Disoriented moment of the week

When I heard the buzz about a local festival called “Jamaica Mura” (that’s “Jamaica Village” for those of you back home) I envisioned a small event decorated in red, yellow, and green with a few food stalls selling jerk chicken and snow cones. Maybe there’d be a guy with fake dreadlocks and some reggae playing out of a boom box. Not a bad set up for inaka Japan…you got to take what you can get… and seriously, what does small town Japan know about Jamaica? (I know local folks who think England is INSIDE America and Brazil is close to Florida). So imagine my surprise when I looked down onto a large field in Innai (Ajimu’s neighboring town) to see a crowd rocking to live reggae with loads of delicious authentic Jamaican food lining the sides.



As I descended down into the crowd, I was amazed and inspired by all the people around. The young Japanese folks had their colorful, stylish clothes and mixed among them were a random sprinkling of foreigners. This is when I had my disoriented moment of the week. You see, living out in the inaka where the population is 99.99% Japanese can cause a syndrome in foreigners called “gawk-a-lot at the non-Japanese”. Usually when I see another non-Japanese person in Japan—especially anywhere around where I live—who I don’t know, I stare and think “who is that?!” (much like what the Japanese people do to me). So at the much cooler, much larger Jamaica Mura with the small pockets of gaijin enjoying the festival along with the natives, I felt momentarily disoriented and confused as to where I was.

Once I found my friends, Ben, Keiko, and Isabel (pictured below), I regained my stability and jumped into enjoying the chill atmosphere and sunny weather. At one point I even engaged in a round of badminton—the Japanese sport of choice when hanging around outside much like Frisbee throwing back home. My eikaiwa friend Eri was the owner of the equipment and our game ended due to windy weather that kept blowing our birdy into the laps of people sitting nearby (the last time I had to go over to retrieve the birdy I was met by a slightly upset young lady who passed the birdy to me as if it were actually a dead bird).




The afternoon hanging out at the festival was great and I even got to see some of my students in their hip, non-uniform clothes that I almost never get to see them in (the kids wear their uniforms ALL the time!). Ah, Japan has shown me so much over the last year, but there appears to be so much more to see. Until next time…