Japan Day

That is what I look like when I don't get enough sleep.

One of the traditional Japanese masks.

On April 3rd, we had a wonderful opportunity to learn more about our host nation, Japan. Every year, Misawa Air Force base organizes a way for Japanese to show off their culture and traditions by bringing a whole bunch of native people to the base and setting up exhibits and craft booths. Add some extraordinary Taiko drums performances and Judo demonstration and you've got a fantastic look into the Japanese world. These people amaze me, seriously.

This year's event was held at the Collocated Club and not the high school as in previous years. The guy who was in charge of organizing it all told us a couple days ago that Japanese were very worried about this change, especially because their craft booths wouldn't be as private and quite as they would have been at the high school (since they would be held in the classrooms, not merely in the area separated with dividers). In fact, they were expecting a much worse turn out than in previous years. Boy, were they wrong. The event was scheduled to start at 10 am, but when we showed up at 9:50, there were also a whole bunch of people watching one of the performances. Right away, I went over to the area where Japanese women could demonstrate how to put on a kimono. Liz (my friend with three little girls) and I were the first ones in line, and we got to be dressed into kimonos right at 10!

I look sort of pregnant on this picture, but for real, they put, what seemed to be, a whole pillow or towel in my tummy area and tied it really tight:) It's a very complicated thing to put on a kimono, but these ladies knew what they were doing. I had about twelve different ropes tied onto me, several layers padding and so on.

Here Liz and I are getting dressed why the girls are waiting their turn. Notice the long sleeves on my kimono. One of the ladies explained that unmarried women have long sleeves because that's a way for them to say "yes" or "no" to a guy that's trying to "date" them. A woman sort of waves back and forward with those sleeves to let them know what she thinks. I guess, a married woman doesn't need to have long sleeves like that so she wears a kimono with sleeves like Liz.

Of course, after seeing how the girls are getting all dressed up, Alex started asking everyone if they had a boy kimono:) It has been his thing since we got here--he is determined to get a boy kimono while we are in Japan. So funny. Finally, one of the ladies found one for a boy! Oh my goodness, he was so excited!!!! It didn't take nearly as long to put his on.

Katya loved hers as well. She probably wanted pink, but I think her black one is beautiful too. She stood still the whole ten minutes that it took that lady to put her kimono on and tie all the little ribbons.

My beautiful Ukrainian girl in a kimono:)

And finally, the AFTER picture:)
That was a lot of fun!

After the kimono Robert and kids headed over to the kite making booth. They made very cool Aomori kites with their names on them. Making kites is one of the traditional crafts here.

In the meantime, Mark and I decided to explore the "Writing in Japanese" boothes. First we went over this lady, who wrote my name and Mark's name in Hiragana. It was more difficult for her to figure out how to write my name in their letters, and they couldn't even pronounce letter "L" properly. Kind of strange. I explained that I was from "Ukraina"--that's how they say "Ukraine" in Japanese.

Then, I asked this Japanese lady what her name was. And I wrote it in my Ukrainian language for her (I don't remember what it was:). She was so impressed, she took that piece of paper and put it away to make sure she wouldn't lose it!

We also stopped by a calligraphy booth where I asked the girl to write "Family", "Watson", "Lyana" and "Klymyuk" in Kanji:) In case you didn't know, there are three different ways to write all of those words in Japanese since they have three alphabets. Anyway, that was really cool to see as well.

Other booths included making of Nebuta lanterns, Genohe kites, paper planes, bookmarks, Washi dolls (someday I'll get one of those), flower arrangements, pottery making, display of more kimonos, Kogen embroidery, Chinese pottery, pressed flower craft, sand art, brush art, demonstration of Koto music, Zazen and yoga. We spent only two hours there, but I wish I could try all of them out. There is always next year.

Now we'll be looking forward to the American Day here in Misawa that's coming up in July. Should be fun to see what we have to show to our Japanese friends.