Showa Festival

Sunday was the Showa festival. 

Today is Pearl Harbor remembrance day... so I considered not posting this today. However, I think it is important to see the changes in America and Japan's relationships over the years. Especially given today's wars and conflicts. 

Well enough of that let's look at some pictures. 

This Statue is at the entrance.

Music filled the front lobby. 

and beautiful decorations.

This garden is always beautiful. 

This been bag game was similar to jacks. 

An old woman demonstrated. I bet the students being so young, probably never even played this game. Just like I have never actually played marbles. 

This exhibit was about Sumo wrestling. 

Honestly Dai Dai could have stayed here all day.  We have to make one of these Kami Sumo (zumo?) things at home.)

You could get you stage name written before you went to play Kami Sumo. 

All this stuff is made with paper. 

And Dai Dai challenged this student to standing Sumo. It's like push hands. Except you can't move your feet. 

And you can't stand in Dan Been ma either. Shao didn't understand. They just let him win anyway.

This was about Princess Kaguya. She is the Japanese Moon Lady. The story is completely different than the Chinese one about Chang E'. Basically a farmer found Princess Kaguya in s bamboo shoot. So she's sort of a plant/human hybrid. In three months she became a 'beautiful maiden.' Everyone wanted to marry her. In the middle of the night she escaped and flew up to the moon. 

Find princess Kaguya.

Fish for Origami stuff. 

Throw stuff through the holes to get points. (I tried this and failed miserably.)

Look at that. We should decorate a corner of the house like this. 

And you get a picture with Prnicess Kaguya.

Shao too. 

This was about different places in Japan. 

Here is an igloo or Kamakura. The Ainu on Hokaido used to live in these. I saw a pretty extensive piece on this on Anthony Bourdain. The first time I heard about this though was from my mom. She lived in Japan for a long time. 

These reminded me of Lions. Their something else though. 

This was to see what items went from Portugal to Japan and vice versa. Honestly I didn't get a chance to read everything because I was watching the kids. 

This was funny. This was some kind of board game. The students asked Shao a question. When he didn't know they answer they whispered it to him. But... Shao understood exactly 0% of what they were saying and just stood there looking weird. If I couldn't get my point across I would use hand motions and just move them. But the students are so polite that they wouldn't do something like that. At the same time Shao was too embarrassed to ask them to repeat the question. So everyone just stood there, Shao looking to me for help. But I refused to interfere. Eventually we went on to the next exhibit.

Ahh this was the Tea Ceremony. 

You could dress up. The kids didn't want to. 

This sectin was put together by a student from Framingham State. 

She is American but went to study at Showa Japan over the summer. I didn't take a picture of her and I realize posting this that that was stupid. 

I took pictures of people in traditional dress. But actually the student from Framingham state was dressed in a sort of Modern fashion that has a name. Hajuko? I forget. That was foolish of me too.

Totoro!

I have to show this cartoon to the kids. 

Dai Dai didn't mind being a girl Shao refused. 

But he did try on a backpack. 

This exhibit was about Post War Japan. 

I actually learned a lot here. There was a Showa period of Japan because the Emperor's name was Showa. He was the emperor during World War 2 and remained Emperor until the 80's when he died. I didn't know that. Damn when you surrender to the States you get a whole lot of benefits.

There was a class schedule which I didn't take a picture of. 

In Japan there is a part of the class schedule weekly where the whole class discusses what they are going to do for some kind of event. (kind of likes this Showa event.) I thought that was interesting. In the states that meeting would be for teachers or admin people only. The class would have nothing to do with it.  

Gods and Demons

This woman could here the voice of God (they kind of waited for me to act strangely to this, but dude in the States almost every tenth person says they hear the voice of God.) And she led the kingdom.... but she was never seen in public. So basically her brother was really leading the Kingdom. They got support from China. I pointed out that China was three kingdoms at this time. "Yes!" they were surprised that I knew this. It was the southern Kingdom. I never heard this story before and I would like to read more about it. 

There was also the story of the Japanese Sun God, who is female. I didn't know that. Kind of like Norse Freyja. 

Here are the seven lucky gods. A lot of them are Chinese/Indian in origin. What I don't get is why there are always 8 Chinese immortals but 7 Japanese lucky gods. 

Here I am as a devil. 

And Christmas is big in Japan... and Fried Chicken (KFC particularly)  is a "traditional" Japanese Christmas food. 

Dai Dai almost knocked this bridge down.

This was about Mount Fuji. But the kids were done. I had to tackle Dai Dai and haul him out of there. 

All done! I thought this was pretty cool, and I think it is sort of inspiring what people can do with time and paper. I always feel like we should have more stations like this at the Chinatown Festivals. I mean they really don't cost anything to set up do they? (they don't make any money either though. Something to think about.