Fukuoka Trip: Cats and Owls

Last fall a friend of mine learned that the theatre production, CATS, would be coming to Fukuoka and we decided to make a weekend trip to go and see the show!

Fukuoka is located in the northwest of Kyushu island, about a 4 hour drive from Miyazaki. It is the largest city on Kyushu by population, having about 1.5 million people. By comparison, Miyazaki is the fifth largest city on Kyushu with about 400,000 people. Being a bigger city, Fukuoka has much more entertainment and a happening night life and is a lot more international in terms of being more English-friendly and accessible. It is busier and has many big city amenities that we don't have further down in Miyazaki, such as a theatre in the main mall, Canal City, which shows performances such as the one we were wanting to see.

Leading the way!

While, yes, CATS would be in Japanese, we were familiar enough with the production to be able to understand it and obviously we would still enjoy the costumes, singing, dancing, etc. Also, to be perfectly honest, I thought that it would be very interesting to see a famous English show performed in Japanese and I was excited to see just how much of the dialogue I would actually directly understand. On this note though, I will take this opportunity to say that by living in a foreign country with limited language abilities, it's been incredible to discover first hand just how much we do understand from observation, context clues, facial expressions, body language, voice tones, etc. By always speaking with others in a language that we are fluent in, we can easily take for granted the significance of these other aspects of understanding and communication. This knowledge has often given me confidence that even with my limited speaking abilities, I would be able to navigate my way through many new situations here in Japan. That, and of course the kindness and patience of Japanese people.

I wasn't supposed to take this photo I realized later,
but the incredible set of CATS!

Upon arriving in Fukuoka, we dropped of our bags at our hotel and made our way to the theatre, which is on the top floor of a mall complex. Canal City is a cute mall complex aptly named because it is located next to Fukuoka's river canal. It is brightly painted and designed with curved walls and even has a water feature and fountains in it which can be seen from the balconies of some of the levels of shops.

A picture taking area with
backdrop representing the stage

Paw-print stickers on the floor and up the sides of the escalator led us to the theatre. Upon entering the small, intimate theatre and finding our seats in the centre back, we were first struck by the detail and effort put into the set all around us. And it was all around us! There were cans and ornaments and netting and Christmas lights and other random bits of junk all over the walls and draped across the ceiling. We certainly felt like we were in a junkyard as we anxiously awaited the arrival of the alley cats!

Pretty sunset view of the river canal that runs through Fukuoka

The show itself was nothing short of spectacular. The detailed set moved and had many surprising entrances. The beautiful costumes exuded the particular personalities of the characters. But most of all the talented cast, the stars, made the performance. Every song's note was in perfect pitch, every dance's step was in rhythm, and the show played out perfectly with such beautiful grace. Not only this, but I was also so struck by the stars' obvious devotion and attention to detail with all their cat-like movements and mannerisms, even when the spotlight wasn't on them. I was so completely absorbed that it was half-time before I knew it.

The street food stall
where we ate delicious ramen

At the end of the performance the actors came down the rows so that one of them shook every audience member's hand. I'm not sure if this is usually done, but I thought it was a nice touch. I enjoyed briefly touching paws with the magical Mr. Mistoffelees, almost as much as watching the eyes light up of the little grandmother in the row in front of us when he shook her hand ;). And then we audience stood cheering and clapping while the stars lined up on the stage to bow. Even after the actors had moved off stage, we were still applauding vigorously, and so they came out to line up, bow, and give their thanks again. And again. And again. And again! I'm not exaggerating when I say that this must have been repeated about 6 times. And I'm not sure if all of this extra treatment we received was because of the small intimate theatre setting, or simply because Japanese people are extremely polite, gracious, and kind, but either way it was amusing!

Enjoying our ramen! Mmmm!

CATS was an early afternoon performance and so the rest of the day was spent shopping in Canal City before we headed out to find some delicious ramen noodles for dinner. Ramen is a pork based broth, meat, and noodle dish that originally came from China. Fukuoka is known for its ramen, especially the Hakata-style ramen, named after the area, in which the broth is prepared for 12 hours! While it's a very fatty dish that probably shouldn't be eaten all the time, ramen is delicious and definitely should be eaten in Fukuoka.

About to go into the owl cafe!

Having had famous Fukuoka restaurant ramen many times before, we decided to try one of the street food stalls that line the river canal. The atmosphere along the canal was fun and lively and after a while we found a stall that had some stools available. Being a Saturday night, it wasn't long before we had some friendly, slightly inebriated Japanese businessmen sitting nearby pluck up the courage to try to speak to us in English. They even gave us a small gift of sweet hard bread!

Having fun with this big, heavy guy!

The giving of a small gift like this, called omiyage, is a big part of Japanese culture. Omiyage are small gifts of usually little souvenirs or more often unique or seasonal food products from an area traveled to, commonly shared with co-workers, friends, or family members after a trip. They are often in boxes of many individually wrapped cookies or such and are now sold in packages like this at every train station or airport. While omiyage are usually given to others in one's community, a few times now I have been given omiyage by strangers I have just met merely because I am a foreigner in Japan. The most memorable of these was a very sweet old grandmother whom I met on the bus. After just a few minutes of simple conversation, she would not take no for answer when handing me a beautiful small cloth hand towel. I was very touched.

Little Nico was
my friend's favourite!

The next day we had one goal before heading home, and that was to go to the fairly new owl cafe in Fukuoka that we had heard about through friends. If you don't know about animal cafes in Japan, they are coffee shops with areas to enjoy playing and cuddling with certain animals, usually cats or dogs, owned by the cafe. It's like renting a pet for a short time. Well, this is the first that we had heard of their being one with owls so we were naturally curious and decided to check it out.

By appointment and for ￥1,000 (about $10), the Fukuoka owl cafe lets you spend an hour, supervised with trained staff, with a few of their owls perched on you! First, you are led upstairs and served a tea or coffee while the guidelines for handling the owls are explained to you. After this you are free to make your way downstairs where certain of their owls whose rotation it is are available to be handled, while the others remain resting in their cages.

I loved this guy!

The cafe seems to try to have a selection of various breeds of owls available for handling at one time and throughout the hour you get to meet a few different owls, learn about them, and take photos together (with no flash for their protection) while they perch on your arm, shoulder, or even head!

While it was a great experience to be that close and personal with these beautiful birds, and the staff did seem to know what they were doing and care for them, I still have mixed feelings overall about the owl cafe.

"Off duty" owls trying to
get some shut eye.

Firstly, any place keeping animals in captivity limits their range of movement drastically to what it would naturally be in the wild, and as far as I could see these owls are limited to one single perch in a small cage. Secondly, owls are of course nocturnal birds and so it is unnatural for them to be awake and stimulated for many hours in the daytime. Thirdly, while it is good that they rotate the owls available for handling so as to give them time to rest, it is disappointing that the ones not available for handling during that hour were just in cages still in the same brightly lit room with all the noise and commotion of customers handling the other owls and still able to be photographed. It seemed like there should have been a separate space for them to truly be "off duty".

But I suppose with many things you don't know until you go and see it for yourself, and I will admit that I love owls and selfishly wanted the chance to be close to them. Now, after going and seeing this particular establishment I know better my own opinions about it. Other than the suggestions I already made about more space for the owls and a separate area for the resting owls, establishments like this could alleviate the consciousness of guests such as myself if they had a strong educationally minded or conservationist theme and actively supported non-profit foundations to this effect.

Local Japanese Fall Festivals: Part 3 - Water

The theme of this third and final installment of my blog postings about my favourite local fall festivals is water. This time I'd like to tell you about the annual competitive Dragon Boat Racing Festival that I have taken part in all three years that I have been in Japan.

A typical shot during a race

Dragon boat racing is competitive boat racing in rowboats that are fashioned to be shaped like dragons. The tradition dates back to China over 2,000 years ago, but the 'Modern Era' of dragon boat racing is recognized to have been started by the Hong Kong Tourist Association, which held the first International Dragon Boat Festival there in 1976. The style of dragon is the traditional Chinese dragon which has the head of an ox, the antlers of a deer, the mane of a horse, the body and scales of a snake, the claws of an eagle (represented by the oars of the boat), and the tail of a fish.

"With its strength and power the Dragon rides the clouds in the sky and commands the wind, mist, and rain". [1]

Everyone gathering to watch the races!

This festival isn't quite as local as the previous ones I mentioned - it's actually in Kagoshima prefecture, which is southeast of Miyazaki, and where the race happens, Minami-Osumi Town in Nejime, is approximately a 3 hr drive by car. The races begin early on a Sunday in late October, and so every year our local volunteer group of Miyazaki JETs organizes for us to stay overnight and have a BBQ the previous night at cabins nearby, making the early wake-up less painful.

The opening ceremony and Shinto Priest's blessing

To participate in this festival, you have to register a team of 10 people per boat a few months in advance. Of these 10 boaters, 1 person is the helmsman who sits at the front (bow) and keeps everyone in time by beating a taiko drum, another person is the coxswain who sits at the back (stern) and steers the boat with a basic rudder that moves the boat in the opposite direction to which side you steer, and the remaining 8 persons sit side-by-side in pairs and use a short oar to row on their side of the boat.

The local firemen team!

This past year marked the 30th anniversary of the Nejime Dragon Boat Festival. About 100 teams participate in the festival every year, many of them being competitive rowing teams or police or fireman squads from the surrounding areas. In other words, the other teams are fit, well-trained, and likely in it to win it. Our few boats of haphazard JET participants have no experience and no chance, but we are in it just for the fun of it. And because we don't stand out enough already as foreigners in rural Japan, we give each of our boats a fun theme and dress up in costumes accordingly.

Crazy foreigners dressed up for the 2014 races

And what a sight we are! Some of our boat themes from over the last few years have been "(O)Hayou Miyazaki", in which we all dressed up as our favourite Gibley characters, "Ahoy Miyazaki", our pirate themed boat, and "Aloha Miyazaki", our Hawaiian themed boat. This past year we had enough participants for 2 boats again and they were a video game themed boat, "1-Up", and a jungle / animal themed boat, "Hakuna Matata".

The 2014 Hakuna Matata team ready to race!

After early morning registration of all teams, the festival is officially begun with a small opening ceremony including a Shinto priest's blessing. The morning preliminary races let every team compete once in the 380 metre race starting under one bridge and finishing by crossing under another straight ahead. Something like the top 3 teams (of about 10) from each morning race (again about 10) move onto the afternoon races, with the final race being held in the later afternoon.

The 2014 "Hakuna Matata" boat

My friend and I were leopards on
the 2014 Hakuna Matata boat

Only once in the past 3 years that I have participated in the festival have I known a JET boat to move onto the afternoon races! First of all, just steering and maneuvering the boat into position before your race begins is more difficult than it looks, especially because this is the first time for many of us in such a boat. Not only that, but everyone seems to have their own ideas about which side should paddle when and to what timing. It usually ends up being a hilarious episode of constant over-correcting and then backing up and trying again and again. After everyone has waited patiently for the gaijin (foreigner) boat to get itself in position, we are ready to race!

Ganbatte 1-Up!

The 2014 "1-Up" team

At the signal we are off! We try our best to dig deep and far ahead in the water in front of us with our oars and pull ourselves forward in time with our boat's taiko drum beats. We are never quite as graceful as the other boats and we find ourselves somewhere at the end of the pack, but somewhere along the way we do tend to find some sort of rhythm and are proud of ourselves that we are at least heading towards the finish line.

One of our boats needed a tow
to help it back after the race!

While 380 metres is by no means a long way, many of us are rowing for the first time and by repeating that same movement on just one side, our bodies do get tired. But our encouraging cheers and seeing the finish line ahead always gives us a final push. And even though we never win, it's so rewarding to be a part of a team for even this short while, especially doing something so different as dragon boat racing.

Making friends!

When not racing or enjoying watching the other races from the river bank, there is a festival area behind with various food stalls and a small stage with music or dance performances by local school groups and such. The overall atmosphere of the whole festival is relaxed and enjoyable. Finally, for participating in the races we are given a free pass to enjoy the local onsen (bathhouse) and get refreshed. Enjoying some delicious festival foods and then soaking in onsen hot pools is the perfect reward after the race!


[1] Quote and historical information from the International Dragon Boat Federation website, http://www.idbf.org/about_history.php

Local Japanese Fall Festivals: Part 2 - Fire

The festival with it all!
Fire, graceful dancing, swords, and more!

The next fall festival I'd like to tell you about is an absolute favourite of many ALTs in Miyazaki. It really has it all - a performance retelling a traditional folktale of love, war, and betrayal - with costumes, dancing, swords, and fire! On top of this, audience members can join in the dancing fun at the end, and this is even followed by a taiko drum performance and fireworks! The Saitobaru Kofun Matsuri is hands-down one of the best festivals I have seen in Japan.

The setting is even amazing - the park where it is held, the Saitobaru Kouen, was actually named a National Historic Site in 1952. This is because it is the biggest ancient tomb site in Japan, with over 300 burial mounds (kofun) that date from between the 4th and 7th centuries. One of these tombs are even said to house the remains of the Princess Konohanasakuya-hime, the Japanese goddess of flowers and cherry blossoms, and whom the folklore tale is about.

The delicate princess's retainers dance first.
Before the "house" is burned.

During the main part of the Kofun Matsuri, the legend about Princess Konohanasakuya-hime is retold in three acts of dance and performance. Audience members sit around a circular performance area that has at its centre a small wooden structure representing a house, built every year expressly for the purpose of being burned down during the festival performance. Bamboo lamps, also to be lit by fire during the show, separate the audience from the performance area. As you can guess, it becomes very toasty, especially for those performing the dances.

A sword-yielding soldier
in the second act.

Act one retells how Princess Konohanasakuya-hime met and fell in love with a King, Ninigi-no-Mikoto, who was descended from the gods. This act has a group of flutists playing as beautifully and traditionally dressed women, representing the Princess's retainers, delicately dance out in graceful movements with silk ribbons and little wooden clacker instruments on their fingers.

Some of the second act soldiers' displays of strength.

The second act depicts King Ninigi being sent off to war and then learning of the Princess's supposed infidelity during this time, because she is pregnant when he returns. During this act, traditionally dressed soldiers do choreographed movements with swords and flaming staves. At this time the lanterns surrounding the performance area are lit.

The third act features the stronger
warriors with huge fire-lit staves.

The third and final act culminates with the lighting of the wooden "house" by bigger, stronger warriors doing choreographed moves first with swords, and then with even larger, lit wooden staves. This act represents the princess's trial by fire, whereby the house is lit while she is giving birth, to prove her love and loyalty to Ninigi and the purity of her offspring. Various versions of the legend claim a few different things - that Konohanasakuya-hime initiated the trial, that Ninigi did, and whether she bore two or three sons at that time. However, all of them agree that she and her sons, the new princes, survived, proving her faithfulness to Ninigi.

All the while holding those heavy, dangerous staves,
the men are doing squats and other such choreographed
movements. sometimes even jumping over each others'.
Amazing!

After the main show is over, the audience members are invited to learn some simple moves from the performers and join them dancing around the bonfire. This is then followed by a taiko drum performance by the soldiers and finally fireworks are set off overhead. It is a wonderful, truly memorable event that I am so glad to have had the privilege of seeing.

My friend, another JET, who has performed 
in the festival for the past 3 years.

Another thing that has made it all the more special is that the local Saito JET, a friend of mine, has been a part of the performance every year that we have been in Japan. It's been incredible to see her in this beautiful festival, and knowing from her about the hours and hours of practice that goes into such a performance has made me appreciate it that much more. Japanese festivals are always executed perfectly, and I've learned it's because they leave no room for error through absolute dedication. For this festival they begin practicing 2 months in advance, with 2 sessions a week of about 2.5hrs each, and of course closer to the date they have extra preparations on weekends.

The performance is complicated and exhausting, but no one misses a beat. On top of all of this they don't even charge anything to watch the show - not even for parking though there are volunteers helping direct you to spots and looking after your car. One of the greatest things about Japan is that they are so willing and happy to continue and share their traditions, legends, and folklore. These are all such beautiful and unique parts of their culture, and I highly recommend that if you visit Japan you try to see some of their traditional, authentic festivals.