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Broadcasting to an audience of three (and a goldfish)...
Comment, ramblings and musings... life through the eyes of a Japanologist...
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Sunday, October 20, 2002 |
 Is it possible to forgive a regime to the extent that you will wear the badge
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Nice to relax- makes work worthwhile
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Finished early- Romantei
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Yomiuri Shimbun
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Of course, I had to express regret at not being able to play taiko, but in fact I was quite relieved. First of all, I was aching all over
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Thinking about it, I wonder whether the rain wasn't in fact a direct result of the magic show that was in full flow when we went down to the stage. I mean, the magician was wearing shoes with six-inch soles with a pattern of snarling teeth around the toes- topped off with a hideous pair of spangly flares. I know if I were an omnipotent being looking down on that sight, wild horses wouldn't have stopped me from turning on that celestial hosepipe as full as it would go...
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In fact, though, we didn't do badly out of the rain. It meant that people made for the stalls for shelter, and so we sold plenty of drinks and fritters. Then, just as we were thinking of packing up, the elementary school boys came back from their softball tournament, looking to spend money. Well, most of the stalls had called it a day when the rain started, so we got plenty of custom from the children, too. All in all, not a bad day's work- although the amount of food left was almost laughable!
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Anyway, although we'd bought far too much food, we were on course to break even...
...or, at least, we would have been, had it not started raining. Just as I went off to get ready for my taiko performance, the sky began, gradually but very definitely, to turn from a nondescript dullness to a 'not-if-but-when-it'll-rain' grey. Nevertheless, hoping that the rain would hold off for just an hour or so longer (but becoming more and more convinced that it wouldn't) we went ahead with the preparations for the performance, moving all the drums to the stage area, and changing into our uniforms.
The stage entertainments were running about half an hour behind schedule (which, of course, made it more likely that we wouldn't beat the rain), but we went down to the stage area in plenty of time, just in case things speeded up. Which, in a sense, they did. We hadn't been outside for more than a minute when the first big, fat drop of rain splattered down. It became obvious that we weren't going to get away with just a few drops, and indeed, the rain quickly became a veritable downpour. In the end all the remaining stage entertainments, including the taiko, were cancelled, and the rest of the festival quickly turned into a bit of a damp squib. Actually, a soaking wet squib.
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Today was Festival Etajima, the town's annual 'fair'. It's not a festival in the religious sense, but in the 'stalls and entertainments' sense. The International Club, as ever, had a stall, which is why we were at Seinen-no-ie at the ungodly hour of 7.30. On a Sunday, to boot!
The International Club's stall this year was 'The Fruit Paradise Cafe', which was at least slightly misleading, since it wasn't really a cafe, and it certainly wasn't a paradise... at least it did have something to do with fruits, though. We cooked Nigerian banana fritters, and made Russian tea (with brandy and strawberry or blueberry jam) and tropical fruit milkshake (which is, I am proud to say, my very own concoction). In previous years, we've always incorporated some sort of 'experience' (making teddy bears, Hallowe'en games, etc.) into the stall as well as selling snacks, but this year we went for the 'food only' option. To start with, it looked as though the lack of something free would mean that fewer people came to the stall, but we were soon doing a brisk, if not exactly roaring, trade. If anything, the drinks seemed more popular than the banana fritters, most likely because of the name- while 'milkshake' and 'tea' are familiar words even in Japanese, nobody knew what a fritter was! In fact, some people just seemed generally confused; I had somebody come up, point to a fritter, and ask whether it was Russian tea...
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© Copyright 2003 Nathan Duckworth.
Updated: 8/1/03; 8:49:17 pm.
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