Through the nose of the Buddha you will achieve enlightenment

Thursday, November 23rd was Thanksgiving/Labour Day in Japan (...no relation to the North American "Labour Day" or "Thanksgiving" holidays). I had been invited to celebrate the day by taking a trip to Nara, with a man named Hideshi Yamamoto (Hide) and his family.

I met Hide at a welcome party that was put together to celebrate the arrival of new international teachers in the Ise-Shima area. I happened to sit beside Hide and he happened to speak English. What a wonderful coincidence! It was at this time that Hide invited me to go to Nara, a prefecture which acted as the ancient capital of Japan from 710 AD to 784 AD.

On the morning of the 23rd Hide arrived early in the morning with his wife, Chiho, his sister-in-law, Mari, and his nephews Kai and Sei. The ride to Nara took a few hours, so we used the time to become better acquainted as we winded our way through multicoloured mountain ranges. During autumn the mountains are truly majestic. They reveal a history that is hidden by the summer. During the summer everything is green. But autumn distinguishes the deciduous from the coniferous, the evergreen from the flaming orange, red and yellow. It allows you trace an age old history, in which two races of tree coexist in harmony. As one recedes, the other advances. The model civilization...hidden in the mountains of Japan.

When we arrived in Nara we began a six hour walking course that takes visitors to some of the most significant remnants of the ancient capital. First we walked through Nara park, which is full of sacred deer. Adherents of the Shinto religion believed that the deer were the sacred messengers of the gods of Kasuga shrine, which is located in Nara. The descendants of these sacred messengers seamlessly mingle with the town folk of Nara as the citizens have cared for them and afforded them a special status for centuries.



The next stop on our tour was Todaiji Temple. This temple is the largest wooden building in the world. Hopefully you can get an impression of the size from this photo. You can see how colossal the building is in relation to the people standing in front of it.



The temple and Buddha statue were built between 745 and 751 AD. Prior to that time, the people of Japan had suffered many disasters and epidemics. In response to these devastating events, Emperor Shomu enacted a law which held that all people should build a Buddha for their homes in order to protect them and bring them luck. In accordance with this law, Emperor Shomu commissioned 2,180,000 workers to build the 53 foot high Buddha (so the legend goes).

Entering the temple was an overwhelming experience. It was as though you had walked through the massive doors into the distant past, to a time of unparalleled extravagance and grandeur.



The giant Buddha




















A golden Buddha flanking the large Buddha statue





















Perspective...


What follows is a photo depicting a young girl preparing to squeeze through a small hole one of the support beams in the temple. It is identical in size to the nostril hole on the giant Buddha statue.


Many parents were encouraging their children to wiggle through, as it is said that anyone who can fit through the hole will find enlightenment. As we watched the children push their way through Hide and Chiho convinced me to try as well. I thought, "I'll be a good sport and give everyone a good show." I mean, who doesn't enjoy watching a foreigner make a fool of himself. Plus, Hide and his family had driven me all the way to Nara, at very least I could give them a laugh in return.

As I approached the hole I tried to size it up. I estimated that my shoulders would be too broad, so all that I would simply have to get in as far as my shoulders. Basically I would just stick my head and arms into the hole, prove that I was clearly not suitable for enlightenment and then resign back to my hosts.

By now I should know that plans are most often laid over the foundation of ideal circumstances, while reality is not. I put my head and arms into the hole, at which point my shoulders naturally angled so that they cleared the boundaries of the hole on a diagonal. "Can't turn back now Chris, you're already in." I reached forward and grabbed a hold of the wood on the opposite side of the support beam, pulling myself as far as I could into the hole. Then I ran into an unforeseen problem. I had exhausted all potential handholds and now had no way to pull myself further. My legs were constricted because they were in the hole and there was nothing for me to push off of. I was stuck. In the middle of a Buddhist temple on a busy national holiday, I laid helplessly on my stomach wearing the temple itself as a belt. As I tried to kick my way through, panic set in. Should I admit that I was stuck and ask for help? Or should I continue to flail indefinitely?



At that moment everything faded out of awareness and I focused on the problem at hand. I used my hands to angle my body upwards so that my legs could make contact with the ground and then pushed off. This movement dislodged my body, allowing me to pull myself the rest of the way through. Although I regained my freedom, the jury is still out on the enlightenment part. At least I'm now enlightened enough to avoid small holes in temple support beams!

The remainder of the day was spent walking around the UNESCO heritage sites surrounding Todaiji Temple. Here are some of the sites that we stopped at:

Kai and Sei ringing a bell for good luck at one of the shrines





















Fall colours





















More fall colours
















I didn't realize that this deer stuck its tongue out at me until I looked at the picture later. I guess after you're sacred for a few centuries you don't have to follow social conventions anymore





















Life cycle: A tree growing out of a tree





















Me in front of the five story pagoda





















Rows of Laterns
















Hide and Chiho being harassed by the deer
















A strange looking tree
















The boys eating deer food...

The Mysteries of Bunkasai

Japanese high schools annually celebrate a festival called "bunkasai." The term literally means culture (bunka) festival (sai). The event itself is a two day extravaganza, but preparations for the event begin months in advance. In fact, the students were already planning for bunkasai when I arrived in Japan in August! Here is a portrait of my bunkasai experience.

My first glimpse of the event came from Katie. Her school in Ise had their festival about a month and a half before the Toba high festival. She told me to expect pandemonium and had pictures to prove that it would be.

As the countdown reached "one month until bunkasai," I was beginning to believe that the Toba festival would be much more placid. There was no insanity. The students practiced their dances after school and I found a few of them making a film, but other than that school life continued as normal.

Two weeks to bunkasai. No insanity. What was Katie talking about?

At one and a half weeks until bunkasai I started to become overtly curious. What was this bunkasai thing? At that point I still didn't even know the English translation. I thought it was just a big party. It was time to conduct some research...

I walked into one of my classes with my co-worker and friend Ken (who happened to be team teaching with me that day) and began to interrogate the students: "Ohayo gozaimasu, good morning." "Good morning," droned the class. "Sooo, today I thought it would be fun if we talked about bunkasai." Their eyes perked when they hear the word bunkasai, but they stared at me suspiciously.

For the next fifty minutes I learned the basic logistics of bunkasai. Every class decorates their homeroom, puts on a performance of some sort and cooks a dish to be sold on the second day of the festival (I bought tickets to each of the class meals and ate for six consecutive hours...Hahahaha!) However, the class' explanation only provided the bare bones of bunkasai. As you can see from the photo below, we concluded that "Bunkasai is shrouded in mystery." Each class keeps everything a secret so that the festival itself is full of surprises...and it was.



At about one week until bunkasai I was walking down the hallway to one of my classes, when I saw something quite strange out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a class, proceeding as usual BUT half of the class was sitting inside of a large wooden structure that had been erected sometime over the previous evening. Mysterious indeed...

The Many Faces of Bunkasai

After all the waiting and wondering, bunkasai arrived. I could sense the change in atmosphere as I made my way to the school grounds. This may have been due, in part, to the blaring music...but it was also evident in the beaming smiles on my students' faces, a drastic change from the listless expressions that they normally sport.

The event began in the gymnasium. The principal and a few teachers made short introductory speeches and then the student council invited each class to send a representative to the stage to announce what the class would be presenting. The presenters came in two varieties. First, there were the cocky jock guys who presented like they were at the MTV teen awards. They swaggered up on stage waiting to deliver the one line that they had been assigned, but when it was their turn the cockiness dissipated and they rigidly stumbled through the line.

The second type of student was the loner. The kid was never seen talking to anyone in the class. This is the same kid who most likely single handedly put the class project together. They were up on stage to ensure that their class and their hard work was recognized, however, in most instances the crowd was already laughing at them before they even opened their mouths. Awkward. You could pretty much see complexes forming before your eyes.

After each class had been introduced, the festivities began. First was the school choir. They were quite impressive. While they were singing, I decided to move from my seat amongst my fellow teachers, to a seat in the center of the gym amidst the students where I could take better photos. As I sat down, the students stared at me as though I was doing the most absurd thing that they had ever seen. What strange things foreigners do.

The second act of the day was the boys from the English club, Atsushi and Takuro. They did two fantastic Beatles covers. I was especially impressed with Atsushi's rendition of "Let It Be." After the second song the boys peered into the crowd as though they were looking for someone. After a long pause, Atsushi says, "Chris....where is Chris?" Everyone looks towards the section where all of the teachers are sitting, but I'm not there, so I stand and give a wave, not exactly sure about what is going on. As soon as they see me they gesture for me to come on stage.

When I get there we have a little huddle, at which point I ask, "What's going on boys?" They inform me that they would like me to sing "Imagine" with them. There's a bit of a back story to this, so let me take you back to my second time hosting English club.

On this particular day we sat around belting out Beatles tunes like, "Hey Jude," "Let It Be," and "Helter Skelter." In between songs they asked me if I'd sing at bunkasai with them and I had agreed. BUT this was the first and last time that I heard anything about it up until the present moment, in which I found myself standing in front of 500 people who were waiting to find out why I was on stage. Awkward. Oh, and I shouldn't forget to add that I hadn't even HEARD "Imagine" in the past couple of years so I was pretty fuzzy on the lyrics. I mean I could remember some of the chorus, but there was no way that I was going to remember the verses or even what order everything was supposed to go in. However, I refused to let me students down. I had told them that I would do this with them and even if it meant butchering a classic tune, I was going to come through...at least that's what I was hoping for.

I smiled at them and grabbed the mic. As I turned to face the anxious crowd, I casually said to the two boys, "I should probably warn you that I don't really remember all of the lyrics, but let's give this a shot!"

The music starts...

I listen for the first little bit. I'm getting the feel for the song and jump in...

Imagine there's no heaven,
it's easy if you try.
No hell below us,
above us only sky.
Imagine mmhmhmhmm mmhmhm
hmmhmmm mhhm hmhmh mmmmmm

Nice one Chris.

I made it through the whole song with a smile on my face though and I was really glad that I had been invited to take part in the festivities. After the song, both of the boys bowed to me and said "Thank you so much Chris," with beaming smiles on their faces. It was a priceless moment.

Here's a video of the first two songs:


Next to perform was the school band. They did three fabulous songs. Here's a short clip to give you an idea of what they sounded like.


Following the band's performance there was a ten minute break, during which time I was informed that I would be one of the judges for the class singing competition. Sure enough, when they showed me to my seat there was a little namecard on the table in front of it reading "Kurisu" (my name) in Katakana. It was looking like bunkasai was going to be FULL of surprises for me!

The competition was a hodge podge of sorts. Some classes knew all the words to their song, had actions to go along with the singing and utilized some pretty impressive harmonies, while other classes simply read off of lyrics sheets and could barely be heard over the music. Overall I was impressed by the general level of talent that the students displayed, ESPECIALLY because I had never seen any of them practicing their songs!

Following the singing contest a local band called "The O.N.G" played a set. They were pretty good even though I couldn't understand what they were saying. Most importantly, the students LOVED them as you can see from the picture. They were jumping up and down and throwing each other around. I've got to give them credit, they know how to enjoy a rock show!

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Halloween

The remainder of the day was spent touring the classrooms to admire the products of youthful creativity. Here is a photo tour with some explanations.

Class 3A: Halloween

3A decorated with a Halloween theme. The highlight of the classroom was the gigantic pumpkin that was constructed out of wire and subsequently covered in orange balloons.

















Inside the giant pumpkin.



Outside the giant pumpkin.

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Christmas

Class 3B: Christmas

3B adopted a North American Christmas theme, complete with a chimney for Santa to climb down, a Christmas tree and a Christmas dinner for two.



Waiting for Santa Claus...




















Waiting for someone to eat dinner with...


This was the back wall of the classroom, a giant class portrait!

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Tradgedies of War

Class 3C: The Tragedies of War

In drastic contrast to classes 3A and 3B, class 3C pursued a serious and somber theme, detailing the atrocities of world war II. As Ken and I entered the classroom we were confronted by graphic images of causalities. The 5 girls who were acting as hostesses barely noted our presence in between taking cellphone calls and doing their makeup. The carefully engineered juxtaposition between political concern and youthful apathy was absolutely striking (insert sarcastic face here).

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: The Tottoro Bus

Class 3D: The Tottoro bus

There is a popular cartoon in Japan called "Tottoro." It's some sort of magical cat...I don't really understand it. Anyhow, the students from 3D constructed a life sized version of the bus from the cartoon, complete with padded seats and a portrait of Tottoro inside. The bus itself was constructed from cardboard boxes and faux fur fabric. It was incredible!

A Tottoro parking job...the rest of the bus is inside the classroom...after a few glasses of sake that cat will park his bus anywhere...




















The front of the Tottoro bus...


Inside the Tottoro bus: A self portrait of Tottoro.




















Tottoro himself...mischievously sitting beside his bus

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Traditional Japanese Home

Class 3E: Traditional Japanese Style Home

The aforementioned strange wooden structure that half of the students were seated in (that I saw about a week before bunkasai) was located in 3E. The students had constructed a traditional Japanese style home out of wood and cardboard boxes. They even made indoor shoes out of cardboard boxes!

Ken and one of the 3E students.




















Some students lounging in the Japanese style house.


The other side of the house.


Me and two of the students from 3E.

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Jamaica

Class 2A: Jamaica, Ganja and Darts

As Ken and I approached 2A we could hear Sean Paul blasting from the room. As we entered through the Jamaica curtains we found a bunch of students hanging around, listening to music while playing darts. Hanging in the middle of the classroom was a banner (see picture below) which said the following in English: "DRUGS: The trafficking and consumption of controlled drugs will not (the word "not" is crossed out with red marker) be tolerated, any such instances will (the word "not" is inserted here) be reported to the police." Underneath the message there was a big picture of a pot leaf. I asked Ken if he thought any of the teachers understood what it meant. He laughed and replied, "not a chance, it wouldn't be up if they knew what it meant."

Now entering Jamaica...






















Some students enjoying a game of darts while listening to their favourite artist: Sean Paul

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Casino

Class 2B: Niteclub/Casino

2B was lit by blicklights and the mood was set by pumping music at a volume that rivalled the music in 2A. As people entered the room, the students who were hosting the classroom project called out for them to come over and try their games.

Shoot the bottles down, win a prize...


Fishing for balloons...


My supervisor, Mukumoto sensei, trying to shoot the students instead of the bottles

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Seeing Stars

Class 2C: Observatory

2C constructed an observatory out of an old sheet, bamboo, glow in the dark stars, a disco ball and a flashlight. It was actually quite ingenious. The students ushered everyone into the observatory and then read a passage about our solar system. Of course I had no idea what was being said, but it was an interesting idea nonetheless.

Here is the entrance to the observatory

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Pet Bottle Model

Class 2D: Pet Bottle Model

I think the students in 2D were more interested in the theatrical aspect of bunkasai than the decorative aspect. Their idea was pretty simple but it was impressive to see. I'm not sure which building this is supposed to be, but it did resemble the picture that they showed me.

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Cartoons

Class 2E: Random Cartoon Characters

The title speaks for itself. One student in this class painted the three large paintings, while the rest of the class made some other cartoon related decorations.

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: A-maze-ing

Class 2F: Maze!

When I saw the students of 2F constructing this maze out of garbage bags. I was under the impression that I was a simple maze. This idea is pretty common for halloween decorating contests at York. But this maze was in a league of its own. When Ken and I entered the maze we decided to take different directions and just shout to each other which direction was correct. After about 30 seconds we were both standing in the same spot that we started at and we were both under the impression that the route we had taken was the wrong route.

This time we decided to stick together and carefully scout out the terrain. We finally discovered a small hole in the garbage bags that lead to a tunnel underneath a table, they had divided the entire classroom into an upper and lower maze by using tables as bridges or tunnels! It was awesome.

Here's a pic of the kids who designed the maze congratulating people as they finished.

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: More Tottoro

Class 1C: Mystical Tottoro Walk

1C, like class 3D, decided to adopt the Tottoro theme. They also constructed a Tottoro bus and a model of Tottoro himself. Presently the Tottoro model still lives at the back of their classroom. They tell me that their homeroom teacher hides inside of it to spy on them. Haha!

Mukumoto sensei's spy stronghold




















Tottoro waiting for the bus


The Tottoro bus version two

The Many Faces of Bunkasai: Gameshow!

The day ended with a gameshow that was hosted by student council. Competitors came on stage in groups based on grade level and gender. Each group was given two rounds of questions.

Round one consisted of multiple choice travia questions, which included questions about my personal life. Of all the questions about me, only one student got a question wrong. Should I be impressed or scared?

Round two consisted of invasive or embarassing questions for the competitors. Each students had to pull a question out of a mystery box and answer the question in front of the whole group.

The contestants got a score for each round and the top score for each gender/grade level won a prize. The student who won the top prize received the highest points from the audience for his answer to the.e following question: "What is the name of your favourite pornstar?" His response..."I don't know her name because I only like to watch European porn." Day one of bunkasai ended on that note, but day two was just around the corner!

Here's a short clip of the students introducing themselves for the first portion of the gameshow...just to give you a taste of what it was like to be there. The host is asking them to give their names, grade level and hobbies.

Bunkasai Day Two...

Day two was performance and food day. Basically the whole day consisted of students dressing up in costumes, serving food, singing songs and showing off their dance moves. Here is a picture/video guide to day two:

COSTUMES
For some reason, bunkasai is an excuse for the students to wear crazy outfits. Here are a few of my favourites.

Here we have a bunch of Winnie the Pooh's and some sort of strange chicken boy, albiet a very happy chicken boy.
















Sporting the teddy bear, sans hood.





















Bunkasai wouldn't be complete without french maids and Playboy bunnies! Here are some of the french maids.
















Ladybugs, Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) and another Winnie the Pooh!
















Spiderman! To be fair, this isn't a bunkasai costume. This kid carries it around with him everyday. Some days he even wears it to class! The kid on the left is wearing a sash that says "I need love"


Tigerboy...


FOOD
There was a vast assortment of food at bunkasai, ranging from crepes and fried chicken, to soba (noodles) and ikayaki (fried squid). Below is a picture of my ikayaki.



PERFORMANCES
There were many bands and dances on day two of bunkasai. Here are three videos from the performances.

This is a video of a few guys doing an a cappella song. They were really good, but the sound quality on my recording doesn't do them justice.


Here's a video of a group of students doing the "Soran Bushi" a dance derived from a traditional song and dance which comes from the north of Japan in Hokkaido.


Finally, this video shows a dance that some of the guys from Toba High put together. I was blown away! Enjoy!


That's about it for bunkasai! I hope that you enjoyed reading about it and watching it as much as I enjoyed being there!!