To my excitement, Shota invited me to go with him to a Boy Scout camp out at the end of October. I didn't realize that this would mean missing the School Festival, which i still regret. But on to the story. I had emailed my folks a few weeks back, and they had mailed me my full uniform (thank you!!!) so i was good with that. Shota said he would loan me everything else i would need. He even made a list of things i should bring (though he neglected to mention "pillow" grr) So, saturday, he picked me up, along with his two friends Midori, and Hiro~something-or-other. We drove for an hour or so, into this amazing forest on a mountainside in eastern Aichi Ken (prefecture) As soon as we got inside the scout building (the only building actually, but it was devoted to the scouts) we changed into uniform, and sat around for a while. When everyone had arrived, we had flag ceremony, which was remarkably the same as BSA. In fact, lots of things were the same. Scouting really is universal, to a point.
By the way, i saluted the Nippon Flag; is that illegal? anywho, afterwards, there was a meeting. A long meeting. In a language a barely understood. So i studied Kanji. I have come to accept the fact that i am a Kanjiphile, as John once called me. I want to know them all. We'll see. Anyway, after the meeting, it was conveyed to me that we would play a game before dinner. It was like capture the flag, except there were 5 teams, and each team had 5 flags, and the flags were footlong pieces of bamboo with names of cooking ingredients on them, and each team's territory (where we could capture enemies) was exceedingly small, just a lawnsized circle around our flags, which meant there was much more no man's land between territories. So the point of the game was to steal flags (with ingredient names on them) and, at the end of the game, each team was given ingredients for supper corresponding to the flags the managed to maintain possession of, or steal. We lost our tofu flag, but who cares? we still had the meat flag!!!! Meat FTW!!! Then we made shabu-shabu (which means, approximately "Swish-swish") Which is yet another Nabe meal where each table shares a communal pot in the middle. Yum. We stuffed ourselves. There was way too much food there. Anyway, afterwards, there was a party! It was great to relax with the other scouts, who were, by the way, all college age. (i was both looking forward to and dreading the prospect of herding 11-16 year olds around when Shota invited me, but this was definitely more like Venture than anything else.) We stayed up deep into the night, and i went to bed eventually in the tatami room (rice mat) Japanese don't traditionally sleep on beds, they sleep on futons on tatami mats. Apparently (as noted above) they arent' used to pillows either, because the ones they use are hard as bean bags, and because Shota didn't consider it important enough to remind me. Oh well. The next day, we had (hot dogs for breakfast and) more meetings (blah) and a seminar on world peace. This boggled my mind. We were supposed to break into groups and discuss what lended itself to peace and what took away from it. I was saying things like "Not discriminating" and "Greed" and the japanese kids were saying stuff like "music is peace" and "not having TV takes away from peace" It all seemed so shallow. I wasn't surprised they thought on those terms as i was that they didn't invent some profound bull**** to keep from appearing shallow. They weren't embarrassed at all to say that peace was having the things you like. anyway, most of the weekend was these meetings. Everyone was very friendly to me; i also met a japanese boy who had lived in the US for 6 years. It was so amazingly pleasant to speak to a native in my language and have him completely understand and be able to express himself. I don't understand why it was so great, because i speak to american exchange students all the time, so it is not like i never get a chance to speak to English natives. Anyway, that was about it. We lowered the flag, said our goodbyes, cleaned the place up in true democratic Boy scout fashion, and parted ways. I was supposed to go to a halloween party that night, but i was too exhausted from having stayed up so late. Plus, it was 35$. Ahem.
But i did go to the IHouse halloween party
of course. It took a lot of guts to leave my room, but i was probably the most popular costume there. Very humorous. It was pretty fun. Afterwards, Marci and Felix and i watched the Big Lebowski. Hooray! Pictures! Pictures for everyone! The reverend fathers (0ne with a dubious can of brew...)
And here is me with pikachu and totoro in my pocket. This next one has nothing to do with Halloween, but it is me in iaido garb with a spoon, since
i couldn't bring the katana to my room. someday i will get someone to take a picture of me doing actual katas.
By the way, i saluted the Nippon Flag; is that illegal? anywho, afterwards, there was a meeting. A long meeting. In a language a barely understood. So i studied Kanji. I have come to accept the fact that i am a Kanjiphile, as John once called me. I want to know them all. We'll see. Anyway, after the meeting, it was conveyed to me that we would play a game before dinner. It was like capture the flag, except there were 5 teams, and each team had 5 flags, and the flags were footlong pieces of bamboo with names of cooking ingredients on them, and each team's territory (where we could capture enemies) was exceedingly small, just a lawnsized circle around our flags, which meant there was much more no man's land between territories. So the point of the game was to steal flags (with ingredient names on them) and, at the end of the game, each team was given ingredients for supper corresponding to the flags the managed to maintain possession of, or steal. We lost our tofu flag, but who cares? we still had the meat flag!!!! Meat FTW!!! Then we made shabu-shabu (which means, approximately "Swish-swish") Which is yet another Nabe meal where each table shares a communal pot in the middle. Yum. We stuffed ourselves. There was way too much food there. Anyway, afterwards, there was a party! It was great to relax with the other scouts, who were, by the way, all college age. (i was both looking forward to and dreading the prospect of herding 11-16 year olds around when Shota invited me, but this was definitely more like Venture than anything else.) We stayed up deep into the night, and i went to bed eventually in the tatami room (rice mat) Japanese don't traditionally sleep on beds, they sleep on futons on tatami mats. Apparently (as noted above) they arent' used to pillows either, because the ones they use are hard as bean bags, and because Shota didn't consider it important enough to remind me. Oh well. The next day, we had (hot dogs for breakfast and) more meetings (blah) and a seminar on world peace. This boggled my mind. We were supposed to break into groups and discuss what lended itself to peace and what took away from it. I was saying things like "Not discriminating" and "Greed" and the japanese kids were saying stuff like "music is peace" and "not having TV takes away from peace" It all seemed so shallow. I wasn't surprised they thought on those terms as i was that they didn't invent some profound bull**** to keep from appearing shallow. They weren't embarrassed at all to say that peace was having the things you like. anyway, most of the weekend was these meetings. Everyone was very friendly to me; i also met a japanese boy who had lived in the US for 6 years. It was so amazingly pleasant to speak to a native in my language and have him completely understand and be able to express himself. I don't understand why it was so great, because i speak to american exchange students all the time, so it is not like i never get a chance to speak to English natives. Anyway, that was about it. We lowered the flag, said our goodbyes, cleaned the place up in true democratic Boy scout fashion, and parted ways. I was supposed to go to a halloween party that night, but i was too exhausted from having stayed up so late. Plus, it was 35$. Ahem. 
But i did go to the IHouse halloween party 
of course. It took a lot of guts to leave my room, but i was probably the most popular costume there. Very humorous. It was pretty fun. Afterwards, Marci and Felix and i watched the Big Lebowski. Hooray! Pictures! Pictures for everyone! The reverend fathers (0ne with a dubious can of brew...)
And here is me with pikachu and totoro in my pocket. This next one has nothing to do with Halloween, but it is me in iaido garb with a spoon, since 
i couldn't bring the katana to my room. someday i will get someone to take a picture of me doing actual katas.
1 comment:
Haha, your costume is so great! ^_^
And it's interesting that the peace seminar had such different responses than what I'd expect. Those answers sound more like personal peace than world peace. But I guess personal peace is one result of world peace, so it ties together.
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