Adventures in Japan

Nervous Beans

We haven't gone out much the last few days. We've been mainly focused on blogging 'bout the last two weeks and not spending any more money. Yesterday's big event was listening to The Wolf (Regina's Rock Station) on the internet. I think we did it to be ironic, but that's really no excuse. The song playing as the Wolf began to stream? I dunno. Some crap by Creed. I'm glad I don't know the title of it. Then it was Big League by Tom Cochrane. No amount of prodding would get Carla to screech along with the chorus. Next up: Back in Black by AClightingboltDC. Then some announcer by the name of Krash blathered on about how beer is good for you and then some Finger Eleven followed by some Pinkish Floyd and we killed the audio. I gotta say, next time you're in a foreign land and start to feel a little homesick, just listen to The Wolf.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm also not here to talk about Groundhog Day, which the Japanese people know nothing about. They're too busy with their own silly early February day of import. Setsubun. Here's the deal, someone dresses up like an oni (demon) and tries to enter your house. You throw beans at him and say, "Out with bad luck, in with good." That's Setsubun.

I'm serious.

We made a day of it, went to Kyoto and took in some of the festivities. There were many places to choose from. The first mamemaki (bean scattering ceremony) we attended was at Yasaka Jinja. It was a big place with lots of stalls. We shoved our way into the crowd and managed to get somewhat close to the stage. Luckily, we're tall. There were geisha up on the stage.


They did a traditional dance, or two, and then threw beans into the audience. Then they left. We were getting ready to go when some guy started talking onstage. So we wandered back.


Some Oni slowly made their way onto the stage and then did some stylized dancing. Then they threw beans into the audience. That was that.

The next mamemaki we went to was at Rokuhara Mitsu-ji. This one had geishas AND local celebrities.


So the Japanese versions of Krash, in other words. This one was slightly different in that there was an actual ceremony during the proceedings. An Oni (the best looking one of the day) tried to disrupt the ceremony by shooting paper streamers at everyone but the monks just kept on chanting and doing their things.


Eventually beans were thrown and the Oni left.

The last place we went to was the biggest. All sorts of stalls selling all sorts of food that smelled all kinds of good. We broke down and bought some candied fruit. They don't just candy apples here, heavens no! Their candying technology is far more advanced than that available in the Americas. Carla had a candied strawberry and I had a candied orange. Oh. My. God. So good!!! It's like they crammed 14 oranges into my one candied orange, and then they covered it with candy!! Same with Carla's strawberry. But with strawberries, not oranges.

The big attraction of Mibu-dera is the kyogen they put on at the theatre there. It's 650 year-old mime that was originally used to teach Buddhism to the common folk. I'm thinking I wasn't the target audience, cuz I zoned out for a lot of it. It involved bean throwing, mimes in masks, and incredibly repetitive music. I'm all for culture, but this just wasn't my cup of tea. Nor was it my steaming bowl of hot Korean soup.

On our way home, we got a call from Ben the Ozzie and we all met up and the Green Leaf and shared a few pitchers and stories about how nice the Japanese people are. They really are quite nice.