taiko, what?

last week i spent three of five weekdays driving to haruna(my friend shane's town) to practice traditional japanese drumming. it's called taiko and it's harder than it looks and it looks pretty cool. a lot of japanese kids grow up knowing these 'phat beats' before they reach the age of six, but starting out at age 24 is a bit of a challenge. but hey, i did play timpani in 8th grade for a song in a concert. the reason we practiced? for the haruna matsuri, October 21 2006. we were due to deliver a perfectly polished product at the town center at the end of the evening. the "we" consisted of shane, jamie, and myself; otherwise known as the three gaijin(foreigners) in town.


before our unveiling we participated in the pulling of the floats, called mikoshi. each neighborhood has its own mikoshi and its own groupies. we started the festivities by slamming down some sake and performing a series of claps (two) and bows (three in total). this was a very serious time.

then we proceeded to pull the mikoshi around the neighborhood so all could see the float in its brillance. we even got escorted by the po-pos at one point.

we finally arrived at the town center to meet 12-some other 'hoods' and their mikoshi. everyone was in good spirits as most of the adults were drunk off sake and the kids here are usually in high spirits (i know this because i am a teacher). we were awaiting our big moment. we ate some food, ok, a lot of food, and drank some chu-hi, we were set. then it came. we played for a total of 20 minutes. it was the fastest we had ever played. there was a huge crowd gathered to watch the gaijin play taiko. we did our best and that was all they asked for. as you could say here in japlish "we gambatteimasu-ed".