Happy Thanksgiving

Ojika was hit hard last weekend with another typhoon of American holiday merrymaking. I'm proud to report that my house is still standing, but a little less proud that I have to report the boys of Ojika were gravely disappointed in the pious sentiments of my super-hot girlfriends. Ah, the group of us! You can almost hear hearts splitting in two, even before we walk into a room. Check them out in their (ok, I'll give you the fact that this reference is dated - but haven't we reached the statue of limitations on this gaggle of Brits being dorky? C'mon, it's retro by now!) Spice Girl Pose. This was the first trip to Ojika for Vicky, Milissa and Carrie. Welcome to Ojika! What a hazing we had!

Last Saturday, my little two-story teacher's apartment played host to the second annual Ojika Thanksgiving Party. The Kamigoto crew came for gluttonous amounts of carnivorous consumption (well, except for the vegetarians of the milieu) and karaoke crooning. Emma joined in from Uku, and three of my lovely Ojikan, home-brewed friends popped over to taste the delicacies of the Japanese cornucopia laid out by the hands of Americans, Canadians, the English and Welsh. It was tasty.
Going against all we've been taught in Japan about good manners in regards to the social confines of time, space and the reality of "partying down", we kicked off the weekend with an afternoon cocktail. And, I was bursting at the seams, as I typically do, when delightful little surprises (like a bottle of J.D. for instance) find their way to my island. I get giddy in the ways that some freckled nine-year old who's forced to ration crumbled Hershey Kisses with half-way disintergrated paper flags would in an post apocalyptic Mongolia in the year 2065.
Before we beat my kitchen space into submission with a few steamy hours of bending over the stove, we strolled the island. During this walk, we debated the possible (read: inevitable) trip to the Melody Box for some amateurish displays of Crazy Train and I Want You Back by Ozzy and The Jackson 5, respectively. I also told my compatriots that I would not force them to, before dinner, write down what they were thankful for on a sheet of paper and place them in a hat, where they would be read later on. (My still sometimes immature mind-set had me imagining moments of eye-rolling, pathetic-pleading with the facsimile of all American mothers to stop being so dorky. ) But, my deferral on this Thanksgiving tradition was met with a hearty surprise. It seemed that my friends actually liked that idea, and it was carried out during our Thanksgiving feast. Here's what we wrote:

"I'm thankful for my friends in Japan and my life. I really don't think I could ask for more than what I have today."

"I'm thankful for Japanese warm, sunny days; and beautiful Goto scenery; and many yasashi tomodachi .""My father and mother. Leo. Friends. And, my boyfriends. And, today, I live life!"

"I came here and we met things we appreciate. My sister, nephew and niece. They are my diamonds."

"I am thankful for... my friends' and familie's health and happiness; the fact that I can move freely and do things what other people can't do with their bodies."

"Father and Mother, our differences, friends, family, our similarities, food, money, our beautiful earth, and Dawn." -- Aw, shucks!

"My work."

"I am thankful for family, friends (new and old), trust, truth, welcome and generosity."

"I am thankful for the ability to eat large amounts of food. I am also thankful for my mum."

"I am thankful for the good health of my family and friends."

Like I mentioned above, this was the second annual Ojika Thanksgiving party, but in reality, there will only be two - two that I'll bear witness to in any case. This is my second and last year living within the confines (are they really?) of the blue-green ocean of child-like narcoleptic dreams and heavy-handed winds that stop ferries - weighing tones - from embarking or disembarking the soft crust of our borders. Sometimes when I explain my geography in the world (playing up my isolation in order to hear ill-gotten sympathy) I listen as people refer to my situation as if it were a prison - a deserted island full of serpents and human-sized insects waiting for me to fall asleep so I can be wrapped in a cocoon of silk so as to be devoured at a later date (well, that part's actually true) - and I think how wrong they are. Ojika makes me feel freer than any other place I've claimed as a stomping ground. And, although, I still have eight months to call this place my home, I'm already missing it. I'm already feeling the pangs of nostalgia. The reminiscing about Thanksgiving in Japan - and the rest of the things that have coated my life in blessing like rich cream.

So, I didn't write it on my crinkled, lined paper during Thanksgiving dinner, but I want to make sure I say it now. I am thankful for Ojika.

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween. It's, by far, my favorite holiday of the year. However, this year, I've experienced something I never thought I would. I'm happy the day has been greeted, masticate, and put down in my belly of joy for a long 11 months of juicy digestion. I gorged on the wickedness and I am now sick. I did the one horrible thing that one can do to Halloween. I poisoned myself on it's evil merrymaking. I beat the poor beast of a holiday into submission. I overdosed on the spooks.

Part of the reason I'm tired of all the devilishness, is because I spent around three weeks, with 350 students split into a handful of classes, discussing the merits of this sinfully dark festivity. I carved and carved little green pumpkins. I shoved the words "trick or treat", along with a handful of chocolates, down my little darlings' throats. And I told the story of the monstrous murderer with a hook for a hand so many times to audiences without the capacity to understand the English, that it no longer gives me the involuntary goose flesh that it would any other rational human being. And, I am happy to report this entry in "Big in Japan" is the final chapter to the horror of this year's holiday.

The one especially enjoyable event of Halloween this year was the Halloween Party I hosted at my little abode up on the hill, surrounded by rice fields. Fifteen of my high school girls came over one Saturday afternoon to partake in bobbing for apples, eating donuts off of string, watching scary movies, and gulpping down as much sugar as possible, just like American kids do after going trick-or-treating.


This is a photo of myself, Lori and Sierra in my kitchen. Lori and Sierra came over from Kamigoto to help with the party. Par Sierra's wonderful suggestion, we dressed as the Three Blind Mice and got quite a lot of giggles once the party guests started arriving.

Yui, Me, and Natsumi. Yui came dressed as a "black cat" and Nastumi had the Hello Kitty bow and whiskers to match. Most of the students were too shy to wear costumes, but they had a little flare here and there.

Here, the girls try to fish out cherries from the bottom of their sodas without using their hands. Nastumi was the winner. If you look closely, you can see her displaying her umeboshi between clenched teeth.

Everyone brought over some sweet treats for the celebration. I baked a pumpkin pie, and put out the candy corn my mom sent along with the plastic bats and the glow-in-the-dark skeletons. The end of October was also eggplant and sweet potato season, so the Halloween feast was heavy on the starch and delectable, yet difficult to cook, vegetable.

Lori gallantly volunteered to become the "mummy" for the Mummy Race team in the kitchen. Aki and Asuka wrapped the toilet paper around her, but the girls soon found that it would be easier if she spun around and the paper stayed stationary. We had some dizzy mummies by the end of their two minutes.

We ended the night by taking our group photo and doing a round of "bonzai, bonzai, bonzai!" And, although I'm thoroughly through with Halloween this year, now that I'm posting these pictures on the web, I'm also a little bit nostalgic for that night. I consider my Halloween Party quite an accomplishment. Hmm.... maybe I should start planning for next year.

(A HUGE shout out to Sierra and Lori! I couldn't have done it without them!)

The Smack Down on Ojika

What further corner of the world could possibly be host to a professional wrestling extravaganza, than my small island, barely hanging onto an archipelago in the East China sea?

I suppose beefy men in a mirage of pseudo personalities (and their pseudo costumes to match) could wander around and find a home in, say, Timbuktu.

That just might be as strange as having twenty men and women (of varying shapes and sizes) come to and fling themselves around in the center of my town gym - which is more typically (and daintily) home to badminton competitions and table tennis practice.

So, yes, the PURO-WRESU crew came to town. The company boasted a big and brawny headliner (Kensuke! Kensuke!) to draw in the crowds. It certainly worked. The 600 seats were filled when the fireworks started to fly.

The youth (and the not so youthful) of Ojika salivated over Kensuke and his performance (which lasted all of two minutes) during the main bout for weeks and weeks after the episode.

The town's mascot (a rotund simile of a deer) joined in on the festivities as well. The poor sucker from the town office encased inside that packaging of brown "fur" and planetary-sized head had an awful time manipulating the ropes of the ring to climb inside.



Here, the aforementioned youth, raise their arms with cheers of glee as the wrestler in the wring toss out soft-balls stenciled with the company's name.











Some elementary students with their autographed soft balls after the main event.















There was plenty of action in the ring. And...

Plenty of action out of the ring.

Here, "Handsome Joe" pins his opponent in one of the final matches of the event. Handsome Joe wasn't all that handsome, but he had an attitude to compensate for what he might have been lacking in the good looking department.

All in all, the event was a big success. It wasn't so much the number of spectators, or the layers and layers of theatrics performed in and out of the ring, but it was seeing the looks on the faces of my fellow community members that made the whole three hour spectacle worthwhile.

Who wouldn't laugh while 600 people from a rural fishing community were shuffled from their seats, under cries of danger, just to have men go leaping into their still-warm folding chairs? I'm amazed that the feeble, welding canes and crutches, weren't mauled in the bedlam.