七戸町秋祭り (Shichinohe town fall festival) year 2: electric boogaloo.

The fall festival seems to be the largest one that this town celebrates, it lasts about 4 days and everyone except for my office and the supermarket seems to shut down early/for the weekend. Not that surprising given how many farmer's fields there are all over the place. Hooray for a good harvest!


Once again, Tim, David and I were invited to ride the 新町 (shinmachi) float and represent them in the taiko drumming competition. Practices were almost every evening for two weeks (serious business). I played the kodaiko (子太鼓/lit: child drum) again, but I got to play the chuudaiko (中太鼓/lit: middle sized drum) a couple of times. I don't have the moves down for the chuu' but at least I was getting the beats correct. There's a lot more involved with the larger drums, not only are you making sure that you hit with the correct bachi (枹, drumstick), but you have to use the appropriate moves/actions. It looks real slick when you do it right, though.

The night before the competition we went up to the temple and performed for the priestess and received her blessing. One of the elementary school children (Mitsumi) took a shine to me, and used me as a jungle gym as often as possible. She even managed to get a piggyback ride from me all the way down the temple hill. Cute kid. Even gave me some super-solid hugs when I was feeling blue. This made up for the times when she would poke my belly and smoosh it. :P


Thursday was the festival opening and taiko competition at the event grounds, where all the neighbourhoods gathered to try and take first place. We met up at the Shinmachi meeting place to get suited up in our yukata before hand, were nourished with a dinner of soup and rice balls prepared by the neighbourhood 'baachans and made our way down to do our adoptive neighbourhood proud. It was great to see so many of my students out, both participating in the competition or just cheering their friends on. It was interesting to see them dressed in their street clothes, as I generally only see them in their school uniforms. Even when they're at the grocery store (usually in their gym clothes, but still), they are in their school colours. It was really nice to see them dressed 'normally'. They looked like regular kids for a change. Some of them like hipsters, but still. Haha.


Friday night I attempted to put on the yukata that was given to me last year by Minami. Naturally, I put it on incorrectly, but thankfully I was saved by a group of coworkers and one skilled friend of a friend whose skills and deft hands sorted that out quite quickly and even made my obi (belt) look fantastic. :) I didn't want to take it off at the end of the night because I thought it looked so nice. Anyway, there was much float pulling, riding and taiko drumming done that evening.

Saturday, I decided I needed a break from the crowds and to make sure that I kept on top of things at home. So, I took the day off from the festivities (last year it was a parade of performances from each neighbourhood, game booths and lots and lots of friend food stands, I am pretty sure that it was the same again) and rested up for the big day Sunday.


Sunday, we started drinking around noon when we made it to the designated eating place (I'm not sure who's house it was, but, again, it was the same as last year, and I bet the same old lady was surprised that white people knew how to use chop sticks... and it was worth commenting upon and also noting that we knew to flip the 'sticks over and pick up food from the communal plate using the end that we *don't* stick in our mouths) after getting changed into yukatas at Goto-san's house. Thanks to the help of one of my student's mothers, and Goto lending me a different yukata (I had brought mine with me, anyway) I donned yet another one. The day was spent mostly on foot, pulling the float around town, with the occasional rest time where drinks were consumed. Dang those chu-hai drinks going right to my head via my empty belly. Haha.


The evening brought a banquet meal at the meeting place after we'd gotten changed into our street clothes once more. Grilled meats of all sorts, laughs, booze and topped off with some drunken karaoke. I woke up the next morning with a bit of a hang over (dang you chu-haaaaaaaaaai~!) and to find that drunk CC used up the peanut butter and bread trying to stave off the hangover... She made a mess of it, too. *tsk tsk tsk*

All in all another successful Autum Festival in the wondrous land of Shich'.