Report: Children Bitten by Lion, Parent’s Ecstatic
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Posted by Benjamin Martin, a JET from 2008-2013 in Okinawa, publisher of the blog MoreThingsJapanese.com and author of the award-winning YA fantasy series Samurai Awakening (Tuttle).
Yes. This past week on Kume Island, children were sent screaming as a single wild lion went rampaging through a peaceful neighborhood. Well, it was mostly peaceful. Since it was the full moon and August 15th of the Kyureki calendar, there were also a bunch of people around banging gongs and playing music. There were also some creepy Hacaburo running around egging the lion on. Warned in advance that something might be going on, I showed up with some local friends just after sunset with my camera ready. What I saw shocked me, and soon my former students were running for cover… behind me.
By the end of the night no less than 5 children had been bitten. When asked, parents responded that they were overjoyed. One parent, while holding a screaming infant, smiled widely and talked about how smart he would be while neglecting to stop the lion from continuing its rampage.
For more on this story, visit MoreThingsJapanese.com for pictures and video.
I’ll Make It Myself: Foodpia Land 2013
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan, and The JET Alumni Culinary Group in LinkedIn.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Last year, I wrote about Foodpia Land, Kanazawa’s big winter food fair, in the context of street food and food culture in Japan. This year, a bunch of my friends and I went again to celebrate a birthday, so while I’m working on posts for the last two geeky/nerdy birthday cakes I made, I thought you all might like to see some photos.
2013 Tokamachi Snow Festival
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Posted by Benjamin Martin, a 5th year JET on Kume Island in Okinawa, publisher of the blog MoreThingsJapanese.com and author of the YA fantasy series Samurai Awakening (Tuttle).
With its tall mountains and island geography, Japan has areas with heavy rain throughout the year and snowfall in the winter. Over the years, in many areas the snow has been changed from a hardship to benefit. The first place in Japan to create a snow festival is Tokamachi in Niigata prefecture.
Tokamachi (十日町市) City is located in eastern Niigata prefecture. The names of that area are interesting in that they refer to the days it used to take to travel to them by foot. When we went there from the Echigo-Yuzawa station we passed several towns with these similar names such as Muikamachi (six-day town). The area has many small towns and is primarily full of rice farms. Niigata is famous for the delicious rice that the large amounts of snowfall help create.
This year’s snow festival took place between February 15 and 17th with the main stage events taking place on the 16th at the local Tokamachi Elementary School sports ground. As with all the nearby farms, the fields were topped with over two and a half meters of snow. While the snow is difficult to live with, the locals have found some ingenious ways to not only make it work for them, but to enjoy it as well.
One of the major attractions of the Tokamachi snow festival are the snow sculptures. From small igloos to towering designs the sculptures turn all the excess snow into art. Local artists and teams transform piles of snow into everything from popular manga characters to full size replicas of buildings and ships. These are so popular that they have spread to other snow festivals such as the more famous one in Hokkaido.
Every year the main stage for the event is constructed of snow. This year the design was a towering ship and compass. The portals were lighted and throughout the main event fireworks were lighted around it. It was a surprisingly long and steep walk from the lower town to the event but as guests of the local town government we had great tickets that put me 5 people back from the stage and only three from the walkway.
Originally, the focus of the festival was to highlight the beautiful kimonos created in Niigata. The main event after the opening speeches is still a fashion show of kimonos which are especially striking against the pure white of the snowy stage. Following the show were performances by artists Junichi Inagaki, Becky, and LG Monkees. As well as appearances by the local school children singing along with Tetsu and Tomo who helped to MC.
Despite the cold weather and snow falling throughout much of the show, huge numbers of people came out to see the show and it was well worth a few cold toes. The entire event was well-organized with crowd control built into the area with snow dividers. While we weren’t allowed to take photos or video of the performers, we were allowed to take pictures of the stage and fashion show. We didn’t have time to see every sculpture but I did catch a few on our way out. I hope you enjoy a little look at a wonderful town and event. I’ll share more on the trip soon.
For more photos from the event visit MoreThingsJapanese.com
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