クリスマス と おしょうがつ - Christmas and New Year

It seems like an age since I last posted anything here. A lot has happened. I have spent my second Christmas abroad and 2007 has come to an end. Being as we are now in January, I have the delight of being able to say that next month I am going home. There are what feels like a million crucial and complicated things that I need to do before then, but no matter how stressed I get with all of that I just have to remember that in a little over two months none of this will be important.

So, Japanese Christmas. May summed it up perfectly in one sentence: they don't celebrate it religiously or culturally, they just think it looks pretty. It is very true that Christmas can transform even the drabbest train station or department store into a fantasy land of lights and decorations, but this rather superficial celebration of Christmas is rather lacking in the spirit of the season that we love in the West. With no family or close friends here in Nagasaki, Christmas passed May and I by without really changing our moods much. We did have a very pleasant time, it was just missing that something special that makes Christmas Christmas.

On Friday 21st December we were taken out to Bagdad Café (that's 'Bagdad' as opposed to 'Baghdad', according to their sign) by Kumiko-san, along with Oka-san and Goto-sensei to enjoy their Christmas menu. It wasn't what I would call a traditional Christmas dinner, as it featured spaghetti, pizza and seafood salad, but it was very delicious none the less.
May and I were working on Christmas day so we moved our own Christmas celebration to the day before. We basically spent the whole day baking, eating (the food we'd baked, the cake we bought, anything else we could get our hands on) and watching rented DVD's. So not much change there from a regular Christmas, apart from maybe the baking and you would probably watch all the new DVD's you received as presents rather than rented ones. On the 25th, I was working with the home nurse while May was still working on 4F. This meant that while she was bed-making and sorting through patient files, I was visiting ordinary Japanese people in their homes. It was a wonderful and unique way to spend Christmas day actually, even more so because it seems to be standard for the patient to give cake and tea to their guests. May and I spent our lunchtime handing out sweets and cookies to some of the hospital staff and we received a few presents in return. In the evening, we were invited over to Oka-san's house, where we were surprised with another Christmas meal that her daughter had cooked. All in all, a very nice Christmas but, if I'm honest, not even close to the one I missed over in England.

Custom-made keyrings from Oka-san and her daughter:
New Year is a much bigger occasion in Japan than Christmas. We were given four days off from work (combined with the weekend, six days) which is the longest break we have had since coming here. We could have done loads of amazing things, travelled, made the absolute most of our little holiday, but we instead decided to spend most of it shopping and relaxing at home. Don't judge us, we needed the break. We had been waiting for January before we started seriously shopping (which we succeeded in doing, bar a few minor lapses in concentration) because we had heard that Japan has some major New Year sales. It even has it's own special name, hatsuri, or first sale of the year. AND they have special lucky bags (fukubukuro) just for this occasion. You don't know what is inside when you buy them, but they're only about half the price of the contents' value. You're not completely in the dark though, since there are sample bags that you can open and there are different sizes for the bags containing clothes. As interesting as it would have been to buy one, I decided against it. Besides, I had already seen exactly what I wanted to buy:

A blue skirt (¥9555, normal price ¥13,5000) – This is the perfect skirt for me, so I think it was worth spending the equivalent of 2 weeks food money on it, don't you think?
A new pair of jeans (¥3990) - I needed to replace my old ones which are starting to fall apart a little. This style is called 'Boyfriend Baggy, but I am quietly ignoring the claim that they are baggy. I was lucky to find jeans that fit me at all in a country where most girls have a 21” waist and weigh under 100lbs;
A black top (¥2048, reduced from ¥4096) - It didn't photograph well unfortunately, but you can take my word for it that it is cute and looks great with a red top I bought during one of my “lapses in concentration” last month;
A pair of earrings (¥1260) – These were too unusual and too pretty to miss.
Now, the people who know me will know I am not a big shopping person and that I am normally plagued with guilt for days after buying myself anything. Japan has changed me though. Japan is shopping country and I am in need of retail therapy. I wasn't completely selfish however– I bought some omiyage (souvenirs) for people too, which, for obvious reasons, I can't tell you much more about.

May and I had anticipated a lot of people at the department store for the sale on January 1st, so we decided to get there for 10am when it opened. We were shocked: there were hundreds of people ordering themselves into nice, neat queues outside every door into the store. I had heard that everyone goes to the shrine on New Years' morning but apparently shopping is really the priority here. Then came the second shock of 2008: when the doors were opened, people started running! I mean literally running... all over the shot. And the store clerks were yelling for people please not to run, but it was already too late by then. All sense of propriety had been thrown out of the window. Incredible.

New Year mochi (rice cake):
Throughout this whole holiday period the weather has been going crazy. On December 23rd it was 17ºc and 68% humidity; On January 1st it was 7ºc and snowing and hailing. It seems to be stabilizing again now, but I don't know how long that will last. I'm used to it always being 12ºc and drizzling in England – I just can't take this kind of sudden change.

I have no idea how to finish such a long, rambling post so I will just do it with a random picture. This was taken on January 1st near Hamanomachi:
Owari desu!

ぼねんかい - Bonenkai

It was Bonenkai (the hospital end of year party) last Friday night. There is no denying that May and I looked great. She wore a green dress that she had bought on Wednesday and I wore a red top that I'd bought the week before; Our hair was pretty; We had make-up on. All of these things were massive improvements on how we normally look at work – tired, uniform-clad and a little sweaty from all the bed-making. I think we surprised people a little actually. "Wow, they scrubbed up well, didn't they?" It turned out to be as formal an occasion as people wanted it to be - some of the staff wore suits, some wore jeans - so May and I felt nice and comfortable somewhere in the middle.

The party was at the hotel that is right next to the hospital. We pass it every day on the walk to work and it turned out to be very nice indeed on the inside. One thing I didn't like about the evening was that you had to pick your seat number out of a box at random, meaning you could wind up sitting next to complete strangers. That was half the reason for doing it, also there was a raffle at the end of the party based on seat numbers. It didn't really matter though because Kumiko-san arranged for May and me to sit with her at table 7 by talking a few members of staff into switching with us.

Once seated, the food promptly started to arrive, all of which was delicious. There were a lot of dishes that I didn't recognize, but that has never stopped me before from digging in and it didn't then. There was quite a lot of debate between a few of the doctors at our table over what the English name was for the meat in the soup. We had everything from 'seagull' to 'whale' put forward as suggestions. I think it might have been goose, but who knows?!


Part way through the meal, the performances started. Half a dozen or so of the departments gave a 5-10 minute performance and the senior members of staff had to judge the best for a prize of ¥50,000 (£214 – the same amount May and I get per month from the hospital). After the Kumamoto trip, I knew what to expect: Semi-nudity, group-participation and on-stage consumption of alcohol. Oh, and also wigs and cross-dressing. Needless to say, it was very entertaining. Mariko-san dressed up as a reindeer and threw a mango at a doctor in drag, with the aim of him catching it on a fork. He managed it two out of four times, in case you were wondering. Oka-san was up there, Nakashima-sensei and Imamura-sensei too. You would never think that such respected doctors are so willing to make complete fools of themselves in front of a room full of their work colleagues and friends, but apparently it is the complete opposite. Anyway, 4F won. I can't even bring myself to tell you what Imamura-sensei had to do to get the victory for his floor. *Shakes head in disbelief*. All I will say is that it involved a dominatrix. Enough said.

A sample of 7W's performance:


Yamaguchi-san (assistant nurse, 6E) came over to our table part way through the proceedings and gave May and me each a present: two pairs of tabi (Japanese split toe sock). I had yelped with delight at the inter-departmental volleyball tournament a few weeks ago when I had seen her wearing the most beautiful tabi I had ever come across. She obviously took note. You gotta love Yamaguchi-san :-)

Kumiko-san was very drunk by the time the party ended at 10:30. It was quite funny to watch her giggling to herself and tripping over her own feet. She asked us to forget this occasion in the future and although we won't be so cruel as to bring up her embarrassment again, there's no way I could forget her singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You" over a sobering cup of coffee in Mos Burger after the party.

Bossy Me

I actually got to be somebody else's boss on Tuesday. Okay, sure, it was to a fourteen year-old high school student doing her work experience at the hospital, but still. It felt great. I got to order her around a bit when we were making beds but then, showing that I can also be a very nice boss, arranged with the chief nurse on 5W for me to take her on a quick tour of the hospital. I had forgotten what it is like not to feel as though you are at the bottom of the pile. Shame she was only here for one day.

*

Bonenkai party tonight. Very, very excited.

Nagasaki Kunchi Matsuri

From the 7th -9th October each year Nagasaki celebrates the Kunchi Matsuri (festival), and has done so for more than 370 years. It celebrates the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, which is meant to a lucky day. The name “Kunchi' comes from the Japanese for “ninth day”, “ku nichi”. There are festivities on all three days and in various places around the city, notably at the Suwa-jinja Shinto shrine and at Otabisho, which is outside the You-Me-Seito department store that I have already come to know and love.

I found a website that gave a very informative description of the festival, but I have lost the address so I will repeat some of it here:
The first Kunchi festival took place in 1634 as part of the central government's campaign against Christianity. It is to give thanks for the harvest, but it also coincides with a period when the gods are said to leave their own shrines for a kind of annual conference. Kunchi festivals are held in many parts of Japan, but Nagasaki's Kunchi is recognised as one of the three great festivals of the Japanese year and attracts visitors from all over the country. At the festival a number of machi (districts of the city) are selected to perform.

The performance normally has three parts. First is the parading of the machi's kasaboko, a huge ceremonial umbrella, bearing the symbols of the machi. Next is the parading of a huge wooden boat on wheels, which is usually occupied by children playing drums and cymbals. Finally, there is a performance of some sort, sometimes involving the boat, but usually a dance.

Nagasaki's Kunchi is distinguished by two features, apart from the enormous effort of preparation which goes into it. Firstly, there is a variety of dances, which came to the city with people who were brought to the city to repopulate it after the Shimabara massacre of 1638. Secondly, there is the incorporation of Dutch and Chinese elements into the performances, which has occurred during its long history.

I saw the festivities at Otabisho on Tuesday morning, which started at 7am. There are seven different performances that make up the whole festival, each performed by a different machi and each lasting between 30-40 minutes. So yeah, it was a long morning.

Kohjiya Machi – The kawafune (Riverboat dance). The large, wooden boat is pulled along by a group of men, and rotated (in one direction only), which excites the crowd greatly. There was lots of yelling, cheering and clapping - no chance at all of anyone still being half-asleep by this point. The carp mounted on the roof of the float represent the carp in the Nakashima river which runs alongside the town.


Kohzen Machi – The Hon-Odori (Japanese dance). This was the first time I got to see/hear shamisen live, and it was wonderful. I also got to see geisha – yay. It started raining at the beginning of this dance, but that wasn't going to stop anyone. It's a good thing that geisha make-up practically has to be chiselled off to be removed.


Gin-ya Machi – The Shachi-daiko (Fish and Drums dance). This was just amazing. It was possibly my favourite of the performances. The taiko drummers were awesome; the sound reverberated through my chest the whole time. Add onto that the phenomenal displays of men heaving, pulling, throwing and catching a giant wooden float and you got yourself a performance that made me more glad than ever to be in Japan.



Yahata Machi – The Yumiya Hachiman Iwaibune/ Kenbu (celebration Boat/ Sword Dance). I was surprised to see only women doing the sword dance. They were obviously very skilled with their samurai swords and they gave an impressive, if a little intimidating, display of female strength. The celebration boat was pretty good too:


Manzai Machi – A Hon-dori (Japanese Dance). The music took a step or two up beat with the beginning of this performance, so that the sound of the Shamisen was now combined with more modern music. This really got the crowd going, with a lot of people joining in with the singing and dancing. It was awfully fun to simply watch too.


Nishihamono Machi – The Jabune (Dragon Boat). The dragon boat is apparently the largest object used in the festival, although they all looked similarly large to me. This boat is meant to represent the ship which brought Princess Anio to Nagasaki to marry Soutaro Araki, a wealthy trader. As you can see, unfortunately some of it had to be covered in clear plastic sheeting to protect it from the now heavy rain. The crowd (me included) got quite a shock when 'smoke' (water vapour) shot out of the dragon's mouth!


Gotoh Machi - Jaodori (Dragon Dance). Ah yes, the dragon dance. Some years there is a 'child dragon' but this year there was just an 'adult dragon', which I have to be honest was a slight relief because I was really tired by this point and my enthusiasm for the crowd's near-deafening cheers had dwindled somewhat. It was a fantastic performance, don't get me wrong. The performers aim for speed and height in this dance, when the leader guides the dragon in various directions with - what I can only describe as - a golden, spinning ball on the end of a staff (sorry, I don't know the name of it).



Kasaboko: Each machi's performance begins with a kasaboko, which is huge, parasol-like object. It carries a placard with the machi's name on it, as well as decorations on top, and a veil draped all around the sides. One man carries the 130-150 kg float on his shoulders, and to make things that little bit more difficult, the veil prevents him from seeing where he is going, so another person guides him with a flag. The carrier dances and spins in a circle, again, with much encouragement from the crowd. All very impressive.

If anybody is thinking of visiting Nagasaki and is unsure of when to do so, come at the beginning of October! This has been one of the highlights of Japan so far for me I feel privileged to have seen it all live, something that many Japanese don't even get the chance to enjoy.