El Ningyo

It's been an eventful few days. I went out for the first Japanese Girl's Night (女子会: joshikai) I've had in a while. Harue, Chisa and I had a lot to celebrate: One of Harue's heifers just had a calf which she polled Facebook to name. Pinto is the final decision, and it is certainly fitting for a beautiful black and white splotched calf. Chisa passed an exam for her new big-city job in Morioka: now she helps counsel "lonely hearts." Of course, she's such a natural listener, she's perfectly suited to it.  And I passed my driving test and have signed a new contract to stay in Japan for another year.

It was a very fun evening! Chisa knows the owners of a great new yakitori bar in Kitakami where we paid for nomihodai: all you can drink for a couple hours and a couple thousand yen. Amazing food! Chisa taught me another "Japanese woman art," specifically how to get meat off the tiny bamboo skewers. I was gnashing at the bits like a man. As a woman, it's more elegant to use your hashi to pull the meat off, holding the skewer so it stands on the plate vertically. Then, twirl the skewer with your fingers and slide the meat off.

If Audrey Hepburn (whom Chisa idolizes) is any model for alluring feminine behavior, I'm sure she would have eaten her yakitori the same way.

By far, my favorite were poached chicken bits topped with a lightly minty sauce and a pickled plum sauce! Who would have thought? But it was delicious!

I also met a couple of their friends and two different bars. Saito-san taught me about sake: Kiki sake is highly recommended. At the other bar, I met some very lively women. I was desperately sipping water at this point, trying to keep my eyes from floating out of my head, so I think at least one of them was a hair stylist. I also remember that they spent a little time asking me about my hair and checking the color. I am a confessed hair-dyer and my bottle of choice is Beautylabo products. Nevertheless, one of them asked if I'd be interested in hair modeling.

It's sort of vain, maybe, but I've been toying with the idea of modeling for years. I've sat for art projects in college for photographer friends, but never broke into the market. I'm definitely not the "glamazon" you need to be: 6 feet tall and 2 inches wide, with Victoria's Secret boobs and a Calvin Klein booty. I am my own kind of beautiful: I am Audrey Hepburn-eating-yakitori beautiful. But I never considered myself hair-model-worthy. But I'm willing to give anything a try!

So as I mentioned, I signed up for another year teaching. Sadly, I won't be working in Kitakami. I'm staying in town, but all my junior high schools will be in Hanamaki now. I also think my title is changing to ALT which means, more simply, Assistant Language Teacher. This means I'll be operating under the Japanese government's standard "Team Teaching" program. I am 100% okay with this.

Welcome to Hanamaki!

And since I'll be working exclusively in Hanamaki now, it looks like I need to delve a little more into Hanamaki culture. Kitakami is considered an "industrial" city. Lots of shopping, car dealerships, business and young blood. Hanamaki, however, only recently became a city because a few towns sort of amoeba'd into one. This happens to a lot of cities and towns in Japan.

But even though it's now technically a "city," Hanamaki is still made of farming towns full of people with the quiet, steady and deliberate-minded way of thinking and acting. I had noticed a difference in genkiness between my quieter Hanamaki kids and boistrous Kitakami students. The fuku-kocho at one Kitakami school enlightened me. I'm exciting to learn a bit more about this big, quiet city. I doubt it's as "quiet" as he'd have me believe.

It certainly is a culturally rich city. Today, I got hands on at the Hanamaki City Museum painting traditional Ningyo figurines.

Ningyo figures originated between 600 and 300 AD as funerary figurines but have since evolved for many different uses. The styles and their own material changes whether they are the exquisitely dressed, delicate and formal Hinamatsuri dolls, or the chubby-cheeked, terra cotta farmers, cats and boars.

At the museum, if you made a reservation and have about 1500 yen burning a hole in your pocket, you could paint your own ningyo! I sat in a room at one of two newspaper-covered tables with middle-aged and older women and men, all eager to "Gambatte!" After a brief history lesson on ningyo, we were walked through the process: most people had bought the saddled horses, so we were all encouraged to follow the design of the models placed on each table. In the end, everyone with a horse had a white horse with a yellow and black saddle, red bridle and red or blue dressings and white flowers.

It was relaxing to listen to the Japanese buzz around me. The conversation was light, cheerful and minimal while we all focused on the details of our little dolls. Patrons giggled at their own work and praised others', but everyone seemed proud of what they'd accomplished in the end: namely, carrying on an old and, honestly, enjoyable, traditional pastime.