Festivals and Rice - October 2006
Hello all,
Hope you are having a fabulous Autumn ~ heard we missed some nice leaf peeping. We hiked our favorite local volcano a few weeks ago and the Japanese red maples were starting to turn. The trees and leaves were like miniature versions of our Vermont red maples.
'Tis matsuri season in Japan. Matsuris are local festivals that follow the rice harvest calendar. Last time we just watched the goings-on; this time we seem to be participating more than observing.
Eric’s school held Undoukai – a school sports festival. Eric’s team scored the most points in relay races, tug of war, ball shooting and dance to claim the school trophy for the year. At lunch time, everyone pulled out their carefully wrapped bentos. These boxed lunches are packed in lacquerware trays that contain beautifully arranged rice, fish, pickles and vegetables. The families seem to compete over who has the most elaborate bento, which means the Japanese housewife got up at some ungodly hour to assemble them.
I’m sure everyone was duly impressed by our plastic bag of smooshed peanut butter sandwiches.
The following week, Bridget and Eric both rowed in the Peron or dragon boat race festival. With twenty people to a boat, there is one person in charge of the rudder and another who rings the gong while the twenty paddlers, well, paddle in sync with the gong. That’s the idea any way. They raced out in the Omura bay and had a grand time. Bridget was part of the winning team. She was smart enough not to sit by the gong.
Last weekend was one of the largest festivals in Japan and it’s right here in Nagasaki. The 370-year old Kunchi festival celebrates the God of Nagasaki’s Suwa Shrine by parading elaborate floats depicting different points in this harbor city’s history. The Dutch and Chinese influence is represented by beautifully costumed dancers acting out stories from the past. It’s all amazing and we rewarded our wanderings by sampling the great festival food.
The mountainous Japanese islands don’t allow much space for people, never mind agriculture, and everywhere we’ve gone in Japan, we’ve marveled at how rice fields are squeezed into every possible nook and cranny. Our island of Kyushu is less populated, so rice fields are every where. Rice is planted in the Spring and the strong fibrous stalks grow to be about half a meter high and support heavy heads of rice.
We helped a family yesterday thresh their crop. They had cut the stalks a week ago, using a piece of equipment that cuts and binds the stalks together. The family had constructed pole supports to hang the rice bundles to dry. We helped lift the bundles off their supports and feed the stalks through a machine that separated the grains. It spit out the stalks and blew the grains into 20-kg bags. We loaded the bags into a truck. Later they’ll bring the bags to a clever rice vending machine that hulls, polishes and repackages the rice.
We put some of the stalks into another machine that could be walked around the field while it chopped and blew out mulch. In another field, we bundled up the stalks and loaded them on pallets. We were told that they will take them into town where they’ll be made into tatami – a Japanese mat.
In the 80s and humid, it was hot, dusty work, but we had a good time and were plied with lots of snacks and drinks at break time. We were told that they appreciated how tall we are because it’s easy for us to lift the stalks off the poles (Bridget is taller than most Japanese adults). Before we left, we gave them some syrup and told them that we were maple farmers. They had a good laugh over that. I don’t think anyone taps the miniature Japanese maple trees.
We leave on the 22nd for a week in Singapore. I hope you have a wonderful October and I’ll write more soon,
Love, barbara
Pictures at http://photos.yahoo.com/~iverlink called 2006-SeptOct.
I blog on living in Japan at http://iversonjpn.blogspot.com/
Hope you are having a fabulous Autumn ~ heard we missed some nice leaf peeping. We hiked our favorite local volcano a few weeks ago and the Japanese red maples were starting to turn. The trees and leaves were like miniature versions of our Vermont red maples.
'Tis matsuri season in Japan. Matsuris are local festivals that follow the rice harvest calendar. Last time we just watched the goings-on; this time we seem to be participating more than observing.
Eric’s school held Undoukai – a school sports festival. Eric’s team scored the most points in relay races, tug of war, ball shooting and dance to claim the school trophy for the year. At lunch time, everyone pulled out their carefully wrapped bentos. These boxed lunches are packed in lacquerware trays that contain beautifully arranged rice, fish, pickles and vegetables. The families seem to compete over who has the most elaborate bento, which means the Japanese housewife got up at some ungodly hour to assemble them.
I’m sure everyone was duly impressed by our plastic bag of smooshed peanut butter sandwiches.
The following week, Bridget and Eric both rowed in the Peron or dragon boat race festival. With twenty people to a boat, there is one person in charge of the rudder and another who rings the gong while the twenty paddlers, well, paddle in sync with the gong. That’s the idea any way. They raced out in the Omura bay and had a grand time. Bridget was part of the winning team. She was smart enough not to sit by the gong.
Last weekend was one of the largest festivals in Japan and it’s right here in Nagasaki. The 370-year old Kunchi festival celebrates the God of Nagasaki’s Suwa Shrine by parading elaborate floats depicting different points in this harbor city’s history. The Dutch and Chinese influence is represented by beautifully costumed dancers acting out stories from the past. It’s all amazing and we rewarded our wanderings by sampling the great festival food.
The mountainous Japanese islands don’t allow much space for people, never mind agriculture, and everywhere we’ve gone in Japan, we’ve marveled at how rice fields are squeezed into every possible nook and cranny. Our island of Kyushu is less populated, so rice fields are every where. Rice is planted in the Spring and the strong fibrous stalks grow to be about half a meter high and support heavy heads of rice.
We helped a family yesterday thresh their crop. They had cut the stalks a week ago, using a piece of equipment that cuts and binds the stalks together. The family had constructed pole supports to hang the rice bundles to dry. We helped lift the bundles off their supports and feed the stalks through a machine that separated the grains. It spit out the stalks and blew the grains into 20-kg bags. We loaded the bags into a truck. Later they’ll bring the bags to a clever rice vending machine that hulls, polishes and repackages the rice.
We put some of the stalks into another machine that could be walked around the field while it chopped and blew out mulch. In another field, we bundled up the stalks and loaded them on pallets. We were told that they will take them into town where they’ll be made into tatami – a Japanese mat.
In the 80s and humid, it was hot, dusty work, but we had a good time and were plied with lots of snacks and drinks at break time. We were told that they appreciated how tall we are because it’s easy for us to lift the stalks off the poles (Bridget is taller than most Japanese adults). Before we left, we gave them some syrup and told them that we were maple farmers. They had a good laugh over that. I don’t think anyone taps the miniature Japanese maple trees.
We leave on the 22nd for a week in Singapore. I hope you have a wonderful October and I’ll write more soon,
Love, barbara
Pictures at http://photos.yahoo.com/~iverlink called 2006-SeptOct.
I blog on living in Japan at http://iversonjpn.blogspot.com/
posted by Barbara Meehan Iverson at 8:00 PM
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