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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Saturday, June 1, 2002 |
 You know summer's arrived when there are children setting off fireworks on the sea side of the school playground...
They were pretty impressive fireworks, though! Normally they're sparklers or pathetic little 'Roman Candle'-style fireworks, but tonight there were even rockets. Someone's going upmarket...
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Not that this is going to be any help as far as the future not just of the group, but of Washibe kagura itself, is concerned- it's not even a case of 'too little, too late'- but this evening, we did start something new.
Kagura is fundamentally music and dancing for the Shinto gods, but this evening we started practicing yokyo, which is lighthearted entertainment, although still using the basics (taiko, shishi and daiba) of kagura. It should be interesting.
I think I put my foot in it (metaphorically- we're not talking about the mud again), though, when I asked during a pause in the practice, 'What is all this for?' I wasn't trying to be facetious- nobody had actually mentioned what all this new stuff was for. But anyway, there was a deathly silence, an icy wind blew across the room, and eventually one of the 60-year olds explained to me that we were trying to be entertaining.
I think I'll keep quiet in future...
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This is something that crosses my mind every time I go to taiko in Washibe, but I really think that unless something is done, then the whole tradition (and Washibe's kagura is unique) will die out. The only people who really know all the rhythms (not to mention the dances for the shishi and daiba) properly are around 80, I think, so unless this knowledge is passed on soon it will disappear.
But this isn't the only problem. There are enough adults in the group to learn the details. But a real commitment seems to be lacking, which is one problem (a halfhearted dance or drumming is better left unperformed), but not so much of a problem as the complete lack of young people with any interest in starting to learn. One of the reasons that the 'elders' of the group are so knowledgeable is precisely because they grew up with the taiko and kagura, practicing it over tens of years. It's not something that can be learned in a year, or even a few years- it takes longer than this. In fact, I'm not even sure that it can be learned at all- it's something that one comes to feel. In any case, I'm the youngest member of the group, and the next person is 40. One of the 40-year olds brought along his elementary-school-age son this evening, but the boy was interested only in his Game Boy. We need junior high school students, who hopefully will become interested enough that even if they stop playing while at high school or university, will return to the group later on. Without this sort of forward planning, well, there is no future. And this is a shame.
Two years ago, when it was Washibe's turn to prepare the kagura and taiko for the Autumn Festival in Hachiman Shrine, we had something like fifteen tunes, most of them with their own dance. Thinking this evening of that magnificent summer- it really was a superb experience- I found myself wondering whether these dances would indeed ever be performed in Washibe again.
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Having so sanctimoniously created cow-pat piles of mud along the side of the road, one would have thought that the least the 'clippers at dawn' gang could done would have been to have cleared the mud. But no! Far better to leave it for people to tread in in the dark. It's a nuisance! A menace! I should complain to the council! (Oh, I am the council...)
I know one thing, though. If I'd have stepped in the damn mud, there'd have been swift and terrible retribution. Like 'Desert Storm', but without the sand...
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Taiko this evening, for the first time in months. It's not that I've been skiving, rather that the group took a prolonged break. It was good to take up my bachi again, though, although I'm aching all over now... it's amazing the muscles that get used when playing taiko!
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They say that no matter how many times you get a hangover, you never learn not to drink too much alcohol (not that I'd know, but nevertheless...)
Anyway, it's the same with bento from the convenience store- I never learn to stay away from them. I think the last time I bought one was at Christmas, on the night I got back from Fukushima, and I vowed then never to make the same mistake again. Well, I lasted until today, but I succumbed. Foolishly. They really are as bad as I remembered. I'm left vowing never to buy a bento from the convenience store again.
Which means that I should be writing something along these lines sometime around the beginning of November...
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Sometimes, I'm really envious of the elementary school boys here. They have much more freedom to roam around than is the case in Britain, and being right next to the sea means that they have the most superb playground anyone could wish for.
For example, this afternoon, on my way back from the convenience store, riding along the sea wall, I heard voices from the other side of the wall, and saw the top of a head poking up. Well, the drop to the sea is about five metres, so it was obvious that the schoolboy in question was hanging from something, or else balancing on something- added to which the tide was about half in. It turned out that he was standing on a drainpipe (of course!), but when I looked down into the harbour, there were a group of four or five boys floating on a huge piece of polystyrene! How they got down to the 'raft' I don't know, and how they were going to get back up I don't suppose they'd considered, but the fact remains: what a superb way to spend a Saturday afternoon!
Certainly better than shovelling sludge out of the drains... Someone should tell the hedge brigade.
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An announcement over the 'disaster prevention broadcast system' this morning proclaimed that tomorrow morning would be the annual community clean-up day. Basically, everybody in the area goes out early in the morning and pulls up all the weeds, cleans the drains, and so on. Or, at least, that's how it should be; I'm the only one from this block of apartments who makes the effort.
Anyway, the fact that the clean-up day is tomorrow is why, of course, I noticed (on my way to the convenience store this afternoon after a morning at the office) that all the drains had been cleaned, with piles of sludge left to dry at the edge of the road. Why not wait until tomorrow?
In fact, I know why- it's all done to create some sort of warped sense of superiority- the people responsible will casually slip the fact that they were hard at work all day today into the conversation tomorrow morning, with an unstated rebuke to the listener for not having devoted his Saturday likewise. Well, sorry, but if they have nothing better to do, then that's their look-out. So there. I wonder if there are old people like this absolutely wherever you go?
By the way, the people responsible are (wait for it) the 'hedges at sunrise' brigade. So no surprise there, then...
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:04:12 pm.
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