1985/7 Japan

Okayama
23 February 1987
Posted 23.02.87; received 02.03.87

Dear Mom and Dad

Hello to you on this chilly February afternoon. It is a Sunday afternoon and I am at work hoping the odd new student will walk in for one of the free lessons we advertise as giving here each Sunday. Actually, most of the time I quite enjoy the fact that very few people take advantage of our offer. At the moment John, the Canadian teacher who is taking over from me, is doing a demonstration lesson. So we have had to abandon our game of Canasta for a while. It gives me a little time to catch up on my letter writing.

My social life has improved considerably since John arrived. He too knows no foreigners in Okayama and so we regularly have dinner together or get in a couple of videos. It is very nice to exercise my English at normal speed. Especially as John is a prospective writer with a wide vocabulary. A stimulating conversational change from my work colleagues.

At my Ikebana lesson last week I spent over an hour on my arrangement and when my SENSEI came to check it she pronounced it very nice and neither altered nor added a single leaf. I was pretty chuffed!

Last weekend we had a work party. Dinner out and drinks afterwards in a pub festooned with American flags. I am constantly astonished at the inability of a large proportion of the adult Japanese population to make simple conversation without constant prompting from the resident foreigner/s. Especially when the boss is around. Anyway, despite the required silliness on the part of the teachers – or perhaps because of it – a relative amount of fun was had by all.

I trust all is well with the two of you. The attached sheet is one I have stored on the office computer so that I can send a copy of it to all and sundry. Enjoy it. I did.

Lotsaluv
Gail

Last night I went with a group of people that I work with to a very unusual festival at a nearby temple. It is called the HADAKA MATSURI or NAKED FESTIVAL. It takes place late at night during what is possibly the coldest month of the year and has done so for approximately 470 years. The participants are all male and number between 5000 and 10000. They compete for a holy or lucky wooden branch that has been soaked in incense and is thrown into their midst by a priest sometime during the festivities. Gaining possession of the branch guarantees a year of good luck. The men are clad only in a kind of loincloth called a SARASHI which leaves countless torsos and bottoms exposed to the elements and greedy female eyes. Before entering the temple precincts, groups of men gather in drinking houses throughout the area and there prepare themselves to face the icy night by imbibing vast quantities of sake. At about 10.30 the various groups, distinguished by headbands or gloves of a variety of colours, gather in doorways where they link arms and begin to chant “WA-SHOI, WA-SHOI” over and over again at the same time jostling each other in order to keep warm. As the excitement begins to rise, cold water is thrown over the rising mass of bodies in order to cleanse them, and along with their foggy breaths large amounts of steam rise into the air from the sweating men. Then they set off through the streets chanting and bouncing in the direction of the temple. The temple itself is brightly lit and is built of wood with a grey tiled roof. As the thousands of men begin to converge on the main raised temple building where the branch is to be thrown, one simply cannot believe one’s eyes. A mass of semi-naked bodies jostling for position on an area designed to hold one quarter of their number. Their skins tones ranging from olive to bright cold pink. Their hundreds of black heads contrasting sharply with pale skins and white SARASHI. Two foreigners amongst them easily distinguished because they stand a pale or bearded head taller than all those around them. The constant rhythmic chanting fills the air along with the gusts of steam and invariably some tempers become a little frayed. But as soon as a fight breaks out, the police who ring the temple grounds, trot towards the angry scene in a group of fifteen or so and very efficiently put an end to the hostilities. During all this the pigeons which nest on the temple roof look a little ruffled. They must dread this night each year! At midnight the lights are dimmed and the holy branch is thrown down into upstretched grasping hands. At this point the proceedings get a little dangerous as those who have clambered up onto the ceiling beams, fling themselves on those below in order to fight for the SHINGI. I actually saw men walking and crawling on and over the sea of bodies. And suddenly it is all over and all that remains to be done is to disperse or to shop at roadside stores for corn or crepes or candyfloss or Mickey Mouse masks while an army of workers move in and in no time at all remove all signs of the passion and chaos.