Get Your Obon On

At the end of last week, shortly after coming back from Sapporo, I participated in Mombetsu's Bon Odori, the three-day dance at the centerpiece of the nationwide Bon festival. Wikipedia states that Obon is

a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the departed (deceased) spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori.

What this means, in practice, is that the whole town gets together and stomps around in the street and yells a lot and drinks. Literally everybody comes. Some people go in costume, and we had guests including Lady Gaga re-imagined as a Buddhist deity and Michael Jackson (complete with, inexplicably, an entourage of children). Pretty much anything goes, as long as you more or less follow the very simple guidelines of the dance and are loud. It looks like this:



Of course, I wanted to really get involved as much as possible, which required the help of two separate people:



Whew! The dance goes for about an hour and a half, with a few hundred people going around in a circle and the rest standing around observing. I wore traditional Japanese sandals for the dance, which during that hour and a half implanted themselves in my feet in a manner that would be the envy of aspiring piercers anyway. They haven't healed yet.

Bombs at Noon

The Mombetsu ALT Krew (holla) went out on the town last night to see what could be seen. The week before had been long and harrowing, so it was time to end on a high note. We began our night at a local block party/festival/karakoke blowout. I didn't take any pictures, because I was busy eating yakisoba (lit. burned noodles) and yakitori (lit. burned chicken). I passed on the yakiika (burned squid). Like everyone else in the world, the Japanese know that it's not a proper party without beer and fire.
We met some friends of the departed ALTs, who introduced themselves to us and insisted that we treat them as family. Although you can never be completely sure, I believe that we were drafted into the local team for the upcoming Bon-Odori, a three-day festival that features townsfolk prancing around in costumes and dancing. The fact that we don't know the dance didn't seem to make much of a difference. One lady invited us to come to her with any problems we may have, as long as they didn't involve women or money. Fair enough! One family also noted that they frequently host exchange students (in Mombetsu?) and that a new high school student from America would be arriving soon. I believe we're having a party.

We went out and hit the mean streets of Hamanasu-doori afterwards, where Mombetsu's nightlife lives. At a friend's grandmother's bar, I was given my own bottle to come back to. A couple of bars and clubs later made it a good night. No pictures of this because, well, thats not really cool. Here's some random pictures of Mombetsu from this morning though:



Today is dedicated to cleaning. Tomorrow at 7 we get on a bus to Sapporo for three more days of final orientation, at which there will be no drinking or entertainment whatsoever. After I get back, classes begin along with the Obon festival mentioned above. Good times ahead!

Also, the title of this post is inspired by the fact that the city hall uses it's air raid siren to announce noon every day, even on weekends. And the title of the last post was referring to a particularly tortured mispronunciation of "clerk".