Quick post before I go out.

It's vacation time. My next day of work is the 19th.
All my students have asked me what I'm going to do over vacation (partly because they're crap at coming up with novel conversation topics), and all seem to be surprised that I'm not going on some fabulous trip. Um, hi, I just got here. Not to mention it's miserably hot and humid out every day.

So what's a girl to do with her extra time and money?
FESTIVALS.
Throughout the month of August, Japanese people are busting out their yukata and partying like its 1899, and I'm gonna be there to witness it.

First festival: Yesterday's bon-odori outside the huge Buddhist temple in Tsukiji. The bon-odori is a traditional dance to celebrate the return of the dead ancestors to their homeland. This particular bon-odori featured traditional taiko drummers, traditional paper lantern decorations, traditional Japanese food, traditional clothing, and of course, the traditional massive amounts of draft beer and people in giant animal costumes.

I wonder what kind of people volunteer to be the giant animals at a festival, as the job description includes not only sweating under layers of synthetic fur, but being punched in the crotch and ass by small Japanese children about every twenty seconds for one's entire work shift.

I thought about participating in the dance. From what I could see, it was really nothing more than just going with the crowd in circles around the central stage, waving the arms, clapping once in a while, turning around, and looking around wildly trying to figure out what was going on. But I didn't want to be "that foreigner." So instead, I headed for the beer tent, downed three beers in a row, and spent the latter two-thirds of the festival pretty spectacularly drunk.

From there on, I made it my personal mission to get pictures with the giant animals. It was a difficult feat, because not only was I drunk and pretty slow to react, but the animals were always either participating in the dance or being openly molested by small herds of Japanese children. After hanging around near the panda quite creepily for a while, I found a small opening and took it. In one quick motion, I shoved my camera at a Japanese bystander, gestured toward the panda, grabbed the panda by the shoulder turning it around, and grinned like it was my job. I soon accomplished the same with the pink bunny. I was on a ROLL.

Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to get to the chipmunk or the monkey, as the dancers cleared out at 8 and the bon-odori suddenly turned into a Japanese pop concert, featuring some terrible male singer in a shiny silver suit. It was really awful. The kind of stuff that passes for music in this country...

So I cut out of there and spent the next hour or so wandering the streets of Ginza. Really wandering. I mean like crossing streets at random, turning around in circles trying to figure out where I was, feeling very overwhelmed by it all, furiously fanning myself with the fan that had mysteriously appeared in my back pocket, and eventually plopping down in a way-too-classy-for-me coffee shop and eating a banana muffin because I couldn't find anywhere else to go to the bathroom.

That's my story of the bon-odori. Like I said, there will be many more festivals to come, so look forward to more stories of Christine Drinking Too Much Festival Beer And Disrespecting Other People's Cultures.






The tiny microphone on my camera is no match for loud drums, so the sound sucks, but you get the idea: