Honjo Festival

The two Japanese guys who were on our rowing team this year live in the same area as me in Honjo. They invited me and my friends to take part in the local Ōnomichi chōnai (大の道町内) festival on 20 September. We practiced twice at my local community centre (大の道公民館), which I just discovered existed!

We were practicing a simple enough beat on the taiko (太鼓). We needed to have 2 drummers at any given time, one rhythm and the other on main beat. There were also a group of fue (笛) players. And everyone shouts out the word sore (それ）, multiple times!


On our second night of practice, the day before the festival, we had plenty of free food and drinks given to us. We ate what has now become usual to us; yakitori, yakisoba and okonomiyaki. And we drank sake from square wooden cups!

And after a late night we got up and returned to the community centre for 8am the next morning for the opening ceremony of the festival. And it's customary to open any good ceremony with a shot of sake; so that was when our started drinking!

We were the first group to lead the drumming. Basically the group tours around the local area. People watch from the side of the street, and random people come out of their houses and give large bottles of sake to us! Some people even give out envelopes with money inside!


We made our first pit stop after about 15 minutes. We stopped outside a house and were ushered into an open garage. In the centre of the garage was a table with onigiris, pickled vegetables, miscellaneous meats and large bottles of beer and of course sake.


After indulging ourselves for about 15 to 20 minutes we were each given towels and told that we would be carrying the portable shrine, called a mikoshi (御輿, 神興 or 神輿) for a while. The towels were to pad our shoulders as the shrine was quite heavy.

When we picked it up and placed it on our shoulders it quickly became apparent that most of us foreigners were taller than the Japanese guys we were with. Some of the guys could not get their shoulders high enough to take any of the weight! Our chant also changed from sore to wasshoi (わっしょい).


We continued carrying the shrine and chanting for the rest of the day. We made regular stops at houses around Honjo. Eating and drinking without fail at each stop! Some people were even slamming large glasses of sake at 10am!!


I can't actually remember what time the festival ended (probably 5 or 6pm), but when it did we went to Yumiko's house for sushi and alcoholic refreshments. And after about two hours there we headed back to Jez's apt for bit of a party there.

It was one of the most enjoyable days I have had since I arrived in Japan!

Akita Mago Uta National Competition

The Akita Mago Uta National Competition (秋田馬子唄全国大会) is held in the building next to my board of education every year. And this year I was given free tickets to go. I was a bit sceptical after the Honjo Oiwake competition we had been to in August but Paul and myself decided to go check it out anyway.

The concert started in the morning but we decided not to go until the afternoon. And when we arrived I was surprised to find that the venue was quite full. We had to stand in the door, and couldn't really see the stage. I spoke to a guy from Yamaguchi ken way down south. He was just after singing in the competition. He told me that Mago uta means packhorse driver song. It is a folk song. I asked if everyone was going to sing only that one song, and sure enough they were!

The brochure we had received on the way in listed close to 200 entrants! Fair play to any judge who can listen to the same song that amount of times! We stayed for only a short while, maybe 5 or 6 entrants and left!

Honjo Oiwake National Competition

I recently started learning Honjo Oiwake on the shamisen. It's quite a difficult song to play, but it's known to be one of the most difficult songs to sing! And there is a National competition every year in Honjo. Myself and Paul, one of the new ALTs went to check it out. I was unsure of exactly what kind of competition it was.

We arrived at 9am just in time for the start, which opened with about 10 shamisen players playing some really cool song. And after the opening ceremony was finished the competition started.

A short version of the song was played, by the musicians who opened the ceremony, and singers came out with their numbers on and sang the song. Then the next person came out and sang, then the next...


By 11:30 we had seen nearly 70 versions of the exact same song!! We decided to leave early. The competition actually continued until 5:30. Perhaps next year I'll go to the second half of the competition and see if anything exciting happens near the end!


It seemed quite strange to have a competition with only one song. I don't think that would happen in other countries, I imagine people wouldn't have patience to sit in a room for a whole day listening to the same song.

Shamisen New Year Party

On Sunday 8th February 2009 we had a New Year's party with my shamisen group. We were to meet at 9am, somewhere, but as usual I couldn't understand my teacher, so after collecting everyone at the pick-up point he got the bus to meet me at Honjo city hall. We then went to Kisakata Seaside Hotel, about 30 minutes south of Honjo.

We went to the same place last year also, though at the time I had no idea that it was a New Year's party, I just though it was a concert. I also found out this year that the group I play with is much bigger than I though, it has about 25 members and is called Akita shinzankai (秋田新山会). In the folk group we have shamisen, shakuhachi, and taiko players, as well as dancers and singers.


To start off the day we had a meeting about the groups finances. Then we got changed into our kimonos and hakamas, went into a room with a stage set up and took some group photos. I realised how much taller I was to everyone else! Then we began our concert.

Everyone took turns playing different songs and dancing. The age of these people is quite apparent. I reckon the youngest, besides myself, is about 50 and she is much younger than the rest which must all have about 40 years on me!


I played just one song this year, ringo bushi. I played it with my teacher, a taiko drummer, shakuhachi player and a singer. I took a video but unfortunately the singer was standing between me and the camera for most of the video.


We started our enkai, which involves much drinking, at about 1 o'clock. Beer was the first drink to arrive, and was followed quickly by wine and whiskey both of which i refused, at first. Then came tamagozake (卵酒) or egg sake, not something I reccommend, though apparently it is good for the common cold! Then the normal sake arrived, then the wine came back. At this point many of my collegues were getting drunk quickly and becomming more insistant that I should drink everythink they had to offer!

At 4pm we headed back to Honjo and went to a karaoke bar, owned by the wife of my teacher called Night in Castle. They were singing all Japanese folk songs, many dating from the 1940's! When they requested me to sing I knew I was in trouble. I looked for my only reliable song, the one all my friends must be sick of hearing, 1979, but apparently it was a much too recent song. I went with the slightly older Disarm. Nobody joined in!

Inflatable You!

Your love for me is not debatable
Your sexual appetite's insatiable
You never ever make me waitable
Delectable, inflatable you.

You don't have problems with your weight at all
You never steal food off my plate at all
I never have to masturbate at all
Unstoppable, inflatable you.

You never seem to menstruate at all
So you're not angry when I'm late at all
I feel permanently felatable
Unpoppable, inflatable you.

With you in my arms I feel we could just float away
With the right kind of gas I might even try it some day
In this ocean of life I'm never afraid I might drown
We could just float forever whatever the weather
Whenever my inflatable love is around.

Your thighs and buttocks are so holdable
You always do what you are toldable
And if we argue you just foldable
Controllable consolable you.

My mates all reckon you are suitable
I took you 'round to watch the football
And Steve and Gary said you're rootable
Refutable, commutable, you.

You're never sensitive or tickly
When I rub you my skin goes prickly
It's known as static electricity
Felicity when I'm kissing you.

Your skin is so smooth I couldn't afford you with hair
You have all the holes real girls have got plus one for the air
Your problems are simple, I don't need my Masters in Psych
To know if you get down I just perk you right up
With a couple of squirts with the pump of my bike.

You never wake up when I snore at all
A trait which I find quite adorable
You have a box and you are storable
Ignorable, back-doorable you.

Any sexual position's feasible
Although you don't bend at the knees at all
Your hooters are so firm and squeezable
Increasable, un-creasable you.

Now birth control is not an issue
I clean it all off with a ...
I bet my jealous friend all wish you
Were insatiably inflatably theirs.

Don’t let me down.
Don’t let me down.
Don’t let me down.
And I won’t let you down.

Tim Minchin, 2003.

Ringo Bushi

This is my shamisen teacher, Kuroki sensei, playing ringo bushi (りんご節). This is the latest song he is teaching me. This song is an Aomori song; ringo means apple, bushi means song. Aomori is the most northern prefecture in Honshū, and it is famous for apple orchards.