When I woke up on Friday I was greeted by many members of my extended family, all gathered at my house for Thanksgiving. It was strange to not be there, my first Thanksgiving not at home, yet I was glad for the opportunity to see and talk to many family members that I have not heard from in a while.
Then, I met Kendall at Doshisha for lunch and we saw some of the Doshisha Eve celebration. None of the Japanese students had class last week either, because all week long they were celebrating the founding of their university. Doshisha was a completely different campus than the one I go to every day. Every single club from both the Imadegawa and Kyotanabe campuses wanted me to buy the food they were cooking, but all Kendall and I wanted to do was watch some of the thousands of dance clubs perform on the enormous stage erected in the middle of campus. It felt like we were somewhere in America as hundreds of dancers performed pretty standard hip-hop and modern dance routines to American songs. If we were in Berkeley or Seattle there would even be the same percentage of Asians... (yet not all of them would be Japanese).
This was followed by a great bike ride. I borrowed Kendall's host mom's bike and off we went to Ohara, a farming town northeast of Kyoto. We wanted to go to a famous temple there but it was overrun by tourists there to see the fall colors. Instead, we went on a small hike along the mountain path next to the temple. We still got to see amazingly beautiful fall colors (it turns out I take a lot of pictures of trees in this country) and it was far less touristy. We reached a waterfall and it seemed like a good place to have a Japanese tourist take our picture and then return on bike to Kyoto. Despite a little bit of rain on the ways there and back it was a beautiful day. I looked in my guidebook when I got home and it turns out the waterfall is famous, and called the Soundless Waterfall 音無しの滝. Saicho (who founded the temple we wanted to go to) meditated or something by the waterfall.
Saturday I had my first taiko performance! What a funny event. It was in the train station at Okubo, two stops south of mine. Before my group performed, a local children's taiko group performed, and I am probably only slightly better than most of the kids in that group. One girl was super skillful at rhythms! Then Uzu, my group, played. I played on two out of five songs they performed, which was definitely an appropriate ratio. I only know four songs, but the children's group played the other two songs that I know. Setting up the drums probably the funniest part. It was super guerilla-style: two unmarked white vans pulled up next to the station, the 12 or so group members who were at this performance quickly unloaded all the equipment, and then the vans sped away. The same thing but in reverse occurred for the striking of the drums.
Saturday night I went with my host mom and a bunch of her friends to a delicious Brazilian restaurant in downtown Kyoto. The food was great and there was a live bossa nova band. November 29 is 'delicious meat' day in Japan, because of a Japanese pun that I can't explain. This is a tradition I am very excited to bring back to the states.
I have been getting some questions about my classes. Basically, they are pretty bad, one of the weakest points of the program and one of the main reasons why I will not recommend this program to future generations of Whitman Asian Studies majors. Yet I am very glad for my final projects--I finally have work to do! And since I chose the topics for my final projects I am very excited to complete them and to have something to show for my time this semester. My final project in Japanese class is an essay on why Walla Walla is my favorite place. I have a presentation for anime class on the film Paprika, and I am analyzing the relationship in that movie between dreams and movies. My final projects for Gardens and anime class are on the same theme: emptiness. I am looking at the rock garden of Ryoanji and the use of silence and silent moments in the films Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Akira. The next two weeks before finals are going to be very busy but I am feeling focused and refreshed.
