Yeah, it’s been a while. I have no excuses; although I have been busy trying to get myself situated now that I’m back home, it’s not the kind of busy where I don’t have time to pursue my hobbies. Mostly I am just lazy, although there are times when I think that I might have undiagnosed ADD on which I can blame my lack of motivation and focus. But the important thing is that I am back on the wagon now and have some important things to share with you.
Now that I’m no longer employed in Japan, I feel more comfortable using the actual names of things and posting certain pieces of media that I had previously refrained from sharing. As I have mentioned before, I still have quite a bit of media to work through. With that in mind, I present to you item the first, a collection of videos that show a performance of the Sansa Odori, a traditional Japanese dance from the area around Morioka in Japan’s Iwate prefecture that, unlike most other forms of traditional dance, is actually fucking awesome rather than boring and lame. This performance was put on by the Shizukuishi High School Traditional Dance Club (that name may lose something in the translation). According to their sponsor, these students have traveled all over Japan to showcase the . There are even plans for them to travel to Turkey for some kind of world conference or some such. I taught most of the students in this video, which just makes watching it cooler.
My first exposure to this dance was at a special performance the club members put on for me in their tiny practice space when I started teaching at Shizukuishi High School. I was not a huge fan of teaching at this school, frequently referring to it as the “School of Suck,” but seeing these kids perform for the first time, feeling the drums in that enclosed space and having all of my expectations vis a vis the general lameness of “heritage art forms” done away with, was one of the greatest moments of my life because for that one perfect, split second I realized that I was exactly where I wanted to be doing exactly what I wanted to do and would not change a single thing, a complete contentment that I do not experience often.
The first part of the video has been embedded into the website for your convenience. I have linked to the other two parts The entire performance is kind of long, but it’s worth watching all the way through because with each phase the dance gets more and more elaborate and cool:
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKiv_B1j1Ks
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvFd8UiRGaQ
Item the second: I have pictures up on Picasa from my trip to Kyoto in April, 2009. Kyoto is a fun place that every human would benefit from seeing at least once in her or his life. Here are some choice moments in all of their embedded Flash-y goodness:
Stumble Upon
Del.icio.us
Buzz
What are the differences between Japanese Buddhist temples and Shinto temples? (in your photos)
is there a lot of overlap?
Hey Nick, thanks for your comment. Sorry it took me so long to respond. There’s some speculation that I might have undiagnosed ADD, but until I actually visit a doctor or something I’ll just have to say that I’m lazy.
Japanese spirituality is a little different from conventional Western views of religion. Shintoism is like the old tribal religion of Japan, sort of like Hinduism in India, very tied to the land, not a lot of proselytizing or conversion. Buddhism was introduced to Japan at some point in the second century BCE. But the Japanese, being practical about these things, didn’t get rid of Shintoism. Instead the two religions have coexisted, often within the same people. As a result, to this day you will frequently see a Buddhist temple with a Shinto shrine in it somewhere. A tour guide I had in Kyoto described it this way: “Shinto takes care of us when we are alive, but does not care about us when we are dead. So when Buddhism came, it was very convenient. Now, Buddha takes care of us when we are dead. This is division of labor.”
So Shinto shrines usually have the torii (the special type of gate), certain carvings of deities, and other trappings that mark them as such. Buddhist temples have carvings of Buddha. To an outside observer, the differences beyond that are not all that noticable.
So I misread the Wikipedia article. Buddhism was introduced to Japan in the year 552 CE.