Spring is in the Air!!

Hey All! So I’ve been super lazy these past few weeks, and I am terribly sorry!
But the good news is I have plenty to tell you! (I will be making two or three posts over the next week, I hope. Mostly with stories of my life, and not too much interesting cultural observations...sorry!)

So, my second semester at Waseda started two weeks ago! Yay for new classes! Here’s the lineup:

-Japanese 4a
-Culture in Conflict (What is culture, what is the individual, etc.)
-Japanese Economy and Industry (Really boring, I hope it will get better)
-Cultural Interactions of Art between the East and the West (or something along those lines. Call also be called ‘Comparative Art History’. We’ve only had lectures concerning ‘auspicious motifs’ of Japanese Art, but we should be moving onto the movement of art and artistic influence along the Silk Road)

My first two weeks of school were nothing to complain about. In general my classes will be easy, but there are those pesky tests that are worth 40% of the grade (That’s right, one test worth 40%), and papers worth 30%. The grading system here is so skewed (but it got me all A’s last semester!). I was really looking forward to my Japanese Economy class, because I’ve never taken a class like that. After the first four classes, I realized why I never take that sort of class: it’s a bit boring to me. But I have to persevere, and I just hope to learn some new, interesting things about Japan. As for my Art History class…the teacher is a bit crazy. We have to get ‘participation points’ by answering random questions, and when we answer we get a slip of paper to write our name on (which is turned in for points). However, there are easily more than 50 people in the class, so it’s a bit crazy from time-to-time.

I planned my schedule so that I would have Friday's off, again! I'm super excited, and I plan on using this to go to Minakami for a long weekend! Yay!

But...I was sad that Spring Break ended, because it meant saying goodbye to complete freedom and relaxation. Now I have to go back to balancing school, homework (which I end up rarely doing), school club, friends and me time. It’s a bit hectic, but it’s life!

Spring in Japan is a magical time. It’s the time of hanami, or flower watching. The traditional thing to do during hanami (which was late May for us in Tokyo) is to go to a park, set up a picnic blanket or tarp, and watch the flowers of the sakura trees, while eating and drinking with friends. That’s right, another excuse to drink (in public, no less!).

The [aristocratic] Japanese have always had an extra special love of nature. It’s probably because they had nothing better to occupy their time with, being that they had no job other than being filthy rich (sounds good to me). Getting together to write haikus was a popular past-time, and fit into the other past-time of nature-viewing.

Without flowing wine
How to enjoy lovely
Cherry blossoms?
Anonymous [poem i found online^__^]

I got to share this love of sakura and nature with the a school circle I am not a member of called ‘niji no kai’ (Which means Rainbow club, there is no relation to GLBT rainbow) . It’s a BIG ‘international circle', meaning they have lots of exchange students and Japanese students who want to speak English. The problem with this club is that it is extremely clique-y, so I had a hard time meeting anyone. I met a few people, but those who I had known from previous meetings barely gave me the time of the day. In the end, I left early to walk around the part and people watch. There was a martial arts club doing their practice and also some kids playing soccer. Both were really fun to watch, but I only have a picture of the martial art's club.

Last weekend, I went to Waseda Donuts' (my circle! yay!) hanami. However, at this point the flowers were falling, or gone, from the tree’s so it was less about the trees and more about having fun. I brought my friend Rachel, and boy did we have fun! We played Frisbee, catch, baseball, jump rope along with sitting, chatting, eating and drinking. There were a few other circles around, the most interesting being the one closest to us. There were always two or three guys dancing to Japanese Pop music (doing similar dances to female Japanese pop stars, no less…). When they finished their dances, Rachel and I would clap, which would encourage them to dance more. However, Rachel and I got bored with them quickly, so they fizzled out soon. There was also a male glee club in the park, and they kept singing Waseda’s alma mater. It was a very relaxing atmosphere, and if I had sat still for long enough, I would have fallen asleep!

The first picture is Ryo, Takero and Rachel. When I first saw Takero, I noticed he looked a little under the weather, so I asked him what was wrong. The answer: he was drunk. Apparently, this was not his first hanami of the day (at this point in the day it was only 3!), he had started drinking around lunch time. The second picture is Rin holding the jump-rope, two little girls, me then Sacchan. The little girls wanted to play jump rope, but they had no one to play with, so their grandfather asked me to play with them, so they held the rope while I jumped. Soon enough most of Wasedo was jumping, and we all took turns holding the rope. It was super fun! haha...

When I come back to Kansas, Indiana or wherever in the US, I hope to bring this tradition of hanami with me. Sure, it's the same as a picnic...or is it? Spending time outside with friends, eating, drinking and playing...what's better than that?