a little about the show

Monday
Last night at the bathhouse I was surprised to see another westerner. He looked pretty grumpy, a man of about 50. To lowered myself into the bath and looked over at him.

“Can you speak English?” He immediately asked me in an almost angry tone.
Yes, a little. I joke. Where are you from? I ask. “Northern Japan.” He says. “No, I mean, where originally?” He looks at me and says, as if frustrated with the question, “I was born in Japan, lived here all my life.”

He then explained that he was with a few others evangelists who travel around Japan preaching the world of god to all the demon and idol worshipers in the country. He asked me my religious background and I said Methodist and he let out a sigh of relief. I then told him that I practice Tibetan Buddhism. He looked at me in disbelief. “That makes no sense, how can you be Christian and Buddhist? “
I told him that the Buddha never talked about God so there is no contradiction.

I told him that I thought the Dalai Lama is exhibiting Christ love in his unwavering compassion toward the Chinese government. “Talk about loving your enemy.”
“But the Dalai Lama worships demons and idols and tells lies. He and his religion is just another tool of the devil.”
I said I didn't know anything about that.
I told him that I met the Dalai Lama and he said to follow Jesus. The man said he couldn't believe it. I said neither could I, but after I heard the Dalai Lama say that I knew that he spoke the truth. I said that if he turned me on to Jesus and the bible, how could he be a tool of the devil? I probably sounded like an asshole. But I was being honest and I wanted to keep the conversation away from hatred and persecution. While naked.

Interestingly, another one of his crew was a 22-year-old Japanese boy who seemed equally unhappy. After the bath they showed me their van which had huge speaker on the roof out of which the blast their message. He gave me some literature full of scary pictures of Jesus casting screaming people into a lake of fire to burn to death. My friend Katsu standing next to me couldn't understand what they were talking about.
Maybe that was a boring story.

The painting show ended yesterday. I pulled a tom sawyer and organized a clean up party. With friends and students helping it took no time at all to take everything off the walls, load them into a couple cars, and take them back to my apartment. A couple I met in Takamatsu the other weekend (a two hour drive away) came to the show and bought the cicada drawing. The lady who was going to buy the dying man’s face instead got the rabbit painting.

I have so much I can say about the past two weeks. I went toe the gallery every day after school. Interestingly, some older ladies would put their hands up to the paintings to feel the energy.

Many people came to the show, especially on the last day I went to the gallery every day after school and all day on the weekends. This got tiring, having to be present and talkative whenever anyone came in.

I had a party on the first Saturday and many people came from all over Ehime and I was very happy. Except that my neighbor complained about the noise. There were about 20 of us making noise and laughing. Two of my friend did all the dishes. And there were a lot of dishes. That was a great gift.