary offering, pray, and then get your forehead stamped with a little red circle.  This is supposed to protect you from the "summer shadow," which is a polite way of saying the plague!  (Historically, plague outbreaks tended to occur in summer in Japan, so summer is seen as a season of illness.)

One of the stories behind this practice is that one time Susanoo was traveling and he came to a town to stop for the night.  Nobody in the town would give him lodging, even though they had space, except for the poorest family in town, who had the world's worst futon.  Susanoo stayed with them and slept on the world's worst futon.
A couple of years later, Susanoo showed up again!  And he said, "Hey, guys, remember how you let me sleep on your really lousy futon?  Well, you should go take some grass and knot it into a loop around your waist.  Trust me on this."
So the family did as Susanoo said.  And the next day...EVERYONE ELSE IN THE TOWN DIED.
The end!
(Well, actually there's a little extra bit where that family and their descendants can protect themselves from the plague by knotting grass loops around their waists and announcing that they belong to that family.  But the important bit here is that if you refuse to let Susanoo sleep over, you will suddenly drop dead.)

Anyway, as I was taking pictures, I was hailed incredibly energetically by Itou-san and then kidnapped into the shrine office where I was fed delicious onigiri and given tea and had a bunch of really interesting conversations with various people who were helping out at the festival!  I love it when people give me great quotes that just prove the points I'm trying to make.  (One of today's great quotes was, "We come to the shrine because we like the guuji [the head priest, which is to say Itou-san].  If the guuji was terrible, nobody would come!"  Adding to essay now.)  Also, I met the most energetic 80-year-old woman EVER.  She was really cool and gave me a bunch more onigiri because I am too skinny and nobody else was eating them.

Also, Itou-san gave me a massively cool book.  It's bilingual (Japanese and English) and explains and defines a bunch of terms/ideas in a variety of Japanese religions.  I already know most of the terms in the Shinto section, but it has a huge section on Buddhism and a huge section on folk religion, which is pretty darn awesome.  Also, since it's bilingual, it's a good way for me to practice my Japanese.  So, yes, that was awesome.  And I was very happy and thanked her profusely.  (Also, one of the women from the shrine office saw the book and has now determined that she wants to get her hands on a copy.  It is THAT COOL.)

Meanwhile, there was still a festival going on!

Here are some of the food stands...

(The stand to the far right is actually a shooting arcade game sort of.  You shoot at piled up stuff with an air gun and then get to keep whatever you knock down.)

The miko were doing short purification ceremonies for anyone who came up.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but they're holding fans in one hand and their bell-sticks in the other.

(That's Itou-san waaaay in the background in the green pants.)

Anyway, then Itou-san stole my camera so she could sneakily take pictures of me completing the Akamaru no Shinji.  FOR SCIENCE.

Walking round in circles...  (You can probably tell how incredibly focused I was on this.)

And inside the honden...

And praying...

And getting a forehead stamp!

Forehead stamped, LIKE A PRO.
(It should be noted that I walked home like that and kept seeing other people with forehead stamps.   Hurrah!)

So now I won't get plague!  YUS.

It had kind of started raining by this point, which wasn't particularly cool!  Everyone was rushing to put plastic bags over the non-waterproof lanterns.

Some of the soudai lit all the lanterns...with actual lighters!  No electric lanterns here!

One of the great things about summer festivals is SO MANY KIDS IN ADORABLE YUKATA.  There was a little boy in a Pokemon yukata.

So, yeah!  I hung around a little bit longer, talked to some more people, saw some more adorable children in yukata, and then proceeded to get rained on a bunch, at which point I decided that it would probably be a good idea for me to start heading home.  So I did.

And now I am back.

And staring at my essay.

HMMMMMM.

Anyway, happy Independence Day to all of you in the States, and happy Wednesday to everyone else!