Summer Firework Festival (Millie F)

I consider myself lucky, because three days after I came to Akita, I had the honor to take part in the Omagari Fireworks Festival. 大曲の花火 literally means “Fireworks of Omagari.” It is a historic nationwide fireworks festival competition that has been held since Meiji 43 (1910). It is not just a little local affair; fireworks team from throughout the country compete with each other to put on the best show for audiences. More than 700,000 visitors are expected for this one of the Tohoku region’s biggest fireworks festival.

The unique things about this competition are that the firework artists launch fireworks that they have made themselves. The whole show lasts about two and half hours. Before we arrived the show　ground, we ate a lot from the station which we left to the main venues. There are many market stalls to sell the delicious local food on both sides of the streets. Since my friends and I didn’t bring anything for a seat, we only can sit on the ground. However, we still enjoyed viewing various kinds of colorful shapes and patterns formed in the night sky.

Market stalls, photo by Millie

I really like the competition with many creative fireworks; I saw the cartoon at the beginning, smiling faces, even these star patterns are the image of a star- shaped firework. The extraordinary part is these fireworks displays were choreographed to popular music. The fireworks rose into the sky one after another and then explored into beautiful patterns making people couldn’t close their eyes. 

Fireworks, photo by Millie

There is another summer festival named “Omonogama River Fireworks” in Akita too, but I didn’t have the opportunities to see it. The summer means fireworks in Japan. It is an annual Noryo festival; Noryo means, “evening cool” in Japanese. It represents kind of folkways in Japan which people loves short-lived beauty such as cherry blossoms in spring which best for only a couple of days. It is not only an exciting moment for local people here, but also a very fantastic moment to the visitors likes me.

Japan’s “Southern Accent” – Kansai-ben (Hannah)

It’s a journey, to say the least, to apply the knowledge you learned in the classroom to everyday situations. It’s even more of a journey when you learn standard Japanese and most of the people around you are speaking in a dialect you can barely understand. Imagine someone from Chicago going down to New Orleans and not being able to understand a word.

That’s how it is for me.

Especially living with a host family, I had to get used to the dialect very quickly. My host mother and grandmother have very thick accents, though I can tell my host mother tries to tone it down whenever she speaks with me, something I’ve figured out when I compare how she speaks to me versus the rest of the family.

Kansai-ben is the dialect of Japanese spoken in the Kansai region, an area in southern Japan made up of Osaka, Kyoto, Wakayama, Shiga, Hyogo, and Nara prefectures. I’ve noticed it’s a bit more nasally than the Japanese I hear in class, with slang terms and pronunciation varieties that confuse me greatly. Kansai-ben is most often associated with Osaka, and is often mistaken for Osaka-ben, or a dialect that seems to be only spoken in Osaka. Each Kansai region has it’s own variation of the dialect different from that spoken in Osaka.

Luckily, I’ve made friends who help me!

Selfie with Natsuki (right) and his friend Yuuya (left)

A Japanese student named Natsuki approached me in the international student lounge one day, and he has been very helpful in deciphering Kansai-ben. Every week we sit together and teach each other different phrases in each other’s languages. Not everything he teaches me is Kansai-ben, but a significant amount is, and I’ve overheard the words he teaches in conversations on trains or bus stops.

Natsuki is proud of his dialect, from what I have gathered. He told me he teaches Kansai-ben to his other international student friends, and is as eager to learn new English phrases as he is to teach Japanese ones. I am a master of tongue twisters now, thanks to him.

He taught me words like なんでやね “Nandeyaneh” which means something similar to “are you kidding me?” andおおきに “ookini” which is a Kansai casual form of “thank you.” I’ve even learned words outside of my Japanese friends’ guidance, a frequent one I have begun using being めっちゃ “me-cha,” or “very.” I feel like I’m more in the inside group than the outside when I use Kansai-ben, and it’s very comfortable to use.

I’ve heard these words in and around the area, and I love the feeling of hearing words I’ve learned in real life situations. I just hope that I don’t suddenly speak Kansai-ben in class when I get back to Beloit!

Paying Closer Attention to My Surroundings (Ethan)

For this assignment I was asked to do participant observation at a site in Kyoto that I hadn’t been to.  There were many places I wanted to do this at but the place I decided on was Nishi-Hongan-Ji.  I decided on this site because it’s a Buddhist temple with over 500 years of history but, unlike many other historic temples in Kyoto, it is still very active.

I went to Nishi-Hongan-Ji for my observations on a Sunday morning.  When I got there I was impressed with the size and beauty of the temple.  I’ve seen some large temples and shrines in Japan but this is definitely one of the largest.  Next, I tried to pay attention to the people using this massive building. 

Nishi-Hongan-Ji

I noticed that while the space is a tourist destination, it doesn’t feel heavily marketed as one and the majority of the people using the space seemed to be Japanese.  There was a variety of ages among these people, from middle and high school students to senior citizens.  One thing I noticed while walking through the inside of the temple was that no matter their age, many of the people stopped, even if just for a second, to pray or pay respect to the Buddha inside.  I’ve seen this at other locations as well and find it interesting that people will stop for every temple or shrine they see.  Around the side of the temple, there was a several hundred year old gate, which was an original piece of the structure.  Here, there were significantly fewer people and people in this area were just taking pictures.  Here, any religious feel from the temple seemed to disappear. 

Gate on the side of the temple

In addition to the Japanese people, there were a few foreign tourists around the site as well.  While they were much smaller in number, they were visibly present at most times and interacted differently with the space.  The tourists seemed fairly well-mannered and respectful of the site, but it didn’t seem like a religious place for them.  I didn’t see as many of them enter the building or interact with it in a religious way.  I also saw tourists at the gate on the side of the temple taking pictures (along with people that I believe were locals)

From just a couple of hours, I learned a lot about this space and how people use it.  I noticed that not everyone uses the space in different ways and everyone appreciates it differently.

Finding Natural Beauty in Kyoto (Emma)

My exploration of Kyoto began at Arashiyama. I chose to start here because I wanted to look more critically at a highly touristed area in Kyoto, and there were many temples and tourist destinations that were close and easily accessible to one another.

One of the first things that I noticed while getting off the bus at Arashiyama was the amount of rickshaws and kimono rental shops. Much like Asakusa in Tokyo, the area immediately feels commercialized. My bus stop dropped me off close to Tenryu-ji, so I started with an exploration of the temple grounds. Unfortunately, I only had 800 yen in my pocket and needed to save some for lunch later in the day so I was unable to get into the gardens or main halls.

Tenryu-ji

After Tenryu-ji, I headed straight over to the bamboo groves of Arashiyama. I didn’t walk the whole path, but I continued along the trail for quite a while and took in the scenery.  Many people of all ages were there, and it was a very even assortment of families, older couples, school groups, tour groups and people from all over the world. I’m pretty sure this was the first time I saw western foreigners in kimono, which just speaks to the fact that a large percentage of the women in Arashiyama were donning rental kimono.

Arashiyama

Something that I found surprising and upsetting at Arashiyama was how the foreigners were acting. Although this is a sweeping judgement- there were so many people in this area these were just the small percentage that stood out. For example, there was an offshoot trail by the bamboo groves that lead to a small cemetery. Although the sign was badly translated into english, it said something along the lines of “please don’t enter”. However, you could see many foreign tourists in the cemetery taking pictures of the gravestones. For me, that felt like such direct disrespect,  and made me feel bad by association with them. That was one of the things about Arashiyama that I noticed a lot, because there were so many people there at once from so many different places, many of these sites didn’t feel sacred.

One of the draws Arashiyama is definitely the scenery. There is a lot of natural beauty in this area, as you can overlook the river and see the foothills of the mountains surrounding you. The bamboo groves are stunning, especially coming from the US where it’s unusual to see any bamboo bigger than my finger.

After Arashiyama, I went a little bit off the beaten path and headed over to Matsunoo-Taisha. When researching places to go around Arashiyama, I found this small shinto shrine as a throw away ‘if you have time’ destination on a tourist blog. Researching more in depth, I found that the shrine is one of Kyoto’s oldest- dating back to 701 AD.

Matsunoo-Taisha

Upon entering the shrine, I noticed an immediate difference from Tenryu-ji and the bamboo groves. First of all, I was the only non-japanese person in sight, and although there were quite a few people there, it was nothing like the crowds of my previous two sites. Another thing that I noticed was that almost everyone there was either in a suit or kimono, after asking one of the women there I learned that there was a wedding earlier in the day. The shrine itself was beautiful, tucked away in the scenery of the mountains and it just felt very peaceful. Apparently the shrine is known for it’s beautiful gardens as well, but again I had the problem of needing to save money for food later. However, I feel like visiting the shrine itself was worth it. 

Similarly to Arashiyama, Matsunoo-Taisha definitely focuses on the scenery and natural beauty surrounding it. Because it is more secluded and off the beaten path however, the shrine itself feels much more genuine and I can tell many of the people who visit it go because it has meaning to them.