Had a good day today - some fun classes (including Twister! note to self: do not start in the gap in the middle of our special large home-made edition - try as you might you cannot do the splits.) and very genki kids, including two 6th grade girls who have hilarious playfights which involve pulling the other's pigtails and using them as motorbike handles, complete with a vroom-vroom throttle. Anyway, one of the homeroom teachers was playing 'London Bridge is falling down' on the guitar in the lesson, and afterwards, I mentioned that I also like playing the guitar and we got chatting:
"...yes yes. I like... Eric Clapton, do you know?"
"Oh yeah he's great - really good stuff."
"Yes. Classic Rock - I like Classic Rock. And Beatles - do you know Beatles?"
"Of course! They're very famous. But I always liked the Rolling Stones growing up."
"Ooh yes yes - I like them. I have, double compilation album."
"Ah yeah - is it Jump Back?"
"Uh no, it has, zipper?" (gestures to trousers)
"Oh right, Sticky Fingers."
"Yes yes. I like, Beesh."
"Beesh?"
"Beesh. You know, duh duh duh duh duh dub duh duh dub..."
"Ah right yes- think I know the one."
"Beesh. About his girlfriend."
"Right. Something like that."
Just got back from a really good trip up the East coast of Japan, starting out in Sendai. It's a very modern feeling city, with huge wide tree-lined boulevards and grid-system streets. There were also some lovely little backstreets crammed with drinking holes that could sit at most six people. It was heavily bombed in the war, and although the streets were apparently rebuilt in the same layout that they had in the 17th century, it's quite hard to imagine the modern city in those times. Anyway, Sendai and the area around was once the fiefdom of the warlord Date Masamune, who was granted it in return for his support of Tokugawa Ieyasu. His family ran it for over 250 years, and in fact his grandson Tadamune married Ieyasu's great-granddaughter, bringing the Dates close to the most powerful family in Japan at the time. He also sent a representative to Rome to make contact with the Pope, but this somehow fell foul of the Spanish seamen that he was relying on for transport. The museum was really interesting, tracing Sendai from prehistory as a fishing village in the Jomon and Yayoi periods, and serving as a mirror for Japanese history as a whole, but the best of their exhibits were from the Date era. As well as his armour and weaponry, there were many original letters that had been written to other warlords, including Ieyasu, which were all on scrolls backed on fabric which could then be rolled and tied around a stick at the top, rather like a window blind.
Most wonderful of all though was the long haiku scroll, which was from a sort of samurai garden party where each major attendant would write a haiku and then during festivities they would all be read out in turn. There were about eight or nine contributers on the scroll, and they read like a who's-who of 17th century warlords: Tokugawa Ieyasu himself, a Hojo (the major family who had ruled before but lost their grip on power), Uesugi (from the north-west), Mori (from central Japan), and of course Date Masamune as well. After the haiku reading, apparently the warlords would voice their intention to retire and mingle, but instead would then dress up as members of the peasantry in order to eavesdrop on conversations. Date would dress up as a Chinaman, and Ieyasu apparently a beggar - I'd really like to find out what the others wore. Can you imagine the conversations between the various retainers and craftsmen who would have had to make the costumes for them? It's only one step above Pug Dog Club Garden Parties.