How to Show Regional Pride by Giving the Wee Ones a Lovely Fright (A Marvelous Adventure)

First, I would like to apologize in advance for the length of this blog post, because the title might be longer.

Giant Namahage Featuring Fabulous.

To show you all how Akita prefecture records and celebrates its regional stories, I’ve chosen to talk about the Namahage museum in Oga. While the origins of Namahage are unclear, one cannot deny the influence that it has in various parts of the prefecture.

These White Men Are Dangerous...(Well, were they wrong?)

To clarify, Namahage are young and unmarried men who masquerade as ‘demons’ and visit houses around the prefecture during New Year’s. As they visit houses, the men take on the role of their characters and attempt to steal children from their homes on the claim that they’ve misbehaved and dishonored their parents. The children, who are under the impression that they are really in danger of being snatched away, struggle and plead for their parents to rescue them from their fate. The parents are aware of the ordeal and attempt to hide their laughter as they save their children while assuaging the ‘spirits’ with prospects of food and sake while the children ensure both their parents and the Namahage that they’ll behave and honor their parents’ wishes.  Curiously enough, this event helps inspire faith in the parent and strengthens the bond that they have with their children, fostering a sense of filial piety within the children, a key concept in Confucianism.

As to be expected of a museum, the entrance leads directly to the gift shop where one can find all things Namahage, from hand towels with names embroidered on them, to sleeping masks. But once you’ve had your fix of gifts and souvenirs, you enter a hall filled with an assortment of Namahage costumes that are still used in the ritual to this day, however, to preserve the sanctity and unique essence of the Namahage, it is requested that pictures not be posted on the internet.  Once you’ve exited the hall of spirit shells, there is an actual hallway, depicting the various origin stories of the Namahage on one wall, and on the other, the interpretations of the ritual not only in Akita, but also similar experiences in other parts of the world, mainly Slovenia.

Namahage, Amahage, and Nagomehagi. We Are All Part of the Same Tradition.

From there, you come upon an open room with more costumes lining the wall to create a sense of authenticity as a film plays on a large screen in the front of the room, detailing a contemporary Namahage event in Oga.

The museum, while lacking any magnificent size or grandeur, does a splendid job of telling the tale of one of the region’s traditional tales. Truthfully, the size and appearance add to the importance of the substance of what the museum houses, rather than needing to have a glossy finish or special gimmicks to explain its story and importance in the prefecture.

How it Feels to Finally Start Blooming While Simultaneously Challenging the Social Norms of a Foreign Country (Marvelous)

How does it feel to be a small part of something bigger, even when you’re on the other side of the world? I found myself asking this question more often than usual once I started attending the Diversity Club meetings on a regular basis.  For those who might be confused, the Diversity Club is really the LGBTQ Club at AIU, however because the school claimed that the latter is too political, the former name is used officially.

Size doesn't matter as long as you sell it.

Truthfully, I wasn’t ever active when it came to LGBT rights before coming to Japan, and perhaps that’s simply because there are so many battles being fought by the community that I felt very insignificant and useless. The primary struggle in Japan for non-heterosexual individuals is different from those in the United States. Whereas Americans are fighting for marriage equality, healthcare, and job security, the Japanese are fighting for visibility, a service I know that I can offer. Despite my glaring foreign qualities, the members of the club accepted me with open arms, as if I was one of their own, a feeling which I’ve rarely experienced. In fact, I’ve felt far more valued and appreciated in this club compared to the same club at Beloit, and recently I’ve been entertaining the thought that it’s because the people in Japan are aware of the similarities between the lack of visibility for LGBTQ peoples in Japan, and PoC-LGBTQ peoples in the United States, which I can’t say for many students attending Beloit.

The beautiful beginning of one of many gender boards.

Speaking of visibility, as more and more people participated in the gender board activity where they placed stickers where they identified on the board during the AIU festival, I noticed that there were many people who didn’t identify as heterosexual and their gender expression didn’t fit into the binary, yet very few people wanted to discuss the matter of visibility and equality. Yet, many people were willing to write encouraging and inspiring thoughts on the rainbow message board in our exhibition room.

The various messages of the rainbow.

So, while I wasn’t an active participant in the conversations during my time in the exhibition room, I did glean that perhaps most Japanese people prefer to ‘stay hidden’ and play the part that society wishes them to play, and in a country with a declining birthrate, they feel as though their desires are second to the nation’s needs as a whole?

Although I couldn’t play an active role in the exhibition room other than asking people to come inside so the Japanese members of the club could speak with them, I was able to be useful outside in the large festival crowds. Armed with height, a frohawk, a rainbow on my face, and a rainbow board promising discounts around my neck, I think I was able to bring visibility to the club and the message that we seek to spread, which is more than I think I could’ve done if I had remained in the United States.

These signs made me even more popular. Take my picture, Tokyo, I'm the next superstar.

How does it feel to be a small part of something bigger, even when you’re on the other side of the world? Marvelous.

A Marvelous yet Extremely Exhausting Journey to the Mystical Ruins of Akita Castle (Marvelous)

A map! How will I ever use it?

Truthfully, when I saw the options for the scavenger hunt, I immediately chose the Akita castle ruins, probably due to my fascination for regality more than anything. However, I ran into a problem, perhaps one the worst problems that I could have in this instance: lack of time. Despite it being Silver Week in Japan, I found that I could only visit the ruins on the way back from my trip to Aomori, and said trip combined with the fact that the group I was with had traveled until late the previous night and woke up with a mere hour of sleep made for quite the interesting day. The trips were splendid and it felt like we were in a slice-of-life movie…that is, until we were all completely exhausted and wanted to crash in our makeshift beds at school…and the fact that we needed to drive about three hours to get back to Akita City solely for the purpose of me exploring the castle ruins made us groan in ‘agony’.

Only half of us actually made it to the ruins that day and what we saw on the inside was… surprising to say the least, not to mention how we managed to find the place…

Gate of the Rising Sun?

For starters, it was far more difficult to guide my driver than I expected, whether the difficulty came from my lack of direction and sense of awareness, the fact that I was running on maybe two hours of sleep within the past two days, or the fact that we were in Japan, I don’t know. If I’m being honest; it was probably a mixture of all three factors, and because of said factors, I’m not quite sure if I was aware of the roads we were taking or where the ruins are in relation to anything else. Regardless, we were able to arrive the ruins at about half past five in the evening, but not without getting lost because of the gps’ lack of knowledge and not without the ‘conscription’ of a rather fit おばあさん.

With a few struggles and wrong turns, we were able to finally reach our (my) desired location; the ruins of Akita Castle. Like I mentioned beforehand, what I saw when we arrived gave me a slight surprise.

Rugby practice!

There was an organized group of middle-school children practicing rugby, in the field right in front of the ruins! The ruins are considered a national historic site, but when I think about it, I’m glad that the space outside of it is being used in a meaningful way. And the outside of the ruins wasn’t the only location to be repurposed, the inside was as well…into a dog park and a nature park, complete with a shrine. 

神社

The more I saw, the more I was astonished, until I began to fight the drowsy and irritated haze in my mind and began to think. While the ruins obviously hold historical significance, why should they simply sit there for people to look at in awe or boredom, when they can actually be of use other than gaining a sense of history? I realized that in true Japanese style, the traditional location underwent a transformation and was now being juxtaposed with modernity, and I was able to experience the mixture first-hand. The more I think about it, the more I consider that experience to be the most significant thing about the journey to the ruins, even more than the lovely entrance, even more than the traces of dignity and regality in the air, and especially more than the journey itself.

What a lovely ruin!

Navigating my Ways through Unfamiliar Spaces and a Crowd of Gazing Faces (A Marvelous Adventure)

After being in Japan for nearly a month; I feel as though I’ve barely explored my area at all. That’s not to say that I haven’t been trying, but it seems that it’s more difficult to actually reach the city when you’re attending AIU. Going into the city aside, it seems that despite my multiple efforts to familiarize myself with my surroundings, there are so many places that I don’t know exist.

Mapping my way.

Perhaps that’s a good thing? The less I know, the more room I have to discover and learn, especially since I’ll be staying here for an entire year, and with such a time frame, I’m positive that I’ll be able to learn how to navigate my way through the unfamiliar spaces. In fact, I think I’ve begun to gain the slightest of senses of the area, specifically the campus and the route to the tennis courts that are open for the Tennis Club’s practices. Although…I’m clearly still attempting to remember where all of my classrooms are; seeing as I confuse which side of the hall my Japanese class is on consistently. As for the tennis courts, well, there aren’t many things to distract me on the way to the courts, making the way much easier to remember, for me at least.

In addition to the campus and the tennis courts, I’ve found a space that many people don’t know exists, all because of my pre-modern Japanese history class. And what better way to learn about history than to visit an archaeological dig where small societies lived in relative peace during the early Yayoi period! 

Various archaeological sites in Akita.

Despite the fact that I find it challenging to explore because of my hyper-visibility; I’ve made friends that are willing to leave campus with me to help me navigate my way through the unfamiliar spaces and the crowd of gazing faces that fill them, which fill me with a mixture of apprehension, guilt for making my friends even more visible when they are able to blend in rather well when I’m not with them, pride in my appearance and heritage(s), and something else I’m not quite sure what it is yet. In spite of these emotions that I’ve been experiencing, I was able to discover new areas that were previously unknown to me after leaving the Aeon Mall for the first time recently. 

Playground panda striking a pose.

One of said areas included a pre-school and more importantly, the playground that is adjacent to it. Luckily, when my friends and I found it, there were no children for me to scare.~

While playgrounds are nice, even when you’re far too large for them, the most important place that I found was a lovely little coffee shop endearingly named: Café de Coco. 

Café de Coco

Once inside this tiny shop, a feeling of warmth spread over me, which was more than welcome because it’s starting to become chilly here already…While we could only stay at the café for about fifteen minutes because we needed to catch the next bus to school, the brief encounter I had with it filled me with a sense of longing to return for a variety of reasons, one of which is the reminder that I can find my way around, even if it takes me longer than other people, and that there’s nothing wrong with others having an easier time finding their way. 

Drinking coffee to assuage my vampiric cravings.

Here We Go.... (A Marvelous Adventure)

As I set out on this journey…

Toronto Airport: Look how much better it is compared to American ones!

I realized that once I arrive in Japan, I’ll be one of the most conspicuous people in the area, and while I typically enjoy attention based on my looks and personality, I find myself feeling rather ambivalent about this aspect of the study abroad experience. I can only imagine the reactions to my height and particular type of hair from not only the Japanese, but from other international students as well. Although I’m certain that everyone means no harm in their questions; they could quickly become daunting for me to answer because at some point I’ll feel like I’m being objectified, and truthfully, I probably will be…

Aside from my foreign appearance and the challenges that will come with it, I wonder whether my animated personality will come off as endearing and charming, or if it will simply be too different to the students in Akita and I’ll be perceived as a novelty.

Tokyo Airport: Haneda! Ready to begin!

Another thought that crosses my mind as I think about the journey that will begin soon is how other will react to my Japanese language skills, and whether or not they’ll be taken seriously. Even though I’m not a fantastic speaker, I still intend to try my hardest to communicate in Japanese since I’ll be there for a year, plus it’s only respectful to make an earnest effort to speak to someone in their native language when in their country.