Saturday morning, a small group of us international student hopped the train past Hiei-zan to Ootsu, which is just west of Kyoto, over the mountains. Ootsu is the capital of Shiga Prefecture, on the southwest side of the largest lake in Japan, Biwa-ko, and also the hometown of our main sensei in Japanese. (I say she's our main sensei because she teaches half of the Japanese classes for my level, and I think she teaches at least one class for each level of Japanese...)
On the train, we ogled the cuteness of the Japanese shougakusei while they ogled the foreignness of us. Sometimes they can be real brats. One group of little boys we passed once a few months ago, were gabbing about how ugly we were. These kids were pretty adorable though. They watched Andrea playing games on his handheld console with fascination. When we laughed, they smiled back a little, sometimes uncertainly at first, then cracked grins and waved at us.
Kitagawa-sensei and and a few members of her family picked us up at the train station and drove us first to the hall where the taiko drummers practice. Then it was only a short stroll over to Ogura Jinja, the local shrine, where the drummers would be participating in some vague religious event that day.
Scenery near Ogura Jinja
One of the gentlemen who runs the taiko group, I believe, speaking with Karina just at the main torii.
Three sacred trees
A small crowd waiting for the festivities to begin...
Ogura's Imamiya Jinja peeking through the trees, and its Shinguu Jinja hiding on the right
Kitagawa-sensei's niece and nephew shaking a omikuji box
Beauty and art, embedded in the earth
Finally, the formalities began. A lot of men, some who were Shinto priests, some dressed in what appeared to be historical costume, and a few who may have just been laymen, all walked up onto the platform. There was a lot of keirei...perhaps some saikeirei as well, and the head priest purified them, and then the crowd, by waving the oonusa left and right. Afterwards, he performed some rituals, made offerings, and some of the laymen took turns making offerings as well.
Then the taiko drummers played--first the men, then the women. (The women were particularly well-coordinated and in synch as a group. Kitagawa-sensei said it was probably because women play taiko together as a group more often, whereas men often play individaully.) Like all traditional drum music...I take that back--like all great percussion--the music struck to the core, to the bone, stirring up something deep and old. Something about beating taut dead animal skins...well, they're probably synthetic now.
"Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hail souls out of men's bodies?" Indeed.
Next, a beautiful, graceful fan dance. The man over on the right is probably playing a kagurabue, a kind of transverse flute used in traditional Shinto music.
But soon we had to head to Kitagawa-sensei's family's house to drop off
some of our things before going to learn some taiko!
Someone's charming flowers by the road back to the house
Look! I found Kagura! And possibly, Lord Okoto as well...
They drove us to an elementary school, where we found a group of young children performing taiko for the students and some of their parents, I believe. Once they finished, the head taiko drummers provided us with drumsticks, and a simple rhythm to learn. And we proceeded to have at. After a while of learning and practicing the rhythm, we still turned out to be terrible when it came to playing as
a group though.
Assuming one is right-handed, stand to the right of the taiko. The left hand makes the "ton" sound, and the right, "tan." "Ton" and "tan" represent quarter notes, and "ta" represents an eight note. In our case, two eight notes, "ta ta", was done with the right hand, although I'm sure it gets much more complicated than that.
ton, tan, ton, ta ta x4
ton, ta ta, ton, ta ta
ton, tan, ton, ta ta
ton, ta ta, ton, ta
ton, tan, ton, ta ta
Rinse and repeat as needed, and instead of the last line, finish with:
ton, tan, ton, [rest]
After the very satisfying experience of systematically striking objects to produce aesthetically pleasing resonances, we returned to Kitagawa-sensei's family's house for a savory meal. With ton katsu, and some other traditional Japanese foods whose names I can't recall, and most importantly fruit. Real fruit.
Most fruit here in Japan is pretty expensive, so I don't really get to eat it very often. I miss raspberries so much. Whenever they went on sale at Harris Teeter, I'd buy two packets and eat them like candy.
Kitagawa-sensei showing us the shamisen, a three-stringed lute.
Andrea let me post the video he recorded during lunch here (thanks!!):
The Carnage
They also allowed me to take some pictures of their beautiful home...
Everyone else left after lunch for tutor camp or for their circles' activities, but since I had the rest of the day free and was in new and unfamiliar territory, I thought I might as well get in some sight-seeing. Kitagawa-sensei and her brother helped me work out which trains to take to get to the temples I was looking at visiting, and how to get back to Kyoto. Kitagawa-sensei was kind enough to drive me to the train station, and before we left, her sister gave me a fan which she said their mother wanted me to have, since it was rather sweltering that day. It was all very, very sweet of them, and I thanked them for everything--in Japanese, haha!That was a laugh of triumph, by the way.
