So I started the day planning to write about our Prefectural Orientation last week in Nagasaki City, my first day of school, and my new car (!!). However, all three of those topics have been pre-empted by the events of this afternoon / evening. Yeah, it's that serious.
You see, I spent the day bouncing around between schools, introducing myself and talking about Thursday's lesson with the East Elementary teachers. I left from there and went straight to the dealership (I am still not going to say which one) on my bike. This is important.
I left my bike at the dealership and drove my car home, where I took a few pictures in preparation for the email that I was going to write later. I then left to walk back to the dealership to pick up my bike and then go to the supermarket, since I would still prefer to walk / bike if I am going somewhere in Oshima. Needless to say, I never got the milk I was going to buy.
While I was walking through my neighborhood I could hear drumming echoing from the direction of East Elementary. At least I thought it was coming from that direction, it can be kind of tricky with all the echoes. Could it be? Was there actually a group of people practicing taiko somewhere? Taiko is really the bit of Japanese culture that I was most excited to get involved with when I came here, so you can imagine my surprise and dismay upon learning that there really wasn't any taiko in the area. From the sound of it, it had to be people who knew what they were doing, and I started pretty excited.
When I got to entrance I was looking around trying to figure out where it was coming from when I saw one of the teachers pulling out of the parking lot. I asked her if she heard the drums and if it was taiko, thinking that it was coming from the school. I stumbled around linguistically a bit, and eventually realized that she didn't know what it was or where it was coming from either. So I shrugged, said "thank you" and she drove off. I kept walking on my way, trying to listen and determine where this wondrous sound was coming from.
When I turned the corner I saw that the teacher had stopped by the gas station and was asking one of the attendants if she knew where it was coming from. Eventually between the attendant and another woman standing nearby the teacher was able to find out where it was coming from and offered to drive me there. Really?! Oh man, heck yeah!
When we got there we found an old woman with bright purple hair standing outside the gate of the nursery school watching a group of seven or eight women practicing with a bunch of different sized taiko drums. Yes, she really had bright purple hair. Yeah, I think it's pretty awesome too. But anyway, those women were intense! At this point, I think it is important for you to have an idea of what taiko is. Please watch:
general idea
(just watch a little bit, don't need to see the whole thing).
and:
wicked crazy
The first is more representative of the setup the women had, although the women were way better and had more drums, and the second is just way cool.
So the teacher and the old woman exchange some words, and they both go off, telling me to wait. I see the grandmother reappear moments later inside the courtyard and speak to the woman, making me feel quite embarrassed for disturbing, but one of the drummers came over smiling and let us all in to the courtyard.
It was amazing. They were arrayed in the middle of the courtyard, with walls and shrubs all around, so it was like their private practice space. They played two songs for us, and the three of us clapped wildly at the end of each. It was truly something to see. It would be pretty awesome to be a part of that, but I suppose I shall have to find something else.
I still needed to get my bike, however. The teacher offered to drive me, but I declined, preferring to walk. Instead of going back the way we came, I decided to try a different path, which ended up taking me past the dorm housing for the shipyard workers. This was to end up being one of the most fortunate things I could have done.
As I was approaching the dormitory closest to the corner where I would turn and continue on to the dealership I saw three men sitting out on the steps. They seemed friendly, and when I said "good evening" they responded in kind and one of them asked me where I was from, in English. So I sat down and we started to talk in English the best that we could. They recruited a fourth person whose English was a little better, and soon we going back in forth and a mixture of English and Japanese.
I found out that they were from Vietnam, part of a group of 13 in total. Twelve of them were welders, including the one who first said hello to me, Lao. The last was an engineer named Ain, and he was the one who spoke the best English. They asked me about America, why I was here in Japan, etc. and I asked them how long they'd been here, if they had family back in Vietnam… you know, conversation as best we could. As time went on, we all gradually shifted to more and more Japanese, although I would say their English is better than most Japanese I've met, with the obvious exception of English teachers. That was when "it" happened...
Lao turned around and pointed and asked me if I liked to play. What did I see? What else but the most glorious thing man has ever fabricated from wood: a ping pong table. My eyes lit up like no other and I replied that I certainly did like to play. "Do you have time?" I had not eaten dinner, my bike was still at the dealership, and I hadn't gone shopping. You're damn right I had time.
"Unadulterated joy" is the only way to really describe it. I played with Lao for a long time, not keeping score, just back and forth giving it everything we had. Lao was quite good and it forced me to play to new levels, bettering myself in the process. We had some truly epic exchanges. I felt bad and kept offering the other guys to play, but they kept declining. Eventually one of the other guys jumped in for Lao and challenged me to a real game. He was pretty intense, but I was able to properly represent our American tradition. And like Nagao-sensei, they also remarked upon my apparently odd "wrist-turning" shake style method.
Afterward I just sat and talked to Lao and some of his other Vietnamese comrades for a while, maybe an hour or so, about all sorts of random things. It was a wonderful experience, and really I feel like that sort of thing is what the JET Program is all about. Maybe the people who run the program would prefer that we were interacting with Japanese people, but for the people who actually sign up for the program, I think it's all about meeting new people and communicating in whatever way you can, especially if that common language turns out to be a second (or third) language for both of you. Exciting!! Equally exciting is the fact that their days off for September are Sunday and Monday, which means that come next Sunday I will once again be submerged in ping pong bliss. Oh the glory...
whirlwind of future motion,
-greg.
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