Yes, shame on me, I missed an update. As compensation there will be more than usual during the christmas holidays, although on thing in advance: The holidays here are shorter than at home, for instance I still have a course at Uni on the 25th of December because officially the Uni closes not until the 28th. But more about that after Christmas Eve.
Well then. A week ago on Saturday I was at the so-called "Luminarie"-Festival celebration in Kobe, the word stems from the italian "illuminari" and is, as the name suggests, a festival of lights. At this, a street of houses is being decorated with countless colourful (electric) lights, which in fact look a little campy but nonetheless the whole thing is very beautiful. At the end there waits yet some kind of illuminated small pavillion. From the speakers along the street sound baroque and sacred music, which adds a really nice note (literally). Unfortunately the usual announcements are also omnipresent ("Caution, don't bump into anyone," etc.), these are still very distracting.
The festival itself is a distinctiveness of Kobe, and it just exists since 1995, als commemoration on the great Hanshin-earthquake of the 17th of January 1995, which hit Kobe the hardest. To my knowledge the lights were handed as present by the Italian government and since they are allegedly hand-painted they also have a high artistic value. The lights are being illuminated over a course of time of two weeks on each evening for a couple of hours, and as it is often the case crowds pf people adjourn there: Despite the closing of a couple of streets it takes one ca. 1 1/2 hours until one finally sees the lights, the whole thing has (once again) the character of a folk festival.
More photos, as usual, in the album
Concerning the earthquake itself: At this point just a few marginal facts since it is pretty good described on Wikipedia. It hit Kobe in the morning hours of the 17th of January (at roughly 5:46 o'clock) and is seen as the biggest desaster which ever afflicted the city. Although "only" a little bit over 6000 people lost their lives, the infrastructural damage in the city and the suburbs was immense. Above that, the government in Tokyo completely messed up on the catastrophe management (comparable to the US-government when New Orleans was flooded). Major parts of the city and the harbour were destroyed on such a degree that swaths had to be completely newly built and because of the earthquake Kobe ultimately lost its rank as most important non-oil harbour to Yokohama. Until today the memories are very strong, as exchange student at University I already heard three lectures about the earthquake. However it was also an unparalleled event insofar as help and cooperation beyond borders is concerned and of self-organisation, since the government offices failed to act (even the Kobe-located Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza helped without expecting anything).
If anyone wants to know more details and doesn't really trust in Wikipedia, please contact me after my return, I received several books and infos about it from the University.
On Sunday David and I were once again hiking. This time we crossed the ridge and marched to the Onsen (hot springs) in Arima. These are said to already be in use for around 1000 years (or more) and it is told they were the favourite Onsen of the famous country-unifier Hideyoshi Toyotomi. At any rate many hotels exist in Arima (among them are several luxury ones) and a "big pile" of Onsen establishments.
More detailed annotations concerning Onsen in the next report or else this one would get too long.
On Tuesday I was at a little Christmas celebration of the German Language course (also in one of the next entries: how I got into that course). In any case the second teacher of the course is an Austrian from Bruck an der Mur (Name: Stefan Trummer), the only one I can really speak in a normal manner with, simly in good Austrian. For that reason we arranged the party in a little Austrian fashion, with permission of the "main" teacher, to show the participants how a piece of traditional Christmas looks like, without commerce, commercialism and American kitsch ("American" since in Japan Christmas came for the most part from the US, but we ourselves produce more than enough kitsch). Hence we told them stories about Christmas, where it comes from, "Christkind" instead of Santa Claus, that celebtration is on the eve of the 24th, who is Saint Nicholas etc. and afterwards Trummer-sensei performed a few traditionell carols (as my friends know. I have a hideous singing voice) and the highlight of the evening: The two of us brewed a small pot of hot spiced wine. Since he obtained the ingredients from Austria it was a real original one. The hot spiced wine was well recieved especially with the Japanese professor (he has already been to Graz several times and discovered his love for it there) and with the girl with roots from Ukraine. She would have drunken all of it by herself, for of course we had way too less of it. Like all Japanese celebrations this one also ended on schedule at a predetermined time, regardless for me it was above all a piece of real Christmas.
Interesting (and funny) facts/opinions about Japan:
Whenever public festivals are held in Japan, umpteen people are hired as marshaller, aides and security personell (mostly it's done by private firms under patronage of the police). While at first this seems quite natural gets weird fast for someone from a Western culture, if you set the focus on the traffic aides: There are always several people present to fulfill assignements which are for a visitor himself self-evident without help. One example as clarification: Visitor streams are coming from two sides crossing one street (which is anyway regulated by traffic light) to "merge" and move forward in the same direction. Now, this queuing is not left to the visitors, no, peace officers/wardens periodically stop one stream to let a certain amount of guests of the second to join in, afterwards they alternate. Also, this duty is not done by 1-2 marshaller, more wouldn't be necessary anyway, but by 5 sometimes more people. In short, everything is planned through down to the smallest detail, nothing is left to chance and, God forbid, it came to an outburst of self-initiative. It has more of an amusing effect to the author, but as experienced for oneself during the summer after fireworks in Tokyo, it is indeed pleasing if one looses the way to "his" station in the masses and one can quickly ask the next aid (or take a look at the signs with directions, held up by them).
At the end of the entry there will be a video about it.
In Japanese society this very well makes sense: The visitors feel safe and protected, and go to the festival knowing that someone is always in the background watching over them. The marhaller are given the feeling they are needed and every last one of them fulfills a purpose. For the same reason one can often see old men (age over 60, 70 years), acting as security guards in shopping arcades or as kind of signaler at construction sites. For although they don't serve a real objective purpose, it is important for them personally to have the feeling to still fulfil a function in the society, because they are too old (per law) for "real" work and/or too frail. For that matter, in Japanese society retirement is subjectively often seen as something bad, since one has nothing to do anymore and above all cannot contribute anything to the well-being of the society anymore (what difference to us, see Post office retirements et. al.). For this reason there also exist opinions (for example form one of my professors, Age: 60), which say the government should raise the retirement age, so that people can work longer for their companies. Mind you though, the CHANCE to work longer, NOT the enforcement to it, also in the face of the, especially in Japan, rapid ageing of the population. However, many companies have understandably several reservations to it.
In our next issue a little bit more about it, especially in the view that most divorces in Japan are occuring after the husband is in retirement.
