Halloween in Japan?!

HaLLoWeeN

There was a Halloween Day at the bar where I work at. A lot of people came with their costume and were enjoying the atmosphere which is different with the usual days. Even though, Halloween is supposed to be an Christian event, it is becoming one of the Japanese's event and they have parties all over.

The Getting Candles

When I was reading a newspaper today, I found a very interesting article which was saying that there is a similar event to Halloween in Japan. On August 7 in the evening, children go around their neighbor's house and say "Give me candles or we will scratch you!!" at the entrance. Then people at the house give them small gift such as a little money and snacks. It is called Getting Candles and it is a part of the Star Festival. This was mainly held in Sapporo and Hokkaido which was the northern part of Japan until 30 to 40 years ago. The article explained that it is still popular in some areas of Hokkaido.

The area where I grow up or neither of my prents' home town do not have such event. So this article was very interesting and I was very surprised about the fact that there was something similar to Halloween but has been done for something completely different event in Japan.

The Drill

There was the drill at Shirokane Takanawa today from 9:30-11:30. It was the community people gather together and experience the work of the fireman such as fire fighting and chain saw training, and experience the situation at the real fire.

The issue to think about

The disaster training were very useful to know what we should do at the real situation, however, people there were talking about a serious problem. They are worried about the foreigners who live in the Minato-word because foreigners do not know anything when there is any disaster. Therefore, they are trying to make opportunity to let foreigners to know information about the disaster by putting a translator at the drill training. However, there were no foreigners at all other than people from Temple. Usually, those drill trainings are for the neighborhood associations and people notice those events by looking at the circular bulletin. However, foreigners do not belong to those community and they don't know the way to inform such things to the foreigners.

The fire fighting demonstration by Shinagawa Prince Hotel.

People are watching the demonstration.

Emergency food tasting.

Minatoku Project: Interview with Nittasan

Leading to the Minatoku-kiumin festival, we interviewed Nittasan to interview him about the festival; how and why Temple started to join this festival as participants. We also asked him about the relationship with Minatoku now and in future.

Temple is perticipating some Minatoku community activities such as the festivals(Azabu festival as well), the drill training, teaching Japanese teachers how to teach English. Moreover, there are some students who goes to public schools in Minato word to teach japanese to kids who moved from abroad and have not been able to ajust to the Japanese school, culture, and language. According to Nittasan, local people know the name of Temple more than he expected. However, he wants people to know more about Temple and raise its popularity among the community. So maybe in future, in return of Temple doing volunteers and other things for this community, they will let up use their facilities and recognize us as a part of them.

Minatoku Project: the change of the theme

For the final project we were planning to do about Minatokuminn festival. Since it is Tokyo story class, we wanted to do something traditional Japanese. The traditional Japanese festival is something that is unique about Japan. So Nao and I were going to do project about Minatkuminn-festival.

But after we went to shoot the festival we had chance to talk with Nitta-san and we decided to expand the topic of our project. We got the idea from class today. So our theme will be "how it is for foreigners to go into the Japanese society feat. Temple." We decided to include Temple's activities with Minatoku, because Temple is a foreign university which is trying to be a part of Japanese community as a foreign institution. As the second step of our project, we are having an interview with Nittasan to interview him about the Minatokuminn-festival and other activities that Temple is doing to interact with Minatoku.

みなと区民祭り / Minato Citizens' Festival

'07 Minto Citizens' Festival was held on October 6 and 7, for two days at Shiba park and the areas around the park, such as Tokyo Prince Hotel and Zojyo-Temple.

The areas were divided into six areas and each area had different concept. For example, Prince Hotel area was named as "Concourse of gourmand and alcohol from all over the world" and people could enjoy unique food from 13 different countries such as Cuba, India, Australia.

Moreover, there was "Home Product area" in front of the Minato word office. This area had food, alcohol, sweets from all over Japan and many people were enjoying different food from different areas at the table which was prepared in the middle.

Other than the booth, there were parade by 26 groups of 2000 people, and performance by different groups on stage such as dance, Martial arts, and chorus.

HISTORY

This festival was first started to create a place where people communicate with each other. The festival has been held for 26 years and number of perticipants increased year by year. Now this festival has grown up to one of the major event in Minatoku which mobilize more than two hundred thousand people. Compare to other festivals, this festival is very safe because all the booth are managed by shopping arcade community people and organization which is approved by Minato-ku, and it contains no Tekiya(mountebank) which is booth paticurally come to festivals to sell their products and most of the time it is related to Yakuza.

I had chance to talk with two people from Red Brick shopping arcade who has been doing booth at this festival since it's started. They said "it had no publicity when its started, and there were not many people who can buy our products which we were selling. So we bought food from each other's booth to help each other." They also said they are very surprized that this festival had grown to this big, and very international as well. 26 years ago, there were almost no foreigner at this festival but the foreign participants has been growing along with the festival growth. I asked them what they expect the festival to be from now on and they answered, "We expect it to continue growing and being held so people from Minatoku have a place to communicate. It is one of the very important tradition for Minatoku People and also for shopping arcade community in Minatoku. So we hope it to never die out."

TEMPLE

Temple was also involved in this festival from this year. There were volunteer workers from Temple which come and help out this festival from several years ago, but this year was the first time for them to be deeply invorved. Total of 4 groups from Temple joined this festival and make Temple's name known to more people.

Three Days Project

DUBLINER'S (DUB)

It is an Irish Pub in Tamaike-Sanno station. It is located on the B1 floor in the Tameike-sanno Park Tower which is a very tall office building and contains a lot of well known both Japanese and foreign companies. I have never closely observed this pub before. There were new interesting findings which I had never been aware of.

There are three reason for me to choose this place for my project.

1. I work here and to know my working place more from the customer point of view
2. I was curious why people choose to come to this bar/ What motivate them to come
3. I wanted to know what this place is like to people who often come here

In this building, there are also some other bars, cafes, and restaurants to go to. But they all are either Japnaese or Asian styled and the Dub is the only Western styled bar in the building.

OBSERVATION
Normally, this bar has about 1/4 of foreigners and 3/4 of Japanese. Customer's age group tend to be younger than other restaurants and bars in this building. Avarage seemed to be between 20s' to 50s'.
The first thing that I found was the different style of drinking between Japese
and Foreigners.
While drinking, Japanese people usually order a lot of food from apatizer to main dish and sometimes desert. They eat more than they drink. However, foreigners especially Westerners only order one or two finger food and they drink more.
Period of time they stay at the bar also differs between foreigners and Japanese. Japanese stay for the longer period of time compare to foreigners.
The second interesting that I found is about the tables.
There are three types of tables in this bar; high and low tables, and counter tables. Counter tables are connected to either bar or the narrow table which you can maybe put your drink and maximum two plates of food. And low tables are as tall as the ones you see at a regular restaurant. The interesting this along with these tables are; foreigners tend to sit on either tall table or the counter, and some don't even sit and just stand while they are drinking. On the other hand, most of Japanese prefer the low tables.

INTERVIEW
Through the observation and the interview, I found that a lot of people tend to be the "repieters" who come here quite often. All the people whom I interviewed first came here because their co-workers brought them here. Most of them have been here for quite long time since they first came here. The longest time was nealy four years and even the shortest one have been here for a year. Here is the interviews that I had with both customers and a worker.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT DUBLINER'S??

INTERVIEW ZUESTIONS
Why did you started to come here?

What motivate you to continue coming here since then?

What do you like about Dubliner's?

If you discribe Dubliner's in one word, what would you say?

INTERVIEWS*~Audio~*

• Customer

(Male worker, 24 years old) *Click to hear*

(Female worker, 29 years old) *Click to hear*

(Male worker, 43 years old) *Click to hear*

(Female worker, 25 years old) *Click to hear*

• Staff

(Female, 23 years old) *Click to hear*

SPACE

Living Space

Japanese people pay more money for less living space than people live in other countries. Especially if you are living in the city, you must pay huge amount of money for a tiny 1LDK apartment. For example, my friend was living by her self in an apartment in Philadelphia. The apartment was in a pretty nice area and she lived in a two LDKs apartment. She only paid $600 a month for the apartment while she was paying about $900 a month for much smaller apartment in Tokyo. Living in Japanese cities are very expensive and cramp.

Moreover, everything must be squeesed into a small space since the living spaces are very small. The word "rabbit hutch"seems to be the best definition to express the situation of Japanese houses in the city. It seems also true that a lot of Japanese people only go back to their house to sleep. Some peopole do work, hang out, relax, and much more things at home. However, people are more likely to go back to their house just to sleep.

Other Spaces

I strongly agree that the home for Japanese have much less meaning compare to Western people. In the U.S, almost all the collage students go back to see their family during the vacation even if the vacation is short. When I was staying with my host family for a year, my host brother who was softmore in college came back every single vacation even on the weekends even if he had to drive three hours for one way. My host mother and sisters were also very crazy about him comming back home. It was very supplizing and even too much for me at the time. But later I figured that it is not the strange scene to be seen in the U.S.

I don't fully agree with the author when he stated " the Japnese male enjoys a plurality of homes... the office, the favorite bar, the favorite coffee shop." I don't think those places will not be like home for them. Those places are certainly their favorites and the space where they can relax and be apart from their pressure of their life. Moreover, as it was mentioned in the reading "Frusato" is the term which expresses the meaning of home in Japanese.