Komugi-san: Study Abroad Scholarship Post

So I received a small scholarship for my study abroad program and as part of that I had to write blog posts for my school study abroad program website. So far only one is up on the website (front page!) but I wrote three. I'll post them here so you can read them! 

Entrance to the school

This summer, I decided to take a break from my biochemistry and biophysics major to study Japanese at Akita International University. The 11 person language class is definitely a big change of pace from my 150-450 student science classes, but it has been really nice. Usually I have 3-4 hours of classes and culture workshops a day and the weekend to do homework and explore beautiful Tohoku area. The campus itself is small and really beautiful. Surrounded by trees and interesting buildings all interconnected by hallways because of the intense snow this area receives in the winter. The student population is less than 1000 students and there is only one dormitory and two areas of student apartments, almost all students living on campus because the university is surrounded by forests and rice fields (this makes my Oregonian heart very happy). There is only one cafeteria on campus with two places to get food, which is fantastically different than what I got used to in my year at my home university. I’m allergic to wheat, which in case you didn’t know is quite prevalent in Japanese cooking due to soy sauce containing wheat, so this poses quite a few problems for me. Luckily for me, everything is labeled with allergens and the school prepares special food for those with allergies difficult to avoid.

Food options are displayed every meal. The charts next to them show allergens

The way this system works is at the beginning of the program you sit down with a cook and one of the program organizers and they fill out a card for you that lists all the things you are allergic to. You keep this card with your meal plan card and hand it to the lunch ladies and they will bring you food that you are able to eat. For the first week, I would hand my card to the ladies, they would look at it, then bring food for me. After about a week, some of the ladies started to recognize me so all I would have to do is make eye contact and they would smile at me and ask for me to wait a little bit. One of my friends also had to wait for special food and one day he mentioned that the lunch ladies had started calling him halal-san (Mr. Halal). Next time I went to get food, I listened and sure enough I heard the lunch ladies calling me komugi-san (Miss flour/wheat). It sounds very strange but it’s actually a good system for if multiple people are waiting for food and they need to specify who the food is for. Almost all the lunch ladies recognize me now and instead of having to hand them my card I am greeted with a smile and “ah! Komugi-san!”. Even some of my friends have started calling me komugi-san.

Another day in the cafeteria

Because of my allergies, I don’t really get a choice in what I eat. I never know what I am going to get aside from the fact that it doesn’t contain wheat. I wouldn’t say I’m a picky eater, but I’m not the most adventurous eater either. However, here every meal is a surprise. Sometimes I have no idea what I am eating to be honest. Many of the foods I am given I have never had before and some I still don’t know what they are. One of the most interesting things I was given was a piece of fried flounder, and by piece of fried flounder I mean it still had scales, skin, a couple bones, and fins. My American palate was definitely not used to eating something that still looked like its live version and I honestly wasn’t sure how to tackle the hard outer skin and fins. I tried with a fork and knife at first but after one of my Thai friends laughed at me for trying to eat it like I steak I admitted I had no idea how to go about eating this chunk of fish. Thankfully, one of my Japanese friends tried to show me the technique of getting pieces of the meat using chopsticks. Eventually I figured out how to get meat from this piece of fish, though a bit inefficiently. Definitely gave my friends a good laugh. About a week later I was given the same dish but managed to eat it without much trouble. Ate the fins too. They are quite crunchy and tasty, by the way.

Here's what the fried flounder looked like

Anyway, I cannot praise the food staff at this university enough. They make me delicious Japanese food I would never be able to eat otherwise and forced me to try things I have never tried before. Have some new favorites from the meals here. The staff even give me gluten free baked goods sometimes, which is not something I thought even existed in Japan. We don’t speak much of each other’s languages, but we still have daily interactions of greeting and thanks. Every trip to the cafeteria is an adventure, from the smile of recognition to responding to my new nickname to trying whatever delicious food has been prepared for me that day. Relationships like this are what motivate me to learn other languages. It doesn’t take much language for these sorts of simple yet meaningful interactions, so I encourage you to also go out and seek these interactions as well. Maybe you will even get a cool nickname too.

Oga Peninsula Field Trip: Study Abroad Scholarship Post

So I received a small scholarship for my study abroad program and as part of that I had to write blog posts for my school study abroad program website. So far only one is up on the website (front page!) but I wrote three. I'll post them here so you can read them! 

At the end of my first week of my study abroad program, the whole summer program and some students from AIU went on a field trip to Oga Peninsula. The trip had four destinations, each unique and fun in its own way. The trip was full of new experiences, learning, and making friends. Let’s get started, shall we?

This giant tank is the first thing you see when entering the aquarium part of the aquarium

So the day started off with getting up earlier than any college student wants to get up on a weekend and eating breakfast in the wonderful cafeteria they have here (I especially love the cafeteria here because I have food allergies and the ladies here make me delicious Japanese food that I can eat). After eating breakfast, we all loaded into buses and headed out. Our first stop was GAO Aquarium. It’s right on the beach so there are some wonderful views just walking to the building. Once inside the building, we were in front of a giant tank of fish, sting rays, and a couple turtles. Everyone stood there in awe taking pictures and admiring what ocean life had to offer before working our way through many more hallways of fish, jellyfish, octopi, polar bears, seals, penguins, and all sorts of other aquatic life. The seals were very cute and enjoyed swimming around near us and the color changing jellyfish looked like something out of a science fiction novel, but I have to say the Amazon tank was probably my favorite. There was this fish that just hung out near me and looked so dorky and hilarious. The rest of the life in the tank was cool too, but that fish just made my day. Also just a warning but the gift shop is absolutely amazing and you will want to buy everything in there. Just be prepared. 

This dorky looking fish 😂

After exploring the aquarium, we all piled back into the buses and were on our way to Nyudozaki Cape to eat lunch and do some more exploring. The way there required driving on some windy roads, so my friend wasn’t feeling too good but the lovely organizer on the bus gave her some magical Japanese motion sickness medicine and she was great for the rest of the day. Anyway, we got to the cape and ate our lunch then started exploring the area. There were a lot of nice views to explore and some cool shops to check out too. A specialty to the area was black salt ice cream. Sounds super weird, but it’s actually super good (just be careful not to get a mouthful of salt!). With some help from a friend I managed to order some ice cream and helped a friend of mine order as well. The lady looked so happy when I managed to properly order ice cream for my friend. Experiences like this remind me of why I want to study Japanese. 

View from Nyudozaki Cape

Some Namahage dudes in front of the ice cream place

Lunch was over and then it was time to head to the next stop of the day, the Namahage Museum. Namahage are monsters of the winter that come to your house to scare children into being good kids. Kinda like Santa but scary and loud. Well, to me they aren’t scary they are fantastic but at the Namahage show we went to there was a little kid that started crying when the Namahage came in banging on the doors and stomping and yelling. Anyway, the Namahage are great fun and the costumes are impressive. There was a station where you could dress up as Namahage and take pictures so of course we had to try that. The whole Namahage Museum was great fun. After exploring the Namahage museum, some of my friends and I went to visit the shrines behind the museum. They were really beautiful and I got a charm thing from one of the shrines, but our little trip made us late getting back to the buses. The guy at the temple must have gotten a good laugh out of a group of exchange students running to get back to our bus but of course we ran the ran the wrong direction first. We made it back to the buses a little late but everything was fine.

My friend and I became Namahage

The last stop of the day was a viewpoint at Mt. Kampuzan. There was a road up to the viewpoint so we thankfully didn’t have to do too much walking to get amazing views. There were some souvenir shops here as well, all of which are amazing. Honestly, I wanted to buy everything in every one of the shops I visited. That could have something to do with my love of cute things (like at the aquarium), and my newfound love of Namahage (they are just so great). I got myself some Namahage socks because Namahage socks are important obviously. After that I walked around with friends on the viewpoint which eventually culminated in rounding up as many summer program students as we could and taking a group photo. After that we were summoned back to the buses and started the ride home, all the while chatting and comparing finds. 

Many students from the summer program and the school posing for a picture

Between the cute seals and unique ice cream and loud Namahage and beautiful viewpoints and everything else, that field trip was probably the most fun field trip of my life. We went to a huge aquarium then explored viewpoints and learned about the traditions of Namahage and other history of the area. I got to see so many amazing things, learn, and spend time with friends. Through this experience, I feel like I became closer friends with others in my program and learned more about the wonderful place I am studying in. If you ever find yourself studying at Akita International University in Akita Japan, you too will get to experience this whirlwind field trip of amazingness. And if you do, tell the Namahage I said hi.

Being In A Parade

Found this post I wrote while I was in Ojiya! Enjoy my experience of being in the annual Ojiya Matsuri parade! 😁



So this weekend was Ojiya Matsuri. Matsuri translates as festival but I'll just call it matsuri because it is a Japanese style summer festival. Part of the matsuri was parade floats and on Sunday there was a big parade and I got to be on one of the floats. There are essentially three types of parade floats: character floats, music floats, and sit there waving floats. Our group of floats had one of each and we had one person in each of the music and character floats and the rest of us were on the sit and wave float. Everyone was given matching coats, headbands, and fans to wear while waving at everyone. Usually each float had its own uniform of sorts so that was pretty cool. Hopefully I will get a picture of us on the float so I can post it here.

Not exactly the picture I was looking for but this is the float I was on featuring some fellow international students 

I've been in parades a few times, but I was always walking or doing something outside the float. American parades also have floats and such, just a little different. Parades themselves are always full of excitement and lots of fun. However, it isn't really the parade that is important: it's the people.

What I mean is the people both on the floats and along the streets. Ojiya is a small city so everyone watching saw people they knew on the floats and everyone on the floats saw people they knew on the streets. Waiting for the parade to start some of us foreign students wandered around and found our English students to see what floats they were on and what they were doing. They were so cute in their uniforms for their floats. Lots were playing traditional instruments so that was super cool.

When actually on the floats we just sat there and waved at everyone we could see. Many people lined the streets and some people watched from windows on upper floors too. At one point I saw a guy watching from a balcony about a block away so I waved at him and he waved back. You can stand far away but you can't escape the excited foreigner 😆. All of us crazy foreigners waved a lot and yelled a fair amount, especially when we saw someone we knew. Because of all the lessons we teach, school visits, and events we go to, there are many people that we know. It was really wonderful to take part in an important part of the local community and feel the connection to all the people there.

Working In a Japanese Resturant

My study abroad program usually has a couple school visits a week, but it is summer break so now we suddenly have a lot more free days than we used to. I'm not the most social human so I was spending a lot of time laying on the floor in the downstairs sitting room either sleeping or watching YouTube. I think someone got worried about me or something and told the director of the program because suddenly I had a part time job. Kind of.

So last weekend was a major holiday weekend in Japan so this restaurant needed help because of either increased customers or decreased staff. Anyway, they needed help and have had exchange students work in the shop before. The owner speaks some English and I was assured that students with less knowledge of Japanese had worked there before. Some shenanigans happened the first day that made getting there a little challenging, but I did still get there on time and was ready to work.

This was not my first time working a restaurant type job. I worked at Chipotle to pay for my flights to Japan. Spent five months in that job, the first of which during the holiday season so it was incredibly busy, so I think I have at least some idea how restaurants work. I was just a cashier most of the time, but I also had to clean all the tables and change garbage cans and other lovely stuff. Got yelled at when I didn't do things right even if nobody had explained them to me in the first place. Oh fun times working in a minimum wage job.

Anyway, I arrive and am given a uniform thing to wear. It's just an apron with the name of the restaurant on it and a towel thing to wear on my head (it looked like a watermelon 😁). First thing I do is put stickers on some mini ice cream or pudding things (I can read the katakana but I still don't know what it is). After that, I was set on dish duty. This restaurant has many small dishes on trays so there are many tiny dishes you have to wash. Doing dishes is kind of relaxing in a way and gave me an opportunity to just listen to the other staff in the kitchen. The restaurant was busy that day, but it wasn't the insane atmosphere I remember from busy days at Chipotle. While I can't understand a lot of Japanese, I could still tell that the owner spoke very politely to her staff.

The dishes themselves were very delicate and each dish was meant for a different, well, dish. All very organized. Normally I think of dish washing as being a gross job because of all the leftover food bits, but in Japan people pretty much always finish all their food. I had a garbage can to throw the wet towels they have for people to wash their hands with away and other various garbage worthy things, but the garbage can never really got full. I remember having to change disgusting garbage cans at my old job because Americans tend to not finish their food. There was one dish that was something eggy baked in the dish so that was a little difficult to scrub out, but otherwise dishes was an easy and not gross job.

The staff there didn't really speak English, but they would still try to explain things to me by acting stuff out. I feel like Japanese people are actually pretty goofy so their acting things out was always quite entertaining even if I didn't get what they were trying to explain. Sometimes they would also talk to me like asking where I'm from, how old I am, or asking me to help them with something or laughing when I stood in front of the fan. Something I would also do even if I couldn't understand what people were saying is help carry out trays of food. People seemed to enjoy the clueless foreigner helping carry trays, so that was pretty cool.

Overall, it was a very nice experience. Got to eat ice cream at the end of my short shifts too 😁.

でも、所有者さんはもっと日本語を話してくださいと言っていました　😅

Speech Contest

So my study abroad program is in partnership with an English school so we often teach English lessons and interact with the students or go to events with them. There was a speech contest held for the English school and my study abroad program where all the Japanese students gave speeches in English and all the study abroad students gave speeches in Japanese. Everyone was assigned a number randomly so the speeches switched between Japanese and English. Since it was a contest, once all the speeches were given the audience voted on who gave the best Japanese speech and the study abroad students voted on the best English speech. Winners received a 5kg bag of Niigata rice (best in the world) and everyone received a certificate. Many of our students either gave speeches or came to watch us give our speeches. After the contest kids went around taking pictures with all of us study abroad students and then a big group picture was taken. I can't post it here because I don't have permission from the people in the photo, but anyway it's really cute. Afterwords we went out to eat and some of us went to karaoke, but that's a story for another day 😁.

The speeches were about a variety of subjects. One was about why the kid likes masks, another why a girl wants to learn English, another girl talking about why she wants to go to France, a couple about why people started learning Japanese, a couple did a comedy piece, and many other topics. I decided to write mine about little dolls my sister made of us and how I take pictures of them everywhere I go in Japan. Most of my language ability is in introducing myself or talking about school, but I wanted to challenge myself to talk about something from the heart, just in another language. I wrote the speech myself, but my Japanese instructor helped me edit it.

初めまして！私のなまえはジュノです。アメリカからきました。１８さいです。私のうちはのうかです。たくさんどぶつがいます。私の好きなどぶつはヤギです。

今日は私とおねえさんについて話します。

私はあねがいます。あねのなまえはマーリアンです。１９さいです。おねえさんと私はなかがいいです。昨年、おねえさんは大学に行きました。私も５しゅうかｎキャンプに行きました。はじめていっしょにすんでいませんでした。私とおねえさんはかなしかったです。おねえさんは大学に行くまえ、私とおねえさんのにんぎょうをあみました。それいらい、私はにんぎょうをもちあるいています。日本で、にんぎょうとしゃしんをとります。しんかんせんで、川で、うちで、まつりで、海で、たくさんのところでとりました。たくさんしゃしんがあります。これと、いつもいっしょです。おわります。

Translation is something like this:
Nice to meet you! My name is Juno. I am from America. I am 18 years old. My home is a farm. We have many animals. My favorite animal is goats.

Today, I will talk about me and my sister.

I have a sister. My sister's name is Maryann. She is 19 years old. My sister and I are close. Last year, my sister was going to college. I was also leaving to camp for five weeks. It was the first time my sister and I had not lived together. My sister and I were sad. Before my sister left for college, she made dolls of me and her. Since then, I have carried the dolls with me. In Japan, I take pictures of the dolls. On the bullet train, at the river, at the house, at festivals, at the beach, many places I take pictures. I have many pictures. With this, we are always together. Finish.

Woah! A Foreigner!

So there aren't really a lot of foreigners in Ojiya. More than most small cities because of the program, but still not many. People know there are often foreign kids in the city, but people are still surprised and excited to see us.

When we went to the Nagaoka Edamame Festival, the judges were very excited to have the foreign teams, the camera men were on us a fair amount, and a lady asked to take a picture with us. Similar experience when visiting schools. Kids would open up windows or come into hallways or classrooms so they could see us, say hi, and take pictures. At the super market or on the street, people will come up to us and ask where we are from. We have been in the newspaper a couple times as well.

Because the guesthouse I live at is in a village, people are a little more surprised to see a foreigner walking down the street. People are also more likely to look at you from a car because it isn't as obvious they are looking at you. Quite often I will see people looking at me as they drive by or slowing down a little then speeding up again once they are past me. One time I was walking and an older guy tried to talk to me but my Japanese isn't very good so I didn't know what he was saying. Just this morning a guy went and told his family there was a foreigner walking or something because suddenly there were five Japanese people coming over to look at me. I was asked if I lived in the guesthouse and how many people lived there. Three of us live there, but I walk outside the most. Well, I don't just walk. I also stand outside the house and dance. People seem to enjoy that a lot and some that have met me will wave at me if I'm outside.

One of my housemates and I went to a festival last Friday and they let us try the taiko drums and the people that ran the food stand gave us free food and wanted to talk to us. Many people did, actually. My housemate speaks much better Japanese than I do, so they mostly talked to him, but I did a little talking too. There was traditional dancing at the end of the festival that I participated in. That was pretty cool. 

At this point I also have the "Woah! A foreigner!" mindset. In general the only foreigners I see are the people in my program so when I see one while walking around or at a school or at a tourist spot I look at them a lot too 😆.

I Can Finally Understand Some Japanese

So when I first got here I had no idea what was being said to me aside from hello, goodbye, thank you, and maybe a couple other words. It's not like I didn't know more, I just never spoke or heard it. However, even if I could speak and understand all I knew, that wouldn't have gotten me very far. It was very frustrating and confusing for the first couple weeks.

A couple weeks into the program they started bringing over high school students in the afternoon to talk to us in Japanese. The first day I was the only one there, and I don't speak much Japanese. The two girls tried to talk to me but I couldn't really understand them. They tried to figure out something to do with me and ended up playing word games, but at one point they were talking to each other and one said "I like food" and I gave her a thumbs up. They both looked at me completely shocked I understood and were happy. One of the words I knew for the word game was the word for jet lag so one of the girls asked me if I had jet lag and I said yes, which also entertained them.

A couple weeks later and a lot of staring at people quite confused until they gave up or one of my friends who speaks better Japanese helped me, some of the kids in my program went to a barbecue at one of the staff member's houses. Right when I get there a guy walks up to me and asks in casual Japanese "do you understand Japanese?" I wasn't really sure how to respond so he asked my friend and my friend said no (gee thanks dude). He then swore and went on to talk to other people. Mind you I understood all of what he said 😆. Later on he handed me something and I thanked him in Japanese and he looked at me like "wait, she does understand Japanese!" In general I didn't know what he was saying but I knew what he was saying sometimes.

Last weekend I was wandering around outside in the rain and got completely soaked because I didn't want to use my umbrella. Just walking my usual path near the guesthouse and I noticed there were some (very small) fire trucks going past. From what I can tell there were two, but anyway they passed me about five times. The last time I got passed the guy pulled over and asked me if I was okay (in Japanese. The word is ”だいじょぶ” (not super sure about spelling) and it means most short expressions using the word "okay"). I said I was okay and went home. It was one of the first times someone had spoken to me in Japanese and I didn't get confused or had to think about it.

So this morning I was walking because what else are you going to do and it's beautiful here and while I was walking past one of the houses a guy came out of one and drove his tiny truck up a little ways then stopped. When he got out of his tiny truck, he said something I assume to be along the lines of "hey, there's a foreigner over there" because suddenly a whole family was looking at me. I waved at them and said good morning which entertained them. The daughter (adult) asked me if I lived in Higashiyama and how many people lived there (all in Japanese). Not a super complicated conversation but I was happy to be able to talk to people and not be completely confused.

It Rained. A Lot.

I know it's the middle of July but here in Japan it is monsoon season so in the middle of hot humid weeks you get a day where it absolutely pours. This has happened many times since I got here but today was probably the most extreme example. It actually started raining last night while we were at a festival. Nobody had brought an umbrella because it was such a nice night so we had to duck into a grocery store and buy some. I'm a bad Oregonian getting an umbrella but I didn't have an umbrella and this is worse than anything we get in Oregon. Anyway, after running home and having my shoes fill with water from all the rain, we went home to sleep to the sound of rain...and woke up to thunder and lightening.

So my housemates were going to an elementary school today but I was free (it's a long story) so I was thinking of walking part of the way down the mountain to Ojiya after I took a shower. Before Lion boy left and took the internet with him, I sent a text to the guy who drives us if he could pick me up if he got the chance and that I may walk part way like I did the day before. He arrived right after I took a shower which is a good thing because when I finally got back to the main guest house I got a text that he had sent a while ago saying it was too dangerous to walk because the rain made landslides likely. The other thing in that text is that there was a "don't go outside" warning. Apparently every five years they get massive storms and this is one of them. I knew it was a storm but I live in Oregon we get rain and storms how bad can some rain be?

It wasn't raining too hard when we got to town so I grabbed my umbrella and headed to the grocery store less than a ten minute's walk away. While there, I run into the head of the program's daughter and talk to her for a bit and run into another lady that I believe is an English teacher and also lives across the street from the main house. She spoke to me in a combination of English and Japanese so that was kinda cool. Anyway, eventually I got my stuff and started walking home. When I was getting close to the convenience store where I switch main streets it starts pouring. Like more rain at once than I have ever seen in America. There is a lot of water on the roads and it is flowing into the really deep ditch gutter things they have along the sides of all the roads here. Despite my umbrella and the ditches, my shoes still start to fill with water.

When I pass the convenience store, I notice a small ditch has overflowed. As I stop to take a picture, I notice water shooting out of the grates down the street. I take some pictures of that and continue walking.

The road starts to fill with water and I'm fascinated by it. A guy is standing in his garage so I comment on the rain and continue walking down the street. However, by the time I get to the side street the main house is on, the main street and the side street are partially underwater. I stood there for a while seeing if it would go down then try to go down the street where it isn't flooded but water is shooting out of the grates there too and the road is flooding fast. My shoes are already filled with water so I just pick a place where the water isn't too deep and wade across the road and hop onto a raised curb. The water is close to 12in/30cm deep. I have to wade back to the house and then send a message to everyone telling them the roads are flooded and Corgimama comes running downstairs because she realized I was outside when there was a "don't be outside" warning. I took off my completely soaked shoes and socks and got scolded by Corgimama before going inside for a bit then wandering out onto the porch to take more pictures.

Both streets were completely underwater for a while, a voluntary evacuation was issued in some places, and water flooded the lower floors of some houses. The roads are completely dry now but that was a really interesting experience.

Festivals

WHOO I'M IN A PLACE WHERE MY COMPUTER CAN CONNECT TO THE INTERNET!!! 
I moved and the internet sucks so bad there I have difficulty checking my email on my phone (computer won't even connect) so I dragged my computer with me to the main house today and it's glorious. Never take internet or full sized keyboards for granted. 

So yesterday I went to two festivals. One in the nearby Nagaoka and one in the town of Ojiya. They were quite different but both had the Japanese festival vibe. The festival in Nagaoka was an edamame festival and the one in Ojiya was a shrine festival so they had their own themes.

The Nagaoka Edamame festival took place in a large event center looking place in Nagaoka station. Not something you see in train stations in America but it works. There were booths selling food in a couple rows and then a big area to sit and eat. There were various activities for kids too such as taking pictures with someone in an edamame costume, sitting in tractors, or drawing. I couldn’t have most of the food and even with the stuff I could have I don’t have the language skills to actually get anything. The head of the program brought some edamame for us as well as brought me some potato fries so I was good. The other purpose of the seating area was so you could watch the edamame eating competition going on. Basically either individuals or teams of three competed to see who could eat a set amount of edamame the fastest. There were awards for costumes of teams as well so there were some really cool costumes. One guy with his two daughters made a three person edamame hat and there were a few other edamame hats, traditional outfits, two grown men in school girl outfits, a group of young girl youtubers or streamers or something, some other youtube group of guys, what looked like a jpop group, and some guys in snowboarding gear. Either the festival staff or some restaurant wanted two international teams to compete so they got six of us to compete. Most kids didn’t want to do it because it’s kinda weird in concept and even weirder in reality. By the way, I was in the wanting to do it camp. Honestly, how many people can say they competed in an edamame eating contest?

Here’s how it worked: there were 48 teams of three people and everyone competed up on the stage in groups of 8 teams. Before the competition started we made signs for our teams and my team had a professional artist in it so ours was really cute. I was team JJJ because everyone in my group had a name that starts with the letter J. You have to line up in your teams in order 15 minutes before you are supposed to compete and then they get everyone backstage and give you an option for a bottle of tea or beer. Then you line up and walk on stage when they announce your group. The rules are you must eat all the beans in the pod, you can raise one hand if you feel sick, and everyone raises both hands when all the beans are eaten. I know this already sounds weird but what is even weirder is there are hosts, judges, referees, and cameramen. A lot of cameramen. Way to make eating 700grams of edamame between three people on a stage in front of hundreds of people even more awkward. My team was dead last, but our cheering squad was awesome with their yelling and signs and everything (we achieved crazy foreigner status a while ago) and everyone seemed to love that. Apparently the commentators were saying that but I couldn’t understand anything beyond “gaijin,” “JJJ,” and our names. After that awkwardness we went on to go join the cheering squad and cheer for our next team and a couple other teams we thought were cool. All teams got called back up on stage to see if they had to compete again but we didn’t get called so we went to go get our stuff and go home. Some lady wanted a picture with us foreigners so that happened.

The festival in Ojiya was just a small shrine festival along the main street in town. There were dance and drum performances, activity booths, shrine puppet shows, lots of food, people dressed up in traditional clothes, and of course the shrine itself. Me and one of my housemates were shown around by two Japanese people that are friends with the head of the program we are in. We ran into some students from the schools we visited or the English classes and apparently some of Lion boy’s fanclub was there so they took pictures with him (some of our people have groups of kids who follow them around and take pictures with them and it’s adorable). I visited a shrine for the first time in my life and was instructed on how to properly do that by some of the program staff that were showing us around. It was a really cool experience and I hope to go to other festivals while I’m in Japan. One of the people showing us around actually mentioned that there is a big one at the beginning of August so we can go to that one. There will be a huge fireworks show there apparently.

We went to the second day of the festival in Ojiya as well. There were a lot of dance performances so those were cool to watch. Most was traditional dancing with these clapper things and one person with a giant flag in the back. It was amazing to watch and the age range of dancers was huge. There were also some incredible hip hop performances that were fun to watch. Food and activities were really cool too, not that I could have the food but the rest of the foreigner squad had some and say it’s amazing. We ran into many people from English lessons, school visits, and other adventures around Ojiya. I walked there with my housemate Lion boy and some cameraman took a picture of us and then asked us to pose together for a picture. Not entirely sure if it was a newspaper guy or what but us foreigners get our pictures taken by random cameramen and our students in English class or the schools we visit all the time. Definitely an interesting experience. Anyway, the festivals were super fun and we will definitely be going to more.