Dazaifu, Days 14 and 15 - Regional Conference in Hiroshima

Friday morning starts off much as usual – I’m doing computer-related things, the teachers have a morning meeting, everyone heads for their first class. Matsumoto stops by to ask if I am scheduled anywhere during 3^rd period; I’m not, so he invites me to visit his class as they work on making Japanese fans.

In the elementary school, fan work usually involved making a prettier or more original cover for one of the fans given out as free advertising on the street corners. Today’s activity is a bit more involved – the students have special paper that can be folded and ink-dyed in a tie-dye pattern, and they actually have the skeleton of a fan, a flat piece of bamboo that has been split into many long thin strips on one end (think of a bamboo garden rake, only much smaller and thinner).

Students have previously dyed their paper; now they take a second, undyed piece and lay it flat on the table, then use paint brushes to cover the main part with white glue. Next the fan skeleton is laid on the glue and paper, and more glue is liberally brushed all over the split section. After that, the dyed paper is positioned on top and gently pressed in place, making certain that the two pieces of paper are completely glued to the bamboo.

Then the paper is cut, following the shape of the fan skeleton, and extra strips of the dyed paper are wrapped over the cut edge and glued down. The result is a beautiful fan that, when completely dry, will work quite well to move air on a hot day.

I help with gluing and some of the cutting, along with the teachers and aides, and two of the student teachers from a local university. All of the students complete their fans, and we admire their dye work and completed projects.

After lunch with some 1^st year students, Nakagawa and I leave – he will drop me off at my apartment where I have an overnight bag ready for our trip to Hiroshima. Before I go, though, I make a fast trip to the post office; I have a box of gifts for my family ready to be mailed home.

Then I walk to the train station about 3 blocks away and meet Nakagawa. He has tickets for our shinkansen (bullet train) ride from Hakata station in Fukuoka City to Hiroshima, so all we need right now is a ticket for the local train from this station in Chikushino to Hakata. Much like buying a subway ticket, this is a simple process; we get our ticket, go through the turnstile and head for the train platform. As this is a local train, we have several stops before we get off, but it’s not a long trip.

We arrive in plenty of time; in fact, Nakagawa checks to see if we can catch an earlier train so that we can meet some others in Hiroshima that would like to have dinner together. There’s plenty of room on the earlier train, so we get our tickets changed and head for the platform. I learned (mostly) how to read basic station and platform information during my last trip to Japan (if the station name is in romaji, I can usually figure out where I need to go), and during this trip, I end up finding the correct train platform more frequently than Nakagawa-san does. (This is a good thing….)

We arrive in Hiroshima; it’s raining (it’s also a lot cooler than Dazaifu was). Neither of us thought to bring an umbrella (despite being the rainy season, we’ve had durned little of that stuff down on Kyushu this year), so we look for a taxi and quickly get one. The driver takes us to the hotel, and we find several of the other MTP people already gathered and hungry for dinner.

The rain is still falling but not nearly as hard, so we walk several blocks to a Japanese ‘pub’ that has a reputation for good barbeque. More than a couple of hours later, we’ve had plenty to eat and drink, and some people are interested in finding a karaoke bar. We start back towards the hotel, finally find a karaoke place, only to discover that they have no available rooms. The clerk suggests another place a bit farther away; while most of the group decides to give it a try (and apparently had a great time), a few of us have finally hit our limit and decide to wander back to the hotel to sleep. (We do, after all, have a meeting to attend in the morning, and some of us aren’t as young as we used to be, more’s the pity…)

The next morning it’s a rather tired group that meets for breakfast and check-out, but we all get cabs and head for the meeting place at Hiroshima University. It’s raining again – hard – but Nakagawa has managed to acquire umbrellas for both of us, so we get into the meeting site without problems.

Our morning sessions are spent in debriefing groups, American and Japanese, talking about what we have done so far and what problems we have faced. As was true before, most of the Americans are more than happy with the activities and work with their partners, and most of us have only complaints about being tired (so much to do, so little time..). A few have questions about phone access and one or two mention minor food issues, but this group is a really adaptive one that seems to really be enjoying the opportunities being offered.

(Two years ago, there were one or two people in the program who had very unrealistic expectations about how Japanese and American teachers could or should work together – fortunately, with more years of participation, JFMF is getting far better at finding good people from both countries that are willing and able to learn to adapt to each other and work effectively together.)

Lunch is at the school cafeteria – but there is only one open today on campus and it’s all the way on the other side, about a 10 minute walk. And it’s still raining – in fact, it’s pouring; even with those umbrellas, most of us are soaked pretty thoroughly by the time we get to the food lines. We all finally get food (many choices, all of it pretty good), and manage to get fed and back to the meeting room only about 15 minutes late for the afternoon sessions.

This is our video conference time – half of the MTP teachers are here at Hiroshima; the rest are up at Miyagi University in Sendai. A video speakerphone at each end connected to a giant screen projector enables all of us to see each other and exchange short introductions telling what we have been doing during our first two weeks with our partner schools.

The information sessions go very well; the video technology available in Japan is well developed and very reliable, enough so that we can just relax and enjoy talking with each other. In fact, it’s relaxed enough that our group, at least, begins finding ways to make our presence known to the Sendai crowd, starting with a couple of giant insect models shown by one team (along with a “Jaws” theme in the background) and progressing to a ‘wave’ around the room that makes a complete cycle, and a carryover from the karaoke the previous night, a short rendition (complete with motions) of “YMCA”.

To quote Kyoko Jones, “This group (in Hiroshima) seems to have bonded extremely well this year.” That's an understatement…….

(Now that I think about it, the Hiroshima group seemed to be the party group two years ago, when I was in Sendai with the northern set. Maybe there’s something about the barbeque down here?)

Back to the train station, and again, we are able to get an earlier train. This time, it’s the real thing – the Hikari Rail Star, with only two stops between Hiroshima and Hakata. At the mid-point of the first segment, an announcement appears, giving our current speed – 285 kph (about 180 mph)! I’ve been in planes that didn’t go that fast. (And it is a really smooth ride.)

Home in Dazaifu – I’m glad to be back, although I did enjoy the weekend. Tomorrow is Sunday, another rest day, and I hope to explore a bit more of the area.