Arai Matsuri

So, it turns out I have been in Japan now for twoweeks, so that is only 50 more weeks to go to the yearmark. Time certainly is flying. This weekend was abig one. We had the festival, or matsuri, here in mycity of Arai. So on Saturday I started the day meeting the otherteachers up at Arai Junior High School so that wecould participate. They dressed me up in a hapi(pronounced like happy) which is a traditional shortstyle dress for the festival.. It looks like a shortrobe in which you wrap up in and tie with abelt...then around your shoulders criss-crossing yourback is another sash type piece that ties in a bow-each hapi represents your school or organization thatyou are representing in the parade for the day. So wegot dressed and then went to the shrine in which thefestival began. The order of the parade went like this. Four mencarrying big flags with who-knows-what written on it,then a human pushed/rolled platform with taikodrummers on it going like this. the main drumgoes....whole note, whole note,half half, wholenote...and the one set of the smaller surroundingdrummers go...half half whole half half whole...andthe remainders go...quarter, quarter, half, quarter,quarter half....it is akll very fast, so it isprobably actualy eight notes and sixteenths but youget the jist.. (sorry i don't truly know how drummersread music, but this is as good of a description as Icould give.)So back to the order so, flags, three stages of taikodrummers (the first the olderstudents and local taikodrum team (which is really big in arai), and then twostages of AJHS students (if I am around next year Iwill be doing this, I start practicing with the teamonce they start back up- they take a break after thefestival)...and then... you have a rope- a small roperepresentative of strength- that the AJHS studentscarry- this is the first thing I carried... you walkalong and citizens of the city run up to you and giveyou little flags (like a ribbon of sort) with prayersor wishes or hopes written on it and you stick itbetween the rope and then tie it on...then you have the portable shrines called mikoshi. Icarried this second..you see the festival pauses andyou change everyone up so that all the students havethe opportunity to carry something and participate, itdoes this twice, so a total of three times. there were three mikoshis, and they are very heavy,made of hardwood, lots of ornaments, and some peoplesit on them. (Karmen and I were at a disadvantagebecause we were so tall compared to the students thatthe students around us would not help support it atall, but it was nice to participate. (we lookedagonizing I am sure)then after the mikoshi was the large rope. the ropewieghs over two tons, and only men carry it (and thierfriends walk along the side of it with coolers of"refreshments" to make sure that the people carryingit are well hydrated in a sense. It gets quite rowdyat times, certain groups like to run towards theobservers and then those in front and behind themcannot help but be dragged along. The very last thing following the shrine was a personrolling a keg size basket of sake with a block of iceon the top of it. they are so gracious and shareeverything, so karmen and I got a taste... we aresensais so we must behave...after we did all this we then had another greatadventure, participating in the traditional danceduring the evening...I will write more about thislater... i am of to hang with the mayor some more... thinking about you,carrie