Whatever Floats Your Boat

 AKA, the things that kept me going through this long, bloody pandemic.

There are five weeks of this shittacular* school year left.  There have been ever-present temptations to murder the nearest dumbasses for nearly a year and a half now, but surprisingly enough, I'm still sane.  This week, I thought I might share my coping strategies.  So here goes.

1. Danmei:  Okay, so I flirted with the dark side before, but for the most part I was in denial about my potential to go full-on fujoshi.**  See, I watched Yuri on Ice to see what all the fuss was about, and had to admit it was cute.  A while later I watched Banana Fish for much the same reason, which turned out to be a mistake, because the ending REALLY pissed me off.  Between that and all the female fandom's weird, non-canon shipping, I was convinced that the BL genre had nothing to offer me.  But then last March, out of boredom and the fact that anime was having a dark age, I caved and tried a little Chinese animation called Mo Dao Zu Shi.  I spent the next week caught up in the lives of the two protagonists, progressing from the animation to the manhua and finally beginning the webnovel (because as it turns out, if one beautiful male character is good, two are even better).  And then I read the rest of the author's oeuvre.  And re-read it.  And eventually broke out and started reading other authors.  So while the fact remains that I have a complicated relationship with China, I've got to admit I find their boys' love more compelling than Japan's.  Sadly it will probably be a while before I get to live out my dreams of wandering the jianghu, but for now, I don't know how I would have gotten through the last year - particularly the last month or so - without danmei webnovels.

2. My flute:  This is not a euphemism (no matter how many times my Dark Lord and Master may have made insinuations about band camp).  I started bringing my flute with me after the year we did Kiss Me, Kate, but just started playing it with any regularity since the pandemic started.  And more specifically, since I got into Mo Dao Zu Shi.  This is relevant because one of the two main characters controls zombies animated corpses with a flute, and maybe about that time I found myself wanting to cultivate my own flute skills.  Okay, sure, mostly I just cultivate anisongs, but you know what?  It keeps the time moving.  

3. Crafting Projects: This should come as no surprise.  I AM the person who spends her vacations sewing dolls, after all.  However, my projects have gotten more and more intense.  A year ago I spent weeks on end creating a 3' x 5' Space Invaders-themed latchhook rug.  FYI: latchhook is easy.  Designing it was easy.  Cutting the yarn was easy.  But actually making the damn thing was TEDIOUS.  

I wanted to continue the gaming theme with a Tetris afghan, but I couldn't stand yarn anymore by the time I finished the rug (I've actually only just started messing with crocheting, and I can't get the damn squares the same size).  Instead, I made plushies.  I tried some different designs because I didn't have skin-tone fleece for a while, made a kappa, a mokke, and even a little goldfish (okay, so the WHOLE year of anime wasn't complete garbage).  When my summer course was over I finally let loose and sewed my two MCs from Mo Dao Zu Shi, learning that Chinese traditional clothing is more of a pain to sew than a kimono.  I feel like I really hit my masochistic peak when I decided during the first lockdown that I should make a Tomioka-san plushie, which meant that I had to print his haori by hand, and THAT meant I had to cut stencils (because of COURSE I had to do it the traditional way).  I've gotten to the point where I made silver vambraces using aluminum pie tins, warazori out of one of the nendoroid tatami mats I bought my last time in Osaka, and - oh yeah - I started playing around with epoxy resin.  

Sadly, most of these projects are still unfinished.  I'll figure them out someday.

4. Online Shopping:  When I lived in Mongolia before, I was an amateur when it came to shopping.  Thanks to the pandemic I have leveled up.  It started with Taobao...there were a couple of nendoroids made by GoodSmile Shanghai I really wanted, but their price was crazy.  Someone mentioned getting them on Taobao, and I thought, "Oh.  China's like, right there.  Are there Mongolian Taobao agents???"  Well, it turns out there are, so I got my nendos.

THEN the shopping became a solution to holes in my shoes and jeans, but since getting anything from the States was a gong show  - shipping was expensive or unreliable*** - I had some degree of restraint.  Eventually, I started buying stuff so that I'd have something to look forward to when I got home, and THEN I was introduced to an air freight service named Hotel4Box, and.  Well.  The meme there to the left is all too accurate.  Suddenly everything that I have thought would be convenient to have was absolutely necessary to my well-being.  I needed fabric.  I needed new clothes.  I needed an alto flute and a clothes drying rack and inkjet iron-on transfer paper.  

I regret nothing.

5. Mug Brownie Sundaes: As cringey as it can be to video chat, my friends have kept me going.  Last fall during one of my chats with Baby Chicken Wing, she said, "Wait, you like brownies, right?"  I gave her the long history of my students hitting me up to make brownies and how I seem to always overcook a pan, and then she hit me with her recipe for a brownie in a mug.  It was heavenly...but there wasn't enough of it.  I solved that problem by making it with tablespoons instead of teaspoons (it gives you 3x the brownie) and topping it with ice cream, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it actually doesn't make any difference what brand of ice cream you use - the shittiest Russian vanilla tastes just fine, because it's really all about melting into a gooey mess (although my personal favorite is the walnut maroo GoodPrice has been importing from Korea).  And that gooey mess gives me something to look forward to even on the shittiest day.

6. Content creators: You know what sucks about being an adult?  Finding other adults to geek out with.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have survived the last 6 months without dinners with Engrish between lockdowns, but it's not like she has an appreciation for the 2D world.  I honestly don't know what we did before social media, but sometimes - just sometimes - something good floats to the top of social media, like gold in a pan (apparently algorithms sometimes get things right).**** My 3 favorite treasures are the animatics I found by Limeizuan on YouTube, MorallyGrey's Tiktoks (literally the only reason I go on Tiktok) and incorrect_mxtx - the best thing to happen to Instagram, ever.

So there you go, guys.  Insh'Allah we are on a course bound for normal life, and "coping" will become a thing of the past, but these should keep me going til then.

*I believe this should have two t's - feel free to fight me on it.

**Japanese word for female fans of stories about gay male relationships.  Probably TMI, so sorry :-o

***No, really.  I ordered a nendo part on Etsy last February.  It got here back in January.

****Usually, though, they just insult me by suggesting that I need old lady bras.

The Beat of my own Drum

I’ve written about taiko here several times over the last three years.  I’ve listened to it whenever I got the chance, dragging whomever I could along with me, because it’s just too good not to share.  I took my first lesson the better part of three years ago, shortly after hearing it for the first time, but it wasn't until the end of last November that I was able to really get started.

You’re finally hearing about it now, at the end of all things, because studying taiko is the reason I was still puttering around Yokohama, a week and a half after school wrapped up for the year.  But let me back up for a minute.  I discovered my taiko studio, Hougaku Academy, a year ago, right before leaving for the summer.  (If you're thinking that was about the time we went to see Drum Tao, you're not wrong!)  I swore to myself that I’d start lessons as soon as I got back in August, and in fact, I did go to a trial lesson at the end of that month, but it was hot and I was being awkward about my crippling lack of Japanese and basically it took me til November to get my shit together.

Here’s a life lesson for you, although I’ve lost track of which number I’m up to.  It really is better late than never.  In retrospect, I wish I’d kept going right after that very first lesson.  Would I have liked to learn more?  Kashiko mari masu.*  But the things I DID learn, the time that I did get, was priceless, to the degree that I think saying goodbye to everyone a week ago was the hardest thing to do this go-round.**

Photo courtesy of Sensei, who says, "I really like this you!"

That is not to say that learning taiko has been easy.  I’ve made no secret about the fact that my feet suck.  The stance you use when drumming definitely doesn’t help.  The best day for them to teach a stray gaijin turned out to be Wednesday, which of COURSE has been my hardest teaching day ever since coming to Japan.  Then there’s the language gap.  My teacher ganbatte’d his heart out, and every week he was better than the week before.  He put my Japanese ability - which, having been picked up (as you know) primarily by watching anime, is more or less worthless - to utter shame, but there were still times when I struggled to figure out what he was trying to tell me.  And while I like to think I made up for a lot of what I lacked with my enthusiasm, it wasn’t quite enough to cover my complete uncoordination.  Even on Sunday my arms still didn’t do 100% of what they were supposed to.

Something else I should probably mention, although it wasn’t a challenge so much as something I found interesting, is the fact that I was the only beginner in my class.  While my senpais were drilling with our other teacher, Shima-san was teaching me the basics at the back of the room.  Most of the time, the fact that 12 or so drums were playing something different really loudly in a relatively small studio didn’t make any kind of difference to what I was learning.  When it DID make a difference, it was usually because what they were doing was so cool that I couldn’t help getting caught up in it, and wishing I was already at their level, so I could play, too.

Now, from the start I knew there was going to be a performance on July 7.  I had my doubts that I’d be able to participate, though, because it felt like I was pretty slow going, especially at first.  I probably should have spent more time practicing.  In my defense, I found it hard to practice without an instrument.  It took me until about a month ago to realize that this was actually an advantage, and that as long as I didn’t mind looking like an idiot I could literally practice anywhere - walking down the street, say, or during my super-stinky hour-long lunch duty.  But gradually I learned all the rhythms I needed, and just before spring break Shima-san showed me how they were strung together to create a full piece of music.  And I honestly couldn’t think of any better note on which to leave Japan.

So I kept going.  There were days when I didn't really want to, days when the kids had worn me down or my feet were killing me, but most of those I went anyway.  Because at the end of the day, I needed it.  Apart from being fun and a good workout, I'm pretty sure taiko's responsible for keeping me sane these last six months.  It was therapeutic as hell to be able to beat the shit out of the drum after a long day of back talking children and baka administrators.  (The 6th rhythm of the first lesson is, in my opinion, best for stress relief.)

Once I'd learned everything, the uniform was actually the biggest hassle.  Mostly this is my fault for not doing anything over the last two years about my marshmallowey shape, but I DID struggle to get tabi.  Those split-toed shoes are a part of the uniform for taiko, and although my classmate told me where I could buy them in Kawasaki, I still couldn't seem to find them, so I went online and located a boutique in Omotesando that sells them, Sou Sou.  They ended up being kind of expensive, but the staff were really helpful and I was able to try them on so I could be sure that they fit.  Also, the soles have hiragana on them, so, you know, totally worth it.

In spite of all the words I've used, in this post and others, I'm still not sure I'm doing taiko any justice.  In the end, I don't really think words can.  Until you feel the beat hit you in the chest, reverberate through your lungs, shift your heartbeat, I don't think what I'm saying will make sense to you.  But the day before our performance, I met one of the women I'd be performing with for the first time.  She asked me how long I'd been playing, and it was the same length of time as her, and when we tried to explain to one another why we were studying taiko, it boiled down to the same thing.  As she put it, "It's my soul music."  I couldn't agree more.

*Certainly.

**I mean, other than packing and cleaning, which I only finished a few hours before my ride came to take me to the airport.

***Video of Hatsune by my senpai, Sekine-san.

Chasing the Horizon

I was two hours into the trek from Toyama to Niigata, slogging back to Naoetsu station after an unappetizing lunch at the nearest restaurant I could find, a MosBurger.  I was bitching at the Kawaii Kingpin on Messenger about the fact that Japanese city planners or businesses apparently didn’t see the sense in putting restaurants next to the station.  He explained his watertight strategy of staying home, and I have to admit that at that point it had its merits.

Unfortunately I’m pretty sure Man With a Mission doesn’t do private gigs, and if they did, I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to afford one on my salary.  As it was, I was thanking my lucky stars for Sensei, who had tracked down a ticket for their sold out Niigata show on a resale website.  This seemed like the perfect way to finish my Golden Week, and if there was one show I absolutely felt I had to see before I left Japan, this was it.

One year ago, I’d never heard of Man With a Mission.  They’ve done a lot of music for anime and movies, but I hadn’t encountered them until I watched Golden Kamuy, the opening song for which is their “Winding Road.”  Hell, I’m pretty sure that part of the reason I love that anime so much is because of that song.  What is interesting is that I didn’t just listen to “Winding Road.”  When I looked it up on YouTube I ended up listening to - and liking - lots of their music.  I hadn’t tried that before with Japanese bands, and although I’ve tried to find other bands that way since, none of them have struck me the way Man With a Mission did.  It’s been a long time since I could say I had a favorite band, and I’ve gotta say, I really dig it.

So.  I made it to Niigata.  By this point in the game I was kind of done vacationing, as evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t be bothered taking a bus to my guesthouse - I took a taxi - or that once I was there I laid down to take a nap and read.  I did spend the morning before the concert wandering, but I didn’t even bother to take the Big Gun with me, instead snapping pictures of the shrine at which I inevitably found myself with my iPad.  I headed back to the guesthouse for a little while, recharging my tech, and a little before four decided to head over to the venue, Toki Messe.

It’s been a while since my last concert.  In Mongolia we got out to live music fairly regularly, but these shows were almost always in small restaurants, so I guess my last show was Jason Mraz, back in Shanghai.  As I found the right entrance and made my way to my seat - not quite as far back as my first concert (Smashing Pumpkins at Kemper Arena back in 1996) but further than I would have liked - I realized this was the first time I’d gone to a concert alone.  And I wasn’t totally sure how I felt about that.  I mean, I do a lot of things on my own - hell, most of the time I prefer my own company - but I couldn’t help wishing I had someone with me who loved the music as much as I did, like Brucie during all those Smashing Pumpkins concerts, or Diana and Cookie when we saw They Might Be Giants.

Then Man With a Mission took the stage, and as we all stood up, I realized everyone there fit the profile.  They clapped in time to the music.  They were jumping with excitement, hard enough to make me question the structural integrity of the stands that our seats were arranged on.  As the band played, we waved our hands, pumped wolf-claws in the air.  Lit the flashlights on our phones and waved them in time with their ballad, “Find You.”  (Maybe because I’m getting old I didn’t find it as stirring as the flames of a thousand Zippos, but I didn’t burn myself, either).

Not my photo...taken from the MWAM Twitter, w/o permission

Beyond that, I’m not really sure how to tell you about this experience.  I keep lamenting that the clock is running down on my time in Japan, which makes everything seem that much more precious.  Even if I hadn’t felt united with all the thousands of fans around me, I don’t think I could have been my usual cranky self.  The music was too good.  A few songs into the first set, they played “Dead End in Tokyo,” my other favorite song, and it was perfect.  I sang along, and the sound from the stage was so overpowering that I didn’t have to worry about ruining the song for anyone next to me - there was no way they could hear me.

Playing a concert is hard enough work normally, but Man With a Mission performs in wolf heads.  When I first encountered them I thought maybe it was a tie-in with Golden Kamuy but eventually I figured out that they’ve been using the masks since they first got together.  So they took a couple of well-deserved breaks, playing short videos featuring the band between sets.  These I didn’t really understand because they were in Japanese.  One of the reasons I enjoy MWAM so much is the fact that they have a lot of English lyrics - “Dead End in Tokyo” is sung entirely in English - so I think it’s possible those videos might have been in English, or at least subtitled, at their shows outside Japan.  If they make it to Ulaanbaatar, I’ll definitely have to find out.
Finally - FINALLY - they played “Winding Road,” which was definitely a high point for me, and then (I think - I may be misremembering) they played “Fly Again.”  In the middle of the song a canon blasted silver streamers out over the crowd.  I was too far back to get one, but then some of the crew came up the aisles with arms full of them, so I got a memento after all.  I was afraid this meant it was the end, but after clapping, cheering, and another video - this one announcing more Japanese concert dates - they retook the stage and played their new single, “Remember Me.”

Also (sadly) not my photo.  My thanks to their Twitter.

And then it was the last moment, and the band held up their towels, saluting the crowd while seemingly every fan in the place held up their own, smaller towels in return.  Every fan, that is, except me.  Throughout the day as I’d been wandering, I’d been able to pick out who would be at the concert with me that evening, because they all had towels emblazoned with the band’s name and a wolf’s head slung around their necks.  Japan has this really cool thing they do where it’s kind of normal to carry your own hand towel around, to dry your hands after you use the bathroom (or your sweat, come summertime), and that’s kind of what I thought the towels were about.  I’d never been to a Japanese concert, I had no way of knowing what it would be like - other than what anime told me, and since nobody was waving flashing penlights I was kind of glad I hadn’t based my expectations on anime (for once).  I made sure to stop by the merch stand on my way out, though, and pick one up.  Maybe I’ll never have another chance to get to one of their concerts.  I don’t know.  But considering I saw my last favorite band in concert four times, I’d be willing to bet that I’ll need it at some point.

Besides which, Summer is Coming.

High-Sticking

I know that I used up a lot of words in the last few posts bitching about how unmotivated I was last week.  It took me til yesterday to figure out that the real problem was not, in fact, that vacation was over and I preferred lying in bed watching anime and reading to studying and going to work (although that is, of course, true).  It is one of the great ironies of my life that I like cool weather and dark days but the lack of light wreaks havoc on the feel-good chemicals in my brain.  Some years I'm better at coping than others.  This is starting off like an "other."

That said, serotonin's got nothing on a beat for making this girl happy.  Yesterday was a national holiday, Culture Day, and while it didn't get me a day off school because it fell on a Saturday, at least there were lots of cool things happening because of it.  Not that I cared about most of those things.  My priority was Asakusa's taiko festival, and I am serious when I say priority.  I rescheduled my nihonga lesson and everything in order to accommodate getting there from the other side of Tokyo.

I've written enough about taiko that it really shouldn't need an introduction, but in case you're new here, taiko is the most exciting music in Japan (and yes, that includes the first opening songs for Naruto Shippudden, Durarara!!!, and Noragami).  The taiko festival involves three-and-a-half hours of non-stop drums, with some shinobue (flute) and shamisen (that thing Kubo was playing in the movie) thrown in for good measure.  But really, the drums are what it's all about.

Each beat reverberates in your chest, shocking your heart harder than a defibrillator.  Merely watching taiko is hard, I think - the biofeedback pulls you into the music, makes you need to move, dance, do something.  Or maybe that's just me.

Besides the music itself being exciting there are several reasons why taiko is saikou.  There's something really playful about the performance of it.  It's not just people standing around making music - there's a lot of movement.  The musicians were jumping and dancing around, twirling their sticks and throwing them in the air.

I've taken lessons before, and am hoping to start doing so regularly this week.  I speak as the voice of experience when I tell you that it is hard, sweaty work.  There is a certain form you're supposed to have - not just the way that you hold the drum sticks, but the huge, exaggerated arm movements.  To be able to keep up the energy that it takes to play those drums is difficult, but just about every musician I looked at had a smile on their face.  They were having fun, and that was infectious.

I loved the fact that taiko really is for everyone.  There were kids banging those drums.  There were also old folks.  There were just as many women playing as men, and there were more than a couple musicians carrying extra weight, but they still rocked just as hard as anyone else.  It's hard not to love an art form that welcomes everyone.

Also, it occasionally involves boys with their shirts off, and I am definitely a fan of that.  Speaking of which, if any of the drummers who were there that day noticed me staring a little too intently, or thought that smile on my face was kind of creepy, rest assured, I'm no yandere.  It's just that you guys are my heroes.  Okay, maybe I'd be willing to date some of you, but I'd never resort to stalking (if only because I reserve that for the boys of Drum Tao).  All joking creepiness aside, it was one of the best things I've done this school year, and gave me the strength to get my homework done (mostly) and face another week of anklebiters.

Third Time's the Charm

It's hard to believe that the summer is already over - vacation-wise, at any rate.  (I won't lie to you and say that I went to all the awesome summer festivals that were taking place this weekend because it was still Too Darn Hot.)  I'm sitting in my classroom wrapping this up during lunch of the second day of our teacher orientation, but I'm definitely not ready to deal with children who don't share my bloodline yet.  I meant to do some blogging while I was home but then I started binge watching Supernatural and it was all over.

Before that happened, I made my annual road trip to observe the ebb and flow of American otaku-ism...AnimeIowa.  Now you may be thinking to yourself, Didn't this bitch spend the last year living in Japan?  Did I really need to drive two and a half hours to see what America does to the fandom of my choice, particularly given the fact that I've already gone to AnimeIowa twice?  That's a question I struggled with myself.  I considered running a panel, but ultimately never submitted a proposal, and I was too busy working on my master's and my art to do much sewing this year, so it was May before I finally decided to book a hotel room for myself and my mom (who always goes with me).

In the end, it mostly boiled down to the fact that I love competing in the Mini-Festival with my plushies.  The Mini-Festival was a competition that started two years ago at my first AI.  I'd just started making plushies that spring, and I submitted my entry with trepidation as I sat in the Beijing airport waiting for my layover to end.  Although I didn't win, I found myself fired up by the experience, and brought my best game the following year to win the plushie category.  I spent the last year working intermittently on three dolls.  The day before I left Iowa last summer I finally started working on my Yato.  Shortly after getting to Japan I decided to start Kuriyama Mirai.  And finally, before my first UFO win I'd started working on Hozuki.  At the time I booked our hotel, I hadn't finished any of them.  At the time I left Japan I hadn't finished any of them...but I had decided which one to enter, and that was Mirai-chan.  I figured something different would be good.

This year's competition was different.  I believe there were fewer doll entries and more Gunpla ones.  I was really impressed with one plush doll, and figured she would win the plushie category.  Her entry was larger than mine, and the body was based on the classic Cabbage Patch doll, so much more complex; she'd even sewed wires into the limbs to make them pose-able.  The doll entries were pretty fierce, too - one lady had this absolutely gorgeous jellyfish doll, and I had resigned myself to going home without a prize this year when the judges came back in from their deliberation.  They went through the Gunpla awards, gave the plushie prize to the doll I'd pegged for the win, and seemed to have finished up when they said they had one last prize to award - the best in show.

I was hopeful, but tried not to hold my breath as they mentioned that it had been an easy, unanimous choice, then announced me as the winner.  Elizabeth-san, who I kind of think of as the Mini-Festival den mother, complimented me on just how good I was getting as they handed me several awesome prizes, including a medal for myself and my doll (which is actually my favorite prize - I love that I have two plushies in my bedroom now proudly wearing little medals).  That moment kind of made me feel vindicated for these past few months when I wondered if I could really call myself an artist.  As I walked back to the hotel that evening, I sure felt like one.

As I mentioned, my decision to go was largely influenced by the desire to show off my mad sewing skills, but I think I also just kind of wanted to feel like a part of this fandom.  I may be living that rock and roll lifestyle in Japan,  but I still don't have the language skills, so I still don't feel as connected to it as I would like.  I'm still planning on going to Comiket when I get back next month, and to AnimeJapan in the spring, but I realize it'll be more as an observer than a participant, because someone let herself get intimidated by all the different readings for each kanji.  So yeah.  Part of me just wanted to nerd out in English.

Being an hour from Akiba means that the vendor hall didn't hold quite the appeal it once did, but I was still on a mission.  There were at least two things I wanted that I figured would be cheaper and/or easier to buy here than in Japan.  I haven't gotten too crazy about figures, since the industry really caters more to men than women, and while I enjoyed Free! and Yuri on Ice!! I'm not really into that scene.  I do love me some nendoroids, though, and Goodsmile only released their Naruto nendos in the States (as the Kawaii Kingpin pointed out sometime in the last year when I complained about the price of the one I'd found).  I found Naruto, Sakura, and Itachi, all reasonably priced compared to what I'd seen them going for at Mandarake, but since I was hoping for Kakashi-sensei, I passed.  On the other hand, given the many, maaaaanyyyyy vendors selling Funko Pops, I was able to find myself an Erza.  Goodsmile hasn't made any Fairy Tail nendoroids, so I actually ordered her last November, but apparently I'm currently under an ordering curse, because my package went astray and they had sold out by the time I realized it.  I wasn't planning on buying anything else, but then I came across the TeeTurtle stall.  I got in on the Kickstarter of their game, Unstable Unicorns last year, and instantly recognized their sarcastic/kawaii designs.  Given my current income bracket, I wasn't planning to buy much clothing this trip, but when I saw their kitsune t-shirt that proudly proclaimed, "I Give Zero Fox," my fate was sealed.

Other than the dolls and the vendors, there was one more thing I was really excited about - debuting as an otaku flutist.  Each year, AI hosts what they call Karaoke Reverse - a competition to see who can put on the best performance.  The past two years I dithered, unsure how well a flute performance would go.  This year the description definitely mentioned instruments, so I figured, what the hell, why not...but continued to dither until I saw the song list.  They choose five different anime openings you can perform, and then it's up to you to win the audience over, not just with your talent, but with your performance.

As I read down the list, I was a little disappointed, because "History Maker" was the only song I knew, and I figured everyone would choose it (I wasn't wrong - between the fact that it has English lyrics and Yuri on Ice!! is God's gift to fujoshi, I was the only contestant who didn't perform it).  Then I got to the final choice - "Here," from Mahoutsukai no Yome, and knew that's what I would perform.  I'm not going to lie to you - it was a bitch to figure out.  My brother suffered through several rehearsals as I figured out the key changes while my parents were away playing with the grandkids.  Seriously - who writes in F# major?!  By the time my mom and I hit the road to Des Moines, though, I pretty much had it figured out.
It was an interesting mix of performances (song choice aside, anyways).  There were two solo performances of "History Maker."  Another was a group of three women, one who sang as her friends twirled a rainbow flag and a rainbow ribbon.  I thought this was a tiny bit ironic.  Admittedly, Yuri on Ice!! is more than a little gay, but it's boy's love, and the opening from Citrus, a girl's love anime, was one of the other choices.  It seemed like a better fit for them to me.  The last performance was by two guys, one of whom sang "History Maker" while the other one snuck up behind him and pretended to try and hit him...possibly so he would stop singing the same song as everyone else.  That was it.  Most of us got up and sang again, just for funsies, but apparently in years past there were more contestants.

I was pretty happy to be tapped for Judges' Choice, and then again as the first runner-up...although I found the prizes a little mystifying.  I'm not sure who was in charge of buying them, but it seems like if you're going to give away prizes at an anime convention, a Ghibli film or something by Makoto Shinkai seems like a more logical movie than Robocop and Spaceballs.  The two guys won the grand prize, and I was happy for them...until I saw that part of their prize was the Super NES Mini.  The fact that one of them came up to me afterwards to say he'd been a trumpet player in high school and hearing me play me flute was chou natsukashii didn't entirely erase my need to wear my new "Salty Bitch" t-shirt...but it was a nice gesture all the same.

Twelve Drummers Drumming

In the Wayback I actually went to both a taiko festival and took a lesson.  I loved it.  In my experience, everyone does.  When Five went with me to Kyoto, she got to experience the drums at Kiyomizu Dera and was as pumped as I was.  At our school's international day we had a group of drummers that performed, and The Director, with whom I was watching, felt the same way.  In fact, taiko is so awesome that if you've been paying attention, you  may have noticed me whinging a couple of times about the fact that I haven't seen more of it.  But I made up for all that last Friday with the ultimate (in my opinion, anyways) taiko experience - Drum Tao.

In my rambles through the interwebs not so long ago, I came across an ad for their new show, Mangekyo.  It looked AMAZING.  I mean, sure, I love taiko, but I love buff guys in cool costumes even more, and when you put the two together?  Magical.  There are women in Drum Tao, too (also very buff), and actually the leader of the group is a woman (who very clearly understands her fellow Japanese women - the audience definitely had a gender bias). 

 

This was one of those times where I'd discovered something way too good to keep to myself, so I emailed Sensei and my other two favorite work friends, The (aforementioned) Director and Horn Blower, to see if they were also interested.  This is how the four of us ended up wandering around a department store in Ginza Friday night trying to find the Alternative Theater.  That's a thing here...department stores seem to have galleries and theaters more times than you would think is absolutely normal.  Eventually we figured out we had to go downstairs and ride up from the first floor, but we got there in the end.

The thing is, it wasn't just a musical performance.  I think this is the first show I've been to since I moved to Japan, so I'm not sure how it compares to other concerts, if you can call it a concert.  Hot guys drumming would have been more than enough to hold my (rapt) attention, but this was so much more.  The costumes were fantastic.  They had the look of kimono and samurai armor to them, but they still managed to be modern and chou kakouii...I imagine there's a fine line between that and cheesy, but they nailed it.  The actual staging was fairly simple - there were three or so platforms, which different performers mounted to play or dance - but they also used projectors to add a multimedia element - flowers fluttering in the breeze, or a stream in the forest. 

I wish pictures were allowed at performances here.  Maybe I should start bugging organizations to give me press access - I write a blog, after all, even if I only have six regular readers.  As it was, I was too scared of getting kicked out to try and sneak a shot or two (this isn't Mongolia, after all...the Japanese love their rules and expect them to be followed!) so for the most part you'll have to imagine it.  If that's not good enough, maybe check out their official website?

After an hour and a half it was over.  We fought our way to the elevators, and then walked back to Yurakucho station to head toward home.  The Director and I discussed which guys we preferred - she said my choice looked too much like an anime character for her, and I told her that didn't bother me in the least (yes, we are both basically 13 years old, and no, I don't care).  I could have gone back and watched it again the next day with every bit as much enthusiasm.  Maybe I will when it returns in the fall.  Til then, I'm looking for places to take lessons, because that is a kind of exercise that I would look forward to.

My Kind of People

I'm not sure if you've ever had the chance to suddenly realize that you finally fit in.  I felt that for the first time in college, when I switched from attempting to be a music major to being an art major.  I never actually made it into the conservatory at UMKC - for whatever reason, their flute professor weighed me and found me wanting - but I took a lot of the basic music courses my first year, anticipating that I'd get in on my second try.  When I took my first art course, I was thankful that I didn't - I understood the art students.  They were relaxed and genuine in a way that the music students I knew never were.  They got me.

I kind of feel that way now in Japan.  I get the Japanese.  They are quirky and kinky and silent.  They love cartoons and cute things and crazy stuff like sitting outside and watching the moon.  And today I got to go check out two events that had me thinking I should have been born Japanese - a doll memorial and a cat parade.

Probably I should have saved the doll market for this blog, but honestly when I wrote last week's post I had forgotten the Ningyou Kanshasai was happening today at Meiji Jingu until I was looking through my Google calendar.  I've been to Meiji Jingu before, back in 2014, and even though it was kind of neat being able to recognize it when it showed up in an anime, I hadn't been that impressed.  Back then it was sunny and there were more people strolling the paths of Yoyogi Park, where the temple is located, than standing around in the temple.

Not so today...it was packed, and it was raining.  Maybe that will start to give you an idea of how important this ceremony is in Japan.  Last week I kind of briefly mentioned that dolls are culturally important here.  And by dolls, I mean everything from puppets to plushies - if you look at the first photo you might begin to get an idea of the variety of toys that were presented at the temple today.  Conspicuous for their absence, though, were anime figures, presumably because regardless of what they look like and the use to which you put them, they are collector's items and worth money, so no genteel retirement for them.

Now, if you are the kind of person who didn't cry at the end of Toy Story 3, you might not understand why anyone would feel the need to say thank you to the toys they played with as a child.  If you did, I doubt you need any sort of explanation about dolls having souls.  For me personally, the idea of losing my "cat" Peppermint is so scary that I don't take her out much anymore.  So I found it really sweet to see everyone lined up in the rain, holding their bags of dolls, writing notes of thanks.

Now, let's say I did regale you with the history of the doll, and explain about their souls and the way they absorb a child's misfortunes, and you were not convinced.  Let me tell you a little story.  When we were kids, my great-grandmother had a room full of dolls in her house.  I don't remember the stories of most of them - I think my parents gave her at least a couple - but I remember how much I loved that room.  Each doll was different and special.  On the other hand, most of the cousins found the doll room creepy.  Before you scoff at the sentimentality that would lead a country to create a ceremony to properly send off their dolls' souls, ask yourself if you've ever had a doll give you the heebie jeebies.  And then see if you find the idea so far fetched. 

As for me, one corner of the display had a very kawaii miniature set of Hina Matsuri dolls that were all bunnies, and I was tempted to help them find a new lease on life at Babysis' house, but I was afraid one or both of us would end up with cursed-doll karma, so I left them to their fate and went on to Kagurazaka.

Another fun childhood story for you - one time my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I told her I wanted to be a cat.  My mom very kindly explained that it didn't work that way, and I couldn't be a cat when I grew up...but my mother had never been to Japan, or she might have said differently.  Unlike almost every other place I've lived in Asia, the Japanese actually like cats.  And since they like cats, and they like pretty people (male, female, and everything in between), it makes TOTAL SENSE to put the two together (unlike, you know, monkeys and ponies, for those of you who've been to Skullcrusher Mountain).

So I definitely had to check out the Bakeneko Parade, since it was basically the fulfillment of my childhood ambition.  When I stepped out of the train station, I wasn't totally sure if I was in the right spot.  I'd checked to be sure it would still happen if it was raining before I left the house, but I didn't see anything to indicate that the area was saturated with cat people.  And then I heard the strains of music piping from up the hill, so I headed in that direction, and was delighted to find the Pipe and Tabor Society of Japan all in their nyanniest cat gear.*

Across the street there were several booths set up - one selling some tasty mini-cupcakes with cat decorations, others doing facepaint.  At that point, there weren't a lot of people, and I wondered if it was worth sticking around.  I wandered up the street a little, finding a shrine, where a wedding was being held (they were not, unfortunately, dressed like cats), and generally enjoying the neighborhood.  Apparently the cat in the Natsume Soseki (one of Japan's greatest novelists) book is from Kagurazaka, and that's why the parade takes place here.  I haven't read any of his works - yet...let's hope that Barnes and Noble doesn't fail me - but if it was up to me I'd pick a place from Haruki Murakami's novels, since they pretty much all feature cats.

Another famous resident of the former geisha district is Kobo-chan, a manga character from the 80's.  A couple of years back they put a statue of him up, and the locals dress him up for the season, which means he was wearing cat ears today, too.

I headed back to where the pipe and tabors had been playing, and was happy to see that there were even more people (and bagpipes.  I can't remember the last time I heard "Scotland the Brave," and I found myself wishing I knew the words - I've been in a singing mood lately).  One of the things that I loved the most about today was that everyone participated - foreigners, Japanese, old, young...real cats.  I seriously have no idea how this guys trained his cat to be so chill, but she didn't mind riding around the crowds on his shoulder.

I didn't stay for the whole thing in the end - my feet were already making their protest known, and I didn't really want to be home late, so I started walking back toward the station around 2.  On the ride back to Yomaha the trains caterwauled and I planned out what I'll do for my vacation in a week.  While I didn't mind the rain on my parade today in the least (particularly because it meant that Sports day got sort of cancelled again yesterday), I kind of hope it'll lay off around the inland sea next week.  If not, I guess my shoes will smell even worse by the time I get back, and that will be okay, too.

The Return of Sgt. Becks

In high school I was well-known as a hard-core band nerd and a pain-in-the-ass bitch who was too tough on people.  For this reason, during my senior year my rivals started calling me Sergeant Becks - or at least, I always assumed that was the reason, although Baby Chicken Wing (as the youngest was called) will surely let me know over the summer if I've got it wrong.  Although I have changed over the years, one thing remains the same:  I am still a pain-in-the-ass bitch who is too tough on people.

My band days have long been over, but after Engrish took responsibility for directing the school musical this spring, I found myself agreeing to be a part of it.  Being in charge of artsy shit like costumes and sets sort of goes along with being the art teacher, although I ducked out of it last year thanks to the fashion show.  Without that, and with a couple of extra preps in my timetable, I really had no reason to say no this year.  My first responsibility was getting the scripts and scores back to Mongolia, a job I volunteered for because I knew I wasn't planning on bringing much else back with me.  Thanks to the traumatic flight path getting back to UB, they didn't actually make it into the school until several cold January nights later, but because I didn't have to re-check them anywhere, I managed to avoid any baggage fees, so it ended up costing a lot less to get them to Mongolia than it should have (returning them, on the other hand, took us from just breaking even to very deeply back in the red.  Oh well).

Having delivered the goods and chosen student costume and set designers, I thought my responsibilities were fulfilled for a while.  And then The Voice came in one afternoon and said, "So I don't want you to feel pressured, because I know you're busy, but do you want to play in the pit band?"  I think my answer was something like, "Well, I don't want to get in the way of the kids or anything, but I can probably work it into my schedule," because I'm all cool and everything.  Inside, though, I was like, "HELL YASSS!"  So he gave me the score and I started practicing with one of the school's flutes. 

Back in my flute playing days I read an article in Flutist Quarterly (yes, I was a member of the National Flute Association.  I told you I was hardcore) by this guy who had left music to serve in the military for a while.  And he said things like, "It's like riding a bicycle," and "It made me a better musician," but I couldn't believe it.  And during the first week or so carving my way through the score I still didn't believe it.  I've mentioned our sad sax player who honks and toots his way through old age, driving me nuts, and as I started learning the music, I thought I must sound like that to everyone else.  Yes, I could read the music, I could play the notes...but not very well.  I guess I forgot how hard it is learning a new piece (or 20) of music.  But eventually I learned the quirks of the school's beat up student flutes (and fixed a couple of problems on them), got used to using various muscle groups again, and managed to pull off a halfway decent performance (although it would have been even better if my Yamaha had managed to get here from Canada - my mom sent it to me via the principal's Canadian residence, but it got held back in customs.  Grr.)  I also forgot how much fun it was to play in a group, and especially loved working with my fellow flutist.

If you're not familiar with the musical Kiss Me Kate, it's the story of a theater troupe performing a musical production of The Taming of the Shrew.  The leads, Fred and Lilli, are divorced but still have feelings for each other, and during the performance, those feelings start to come into play.  The music is challenging and the material required a lot of maturity and hard work from our kids, a challenge that they rose magnificently to.

One of the blogs I wrote toward the beginning of my time in Mongolia was about watching Hamlet at the State Drama Theater, and I think it's fitting that I'm writing about another production based on Shakespeare at the end of all things.  Even though Americans have a tendency to want to dumb down Shakespeare, I've always loved him, and when I figured out that the 400th anniversary of his death was a scant few days before Lilli Vanessi and Fred Graham were opening the Shrew in Ulaanbaatar I felt like it was a felicitous sort of kismet that led Engrish to suggesting it.

Shakespearean-era costuming is hard to come by in Mongolia, though.  Engrish and I thought we'd sorted out our boys by borrowing a lot of good stuff from our sister school, but most of it was too small for them.  We tried a couple of costume shops, and ended up having a few things tailor made for the leads, but the biggest help was our dance teacher's connection with the State Ballet, from whom we were able to borrow some old jackets and dresses (although this time the girls had the problem - the dresses were made for ballerinas - but in the end nobody went naked).

The sets were a little easier to handle, mostly because I didn't have to do the cutting and screwing.  We have a really awesome maintenance crew at the school and they made the actual pieces...all we had to do was tell them what we wanted and then paint them.  Two of the pieces were from last year's production of Grease, and we were able to repurpose a door frame from two years back, adding an actual door.  The other pieces were made new.  There are basically two sides to Kiss Me Kate.  The play within a play is set in Padua, which I felt uniquely qualified to create, having been there just two years ago.  I tried to use warm, bright colors like you'd see in Italian architecture.  The other scenes take place backstage, and so we painted bricks on the backside of the 3 set pieces.

Most of all, though, I was proud of our kids, who worked damn hard to learn songs, dances, and lines.  Our lead actor was my very own Ukulele Man, who may have changed his hair several times since Istanbul but is still a huge pain in my ass.  Just a few weeks before opening night ("Three weeks, and it couldn't be worse!"), Engrish confided in me that Ukulele Man was stressing her out more than anything else - he still didn't know a big chunk of his lines and had a tendency to ad lib, which is apparently a big no-no with Shakespeare.  I'd watched the first act of the BBC Proms production of Kiss Me Kate to prepare myself for the set and costumes, but hadn't heard the lyrics to most of the songs before the band started to rehearse with the cast.  So it came as a huge shock the first time I heard him sing, "Where is the Life that Late I Led?" and he got to the line, "Where is Rebecca?  My Becky, Weckio?"  I may have panicked a little, thinking he was ad libbing again - it's possible that maybe I let the kids get away with calling me by my first name when we were in Turkey - before I realized it was actually part of the song.  But I assured he would come through, and he did.

It's been two weeks since we closed the show.  They've been busy weeks - we submitted our AP Art portfolios a week ago, and yearbook has taken up a lot of time, too - so my apartment is still a mess but they've gone by quickly, for me at least.  But Engrish confided that it was a little bit of a let-down: all that hard work, staying at school til 8 or later most nights, only for it to be over so suddenly.  I had to agree - I missed playing music and seeing the kids bring their characters to life, especially our lead actress, who did an amazing job as Kate the Cursed.  But in six weeks I'll be on a plane to uncharted waters.  She at least has next year's production to look forward to.

(BTW - Photography credits to B. Munkhbold - I couldn't very well take pictures and play in the pit band.)

Sing a Chorus or Two...

 

Last Friday Engrish and I broke into song for the first time in a long time walking over to Five's Games Night at elementary.  While it may have been lovely weather for a sleigh ride, it really sucked for walking.  Once upon a time, the sky was beginning to lighten when I'd go out for my morning walks on the track.  Now I have to take those walks in the school, where it is way too freaking hot and dry (so much that I can't breathe unless I take a sip of water every couple of laps).  And then there's the snow.  Two weeks back we got more snow dumped on us over the course of a week than we have my last four years in Mongolia.  In the last few days city workers have been killing themselves chunking it off the streets and sidewalks (because otherwise it's not going anywhere until March), but it's still pretty treacherous, and walking around with Blondie and Engrish yesterday I came very close to falling down several times, penguin walk or no.

So I've been a little down on the UB life for a while.  Besides the cold, snow, and pollution, I've become a little jaded, having experienced much (most?) of what the city has to offer.  Fortunately Engrish still has her eyes open and spotted that our favorite local band was playing Tarantino soundtrack covers last night at Artistry (formerly American Ger'll, formerly The Moose, formerly American Ger'll).  The decor hasn't changed a lot, although there was a very nice painting (#sarcasm) in the entrance of a horse and a woman doing interesting things (ie, parents, you might want a distraction lined up if you're not ready to have that talk about what happens when a woman and a horse love each other veerrrryy much).  The food was great - my Greek salad was a little heavy on the lettuce (I won't go into why this is so freaking wrong), but Blondie and Engrish had a pizza that was so delicious that even though my stomach has been threatening to do terrible things to me since Friday morning, I stole two pieces.  It goes without saying that Tigerfish was awesome...and since our new Office Wonder Woman turns out to be friends with their lead singer, we actually got VIP seats and talked to her.

There may be reasons I've become jaded, though....it's hit and miss.  Last week Engrish also told me she was invited to a Japanese culture event being hosted at the water conservation department near our school, and since she knows how crazy I am about Japan, asked me to be her plus-one.  Since the Japanese embassy was involved, we figured it would be pretty legit.  Maybe it was, when things first got started, but it was 1 pm before we got there (she had to get her run in), we were both hungry, and the food didn't look that appetizing.  There were a few other booths set up - one selling recycled goods, another selling camel milk soaps, ones where they dressed you in a yukata, showed you how to fold origami, and wrote your name in kanji - but everything was pretty picked over.  We were just in time for the cosplay event, but animal girls in pink maid outfits really weren't all that inspiring.  When I realized my nerdy-by-nature seventh graders could probably do as well if not better, we decided it was time to sneak out, while everyone else was enjoying it.  Having organized a few things in my day, I do realize how much time and effort goes into them...but I was still hoping for more.  Maybe next time.

Hit the Ground Drumming

I have dumb luck.  There is no other way to explain the fact that things sometimes just go incredibly right for me.  My visit to Hiraoka Jinja, fresh off the plane from Mongolia via Korea, is an excellent example of this.  I almost didn't go.  My flight out of Ulaanbaatar was at 11:55 pm, after a full day of teaching and tying up various loose ends at home.  I arrived in Osaka at about 11:20 the next day, and I had a suitcase and a heavy backpack to lug around with me.  By the time I changed trains in Namba, I was pretty convinced it was a waste of my time.  Most likely the drumming part of it would be long over with before I got there.  Most likely, I would have to lug my suitcase up a hill, and I kind of hate hills.  Probably I should've headed to Kyoto and taken a nap, but I told my airBnB host that I would get to his house around 6, and I was afraid if I came earlier that he wouldn't be there.  So I went anyway.

There's always money in the banana stand...

I got off the train and followed the crowd to the festival area.  It was creeping up on 2 by then, and sensing no excitement - other than the pulse of a crowd eating street food and playing games - I figured I actually HAD missed it.  It was way too relaxed for giant floats with drums up top to come beating down the street.  But that was honestly okay - I felt like I was in my own anime, or would be if I only had a yukata. I had been too eager to get there to stop for lunch at the airport, so I snacked on all sorts of treats: kara-age, the best damn gyoza I think I've ever had, and cotton candy, because apparently I am still a child.  I was pretty satisfied with that, but I figured I should at least see the shrine.  I rolled myself and my suitcase up the hill, but stopped short of actually climbing up to the shrine - it may have  been a short flight of stairs, but my suitcase was heavy.  Instead, I performed my ablutions at a fountain shaped like a deer, with the water flowing from his horns.

As I was checking out the shrine area, I realized that there were an abnormal amount of people sitting around.  As if waiting for something.  I barely had time to wonder if maybe, maybe that meant the drums were still to come when I heard a deep thump.  I found myself a place to sit comfortably - after all, I still had several hours before I was due at my airBnB, and eventually got to see the drums of Hiraoka Matsuri.  I called them giant floats before, but that really don't begin to describe these monsters.  You know how in the old days special people used to get carted around in palanquins?  Well, this was kind of like that - the drummers were riding these enormous palanquins, being heaved up the hill by a ton of people.  The same hill that I was previously grumbling a little about because I had my suitcase.  Am I a baby or what?

There were a total of five floats I think - two came up the hill first and the carriers set them down.  At that point it was creeping up on four, and I figured I needed to get my butt to Kyoto so that I could meet my host and make it to my dinner reservation (which turned out to be...meh.  TripAdvisor's #1 restaurant in Kyoto left a lot to be desired...I didn't even bother to stay to watch the belly dancer, which if you know me is practically unheard of.  The curry chain restaurant the Kawaii Kid took me to the next day was infinitely better).  So I left my awesome seat to try and make my way down to the station, only to see three more floats coming up the hill.  You can tell how crowded it is - I'm not sure how they made it through the throng, other than by sheer Japanese politeness.  I took an alternative route downhill past more food stalls, none of which seemed to have water, which was too bad because I would have sold my soul for a bottle of it about then.  At the station, I was waiting for the train only to see - more floats?  The same floats???  I'm honestly not sure if they went on a parade loop, or if the march up to the shrine was the end of the parade and these three were just making it to the party - travel over the tracks.

Unless you are just tuning in, you probably know that I've had to find a new purpose in traveling - having exhausted the possibilities of my previous purpose - and that new purpose is doing some really cool shit.  So even if I hadn't gone to Hiraoka Matsuri, I might have still decided it would be awesome to do a drumming class.  I thought the drummers at the Robot Restaurant were pretty cool - they got my heart beating, and not because they were wearing skimpy outfits, since I don't swing that way.  There's just something about the way the beat from a drum resounds in your blood, makes you want to get up and dance.  And so I dropped 5,000 yen on a lesson from the Taiko Drumming Center tonight.

Here's a news flash for you guys - I'm not a drummer!  Between my misspent youth as a band geek and my misspent youth as a belly dancer, I can handle a rhythm, but OH MY FREAKING HECK it is hard work beating one of those things.  Our teacher, Isamu, had the kind of guns they don't sell at Wal-Mart, and after approximately three minutes I understood why.  I had a blast, but I was dripping sweat when the whole thing was over and I had to break out my newly-purchased handkerchief to mop off my face.  However if you are the kind of person who would like to have the kind of guns they don't sell at Wal-Mart...or would just like to have a little more room in the arms of some of your clothes...I've got to say this is the most fun "exercise" I've had since I left the sadistic, torturous tutelage of Azhaar.  There is no way I could fit a drum in my suitcase, but I wished I could, since it would have drowned out the sound of sad sax wailing in the practice room at 5:30 when I'm trying to do a little after school facebook stalking of my nearest and dearest.  Instead, I bought a pair of sticks, which I will instead use to beat out the frustration of having to listen to said sad sax and...oh, so many other things that I'm not thinking about because I am having a kickass vacation.  Stay tuned for more.