Matsuyama

I went to Matsuyama this weekend for another orientation and to take a placement test for the free Japanese classes I will take there for the next two weeks. While in Matsuyama I got to see another festival (Japan has festivals all the time, I mean, like at least twice a month. I just learned about the Mud Throwing festival, which should be fun, and then of course the Taiko Drum festival is coming up in Niihama, which is supposed to be incredible. You will see pictures im sure. There is also the famous cherry blossom festival where we are to celebrate the beauty of the cherry trees in bloom by picnicking beneath them. The Japanese also love holidays. They have a "everyone pick up trash day" were everyone goes around and picks up trash together (duh), and the great "take care of old people day" which is a day dedicated to the elderly.) Anyway, this was a dancing festival, were various groups-grade schools, clubs, old ladies, etc-all dress up and dance in a parade. It was a great time. And Totoro was there too.
At the orientation I learned many interesting things about my prefecture such as there are about 9 thousand foreigners living here, five thousand of which are Chinese workers sending money home. Next are the Korean immigrants with 1643, that came over before WWII and then couldn’t leave and for some reason cannot become citizen even if there are born here. I heard that many Korean seniors in high school, because they have to take college entrance exams, have to confess to their teachers that they have been using a fake Japanese name and they are really Korean. This is very stressful for them, I guess. I have also heard that Koreans have to carry around a special ID card. A little strange, yes?
Then People from the Philippines, Indonesia, USA with 188, and the next largest population of foreigners in Ehime is Brazilians, who you cannot see because they are mostly Japanese decent, but moved to Brazil during the war for a better life, but now Brazil is going to shit so they moved back. There are three people in Ehime with "no nationality). These people are from Taiwan, but because Japan refuses relations with their country, but still want them to work for cheap wages in Japan, the government just labels them "no nationality" and claim they have no visas. Problem Solved. Oh, and we learned that JETS make TWICE as much as any normal Japanese office worker beginning a job in Japan. And, I guess some magazine labeled JET as one of the top ten best jobs in the world. I think the first was Rock star or something. Also, i went to the bathroom at the city hall and there were a lot of men in there, as expected, as well as an old woman cleaning.
It was also a great time because I go to make deeper connections with other JETs, particularly the ones in my area. (And another bonus to the JET programme is that you get to meet peers from all over the world. At dinner we got to share are own cultures and compare accents, learn about how much every country hates America, learn about trends, dialects, music, make connections, laugh together, etc. you get the idea.) You can see a picture of Claudia, Jesse, and Abby (with red hair) three people I know I am going to be great friends with (they all live close by). You can see them standing next to an electronic parking garage. No, I am not sure how the cars come out. I think it rotates like a Ferris wheel. Also you can see a manikin pointing to his crotch and where a funny hat. I have no idea what this was for. None. I was shocked when I saw it.
Matsuyama is home to the oldest onsen or public bathhouse in Japan, called Dogo Onsen, which was also the model for the bathhouse in Miyazaki's movie "Spirited Away." So I obviously had to visit. It cost me 400 yen (about 4 dollars) to get in. I won’t tell you much. But if you didn’t known, The Japanese also love getting naked and bathing together, which is a bit odd because they overall seem very shy. But sure enough, in the onsen, all the men get naked together and have a great ol' time relaxing in large baths (this one had two baths, each one able to hold like 20 people or so.) In one, there hung a beautiful but strange stone sculpture of the upper third of a happy old woman (fully clothed) holding in her hands up to her chin a miniature version of herself, as if saying "hey look, here I am again!") This hung right above one of the baths.
What I found fascinating was all the young adults there, teenagers, some that looked very hip and cool, there with all there friends, hanging out naked. I don’t know, I just can’t imagine this becoming a popular thing for kids that age to do in the states. I was also glad to see whole families, including grandfathers, teenagers, and toddlers, all bathing together.
The remaining pictures are of the bus ride home.

Allison's Going Away Party

Here are pics from our going away dinner for allison. Allison is a fellow artist (ceramics), and i think she glows. I can’t describe it. maybe you can pick it up from these pictures. She was very funny and honest and earthy and kind. In any case, Japan will be a little darker without her. Luckily, Jesse, her replacement, also glows. One highlight was when Joshka arrived. We didn't expect him, for he had begun the 88 shrine pilgrimage earlier in the week, but he came back just to say goodbye and he arrived all dressed in the traditional pilgrimage attire.

Hiroshima

This is some Hiroshima art I found displayed at City Hall today. When I went to the Hiroshima Peace Museum in highschool, one thing I remember was an entire wall full of old clocks and watches, hundreds of them, all stopped at exactly 8:15. I also remember a wax sculpture exhibit showing exactly what it was like to have your skin slowly melt off you body.

This is a Dream

“If you are having a dream and you think it's real, it can get very
scary. Say you are dreaming you are tightrope walking across Niagara
Falls. If you fall off, you plunge to your death. So you are walking
very slowly, very carefully. Then suppose you start lucid dreaming, and
you realise it's all a dream. What do you do? Become more cautious and
careful? No, you start jumping up and down on the tightrope, you do
flips, you bounce around, you have a ball - precisely because you know
it isn't real. When you realise it's a dream you can afford to play.

The same thing happens when you realise that ordinary life is a dream,
just a movie, just a play. You don't become more cautious, more timid,
more reserved. You start jumping up and down and doing flips, precisely
because it's all a dream, it's all pure Emptiness. You don't feel less ,
you feel more - because you can afford to. You are no longer afraid of
dying, and therefore you are not afraid of living. You become radical
and wild, intense and vivid, shocking and silly. You let it all come
pouring through, because it's all your dream.

Life then assumes its true intensity, its vivid luminosity, its radical
effervescence."

One Taste by Ken Wilber.


Rest in a sky-like mind.
Sit like a mountain floating on the earth.
Breathe like the wind circling the world.

Plastic

Japan uses a lot more platic than i imagined. Notice that each lemon, each pepper, (each carrot, each apple, each bannana, is wrapped. this, of couurse, isnt the case everywhere. but it is common. Also, it was very strange seeing these fish and that cab under plastic. They look...still alive. eerie.

Super Market surprizes

These are examples of the little TELEVISIONs they have by products showing advertisments for those products. They make the Supermarket a very loud place.

Super Market

This is Jizo san, the bodhisattva dedicated to dead children, as well as stillborn and aborted babies. And this is his freind, the Colonel.

Ikku Shrine

Still, and Still within the suicides and
sexcrimes, Slaughter, together here
You stand, decorated, a
necklace laced with
wishes,
I read your bark like braille,
tiny shrines adorn your feet,
a cat sleeps with her tongue out,
and kittens play, scratch up ancient wood,
Pure water cools my wrists,
the dragonhead licks clear sky
birds,
Still, the feather you left by my bike,
still, above my head, you trickle the sunlight,
I hear jazz in your leaves, and see the Friend in your branches,
above which the suicides and slaughter sail away and away and away.






(click on any picture to enlarge)
(i suggest you enlarge the pictue of the little black kitten hiding behind a green and orange tree.)
And remember you can enlarge all the picks on the blogsite. And they get quite big.)

Ikku Shrine
"Ikku Shrine was founded in 709 and is one of the oldest Shinto shrines in this district. The large old camphor trees in the precincts are estimated to be 1000 years old and have been designated as natural monuments by the national government."
I went there today, powered by a conversation with Eli about nature, he always, always has a way of inspiring me to go out and spend time with/touch with my hands this natural world. I cant even desctibe what he means to me in this respect. Thank you Eli for inspiring me to care more about the world and its trees.
Setting off on my bike I could see the huge camphors down the street (see them in the picture of the street?), excitement grew, and then I saw the most hunched back old woman buy something out of a vending machine.
The shrine is a large complex of many trees and wood buildings, as well as many cute kittens playing (see the kitten hanging from one of the walls? Cute, and yet....) The biggest tree (and oldest, i assume) had a rope around its neck and tiny shrines at its base, some actually embedded in the tree, and many with offerings and money on their roofs. In front of the Camphor was a larger gate and shrine, with a cat sleeping on its rim, its tongue hanging out. Before I left my house i asked the universe for a feather for me to use in one of my paintings, and at the end of my Ikku shrine adventure I found a beautiful feather waiting for me right next to the back tire of my bike. To rode off very happy and stopped by a flower shop to pick up another plant to put on top of my TV. I am now going to go paint. Thanks again, Eli. You make this world glow.