Christmas

Contrary to popular belief, Japanese people do celebrate Christmas.

Well, they celebrate Christmas the same as how it's becoming in the West: as an entirely commercial holiday. Our Christmas, where everyone in the family gets together and exchanges presents, is their New Year; their Christmas is more like our New Year (an excuse to get drunk, mostly).

A couple of weeks ago we saw the first Christmas decorations being sold in the home store, and about three days ago I heard the first Christmas music being played in a shop. It was one of those moments when you hear Mariah Carey's voice singing "I don't want a lot for Christmas..." and you feel like curling up in a ball and screaming NOOOOOOOOOO...

Generally my rule is: If it's not December, it's not Christmas yet. When it becomes December, I shall give in and buy a very small fake Christmas tree from the 100 yen store to put in my room, but until then I shall not acknowledge it.

Oh, hang on... by writing this, was I acknowledging it?

Autumn

This is my university campus as it was at the beginning of November. I just wanted to share this because the leaves are turning and it looks stunning at the moment - apparently Japan is famous for its autumn scenery.

Even though the sky is still blue, it recently got very cold very quickly, and everyone is now wearing coats and scarves. They don't heat the classrooms until December, either, so we sit shivering.

At least I finally worked out how to turn the heating up in my room...

まつり(matsuri)

This weekend was the university festival. In England, and apparently in America, we have nothing that remotely resembles a Japanese school or university festival. For a school one, every class in the school decides on a stall or a performance, but at the university there are all sorts of groups, so it's huge.

We arrived quite late, at 4pm, and it was already getting dark so unfortunately I have no photos, but I will try and describe it. There was a small stage outside the Education Faculty building, on which the 'Miss Education Faculty' contest was being held, with an audience of maybe 200. Walking for 5 minutes across the campus, there was a large area of stalls, mostly food - yakisoba, ramen, fried chicken (kara-age), beer - and then the main stage.

When we got there, the main stage was occupied by a very good a-capella singing group, doing covers of famous Japanese pop songs, who made way for a similar group singing Western stuff. Then came a fashion show, which I guessed was put on by the fashion department. After that, though, was the highlight - the university's 10 or so hip-hop dance troupes, each performing for a few minutes. Hip-hop dance is huge in Japan, and some of the troupes had 40 or more people in them. There were a couple of all-female ones, a couple of all-male ones, some with equal male and female, and one with a single girl, who was brilliant to watch and completely held her own with all the guys. All of them were fantastic.

Finally, when they were all finished, there was a huge fireworks display to round everything off. I really wish English universities had events like this - the atmosphere was brilliant.