Nishinomiya, barbecue and enbu

Nice weekend. I'm a little sleepy, but as I don't have classes today that's fine.

Saturday (Nov 5th) I went to Nishinomiya with Silvia. The idea was talking about Brazil to some kids there together with two other Brazilians (Joao, an exchange student from Kobe; and Ana who has the best Japanese level between us... and she's been living here for some 15 years). And we're from Londrina, which is Nishinomiya's sister city in Brazil, so we were going to talk a little about that too.

Hehe... I don't know if I said this before, but Japanese kids are cute. And kids are kids anywhere in the planet. During the presentation some strange questions... Some I understand and some I didn't, but by the laughs I could grasp that there were some "darnest things"... One boy especially always said something "funny" whenever opening his mouth... and loud. A simple and inoffensive example was when the kids were asked to make a "quiz" answering questions about Brazil (such as "Is it colder to the north or south in Brazil?" or "What body part the guarana fruit resembles?"... Although some I didn't know the answer, too. Like "How many years is compulsory education in Brazil?") he asked immediately if there was any prize for doing it... And their faces while we did some "Brazilian greetings" (like cheek "kissing", handshakes and hugs...) and they were asked to do it with us (well, we're also floored by that one...)

Complete sincerity when talking (without any enryo - reserve) is something that I'm becoming less used to... and that's dangerous. I noticed that because kids are sincere even here. At least those were. Some Brazilian foods (guarana soda, "doce de leite" and candys) were given to them and some said that didn't liked the guarana soda much... Guess that the Japanese taste is a little not used to that kind of flavour...

In the end things worked and the kids seemed happy. My Japanese level was still a little below the necessary to talk about Brazil or Londrina, but the others backed me up. A post card and one local (Londrina region) nikkei newspaper as gifts later, we're asked for autographs... WHAT!? Yes... maybe it's not that uncommon when Japanese kids meet foreigners... still a little strange, though. Talk, pictures, even touch is expected, but autographs!? Wonder what's the point of having foreingers' autographs... Ah, just don't forget we're talking about kidS. Plural. And there're around 30 of them...

Well, funny indeed. After, Silvia, Joao and I had some talk with a man who worked in Hyogo prefecture's government. Can't remember all the subjects though, but an interesting one was that they're resuming international exchange slowly after the Great Hanshin Earthquake. After it, money became a little short because of reconstructions...

And I met a Japanese who's been in Brazil and that I was exchanging e-mails with before coming to Japan. At that time I was a little worried about life in Japan, so I was asking people for advice. Somebody from my Japanese school recommended I should mail him and I did... We exchanged a couple of mails, but I lost contact later. He's working for the NGO which organized the event, but will return to Brazil shortly.

Also, that was a chance to know the Koshien Stadium. The Hanshin Tigers stadium. As the pro season is over now there was nothing special unfortunately...

After that and going to a museum in Kobe (small one about emigration to Brazil... I'll have to make another presentation about Brazil, this time to people in my neighbourhood and more focused in Japanese emigration to Brazil, in December... but I was too sleepy to take notes or understand... It was in Japanese), meeting with the gang to do a "bonfire" (as Rezaur defined it).
My definition would rather be a "barbecue". Gathering friends to make (and eat, of course) barbecue, drink and chit-chat at night outdoors with only a fire and a flashlight as illumination... Sweet. And it wasn't so cold that night (or we were heated by the fire... some by the drinks also). Well, maybe the "bonfire" was because he was planning to use some fireworks... But fireworks season in Japan is during summer, so it's not that easy to find them now.

Sunday. I had to wake up early again to go to Kyoto with some members of the university's aikido club to watch (some also participated) some aikido presentations. They call it enbu (演武)... My dictionary translates it as "military exercises" although it's more like kata of some other martial arts. Formal suits were required and I only discovered that the day before, so I was worried that I'd have to iron them and that I forgot how to put on a tie... Fortunately the clothes were good enough and somebody knotted my tie when I was preparing my cases to come to Japan (I know who did it... Thanks.). To my relief I wasn't the only one that didn't know that...

Too bad that it was raining... At least the event was indoors. And it was impressive... The event was held by the aikido club of the Kyoto Prefectural University (京都府立大学), but other university clubs around Kansai also made some enbu (including the University of Hyogo which is the university I'm studying at in Japan... The senpais did it). And I noticed that my university style is slightly different... And another university also had a style a little different. Some people commented about those differences later.

I'm still not good enough in aikido to tell about the techniques, but some were impressive. Too bad that my digital camera dosn't take good pictures of moving things and I hadn't enough memory to make movies... But the amazing thing was the teacher explaining something in the end. I really couldn't understand his Japanese, but keep throwing 3 relatively young persons holding him using all their strenght (he kept saying them to "hold stronger") almost not moving at all (just little arm, hand or leg movement)... Sugoi! Just for a change, I didn't get any good visual reference... maybe only this (Note added at Nov 9th: I just realized that Yahoo! Briefcase doesn't allow direct downloads by people who doesn't have an Yahoo ID anymore, so I cancelled the link... You'll have to live without watching it ^^;) small movie that doesn't show the impressive things...

After the enbu a dinner event... Good chance to talk a little with people from other dojos. Nice to discover that I can talk for a while without people noticing I'm not Japanese... and I have to thank the club for that since the small talk they usually have after practice helped me to understand better spoken Japanese. Too bad I'll miss the training the University of Hyogo aikido club will do together with the Kyoto Prefectural University and Osaka Prefectural University... Have an exchange students' trip that day...