Postcard from - Asama Onsen, Matsumoto, Japan

This was a lot of fun!

In all the years (decades) I've lived up here in Central (and rural) Japan, I've always managed to miss this really cool, really local, really smoky festival. Stupid me!

The Taimatsu Festival is a really traditional festival through the narrow streets of Asama Onsen, nestled above Matsumoto city. Local groups/clubs/businesses/neighbourhoods drag/haul/carry or wheel their huge straw bundles up the hill to Jinguji Shrine - usually utterly deserted & unvisited...I don't think I've ever been up this particular little hill myself.

Faces blackened with soot, straw bales kindled & fanned into life, and the air full of encouraging taiko drum beats - and welcomed to the destination bonfire beside the shrine by the firefighters' bugles!

The usual matsuri yatai selling takoyaki, grilled squid, okonomiyaki etc + less traditional 'doner' kebabs (sic), and the chance to bump into ex-students in the dark...sights & sounds of the lesser travelled parts of Japan well-worth discovering & exploring, photographing & enjoying. 

My photographer advice = come early, scope out a decent perch or two - a small pair of steps will give you excellent above head-height vantages. And walk about, talk to folks, get fun-groupies - this yomp up the hill stops every couple of minutes - migrate down the hill & 'do' a different group at each rest stop. Forget the fireworks though - a distraction. Once a year this shrine is the focus - grab a free sake and enjoy the buzz. Let the town come to you on a lovely autumn night!

Tourism 101 in Azumino

Image via Wikipedia

Luna was asked recently to help the good people of Azumino get a step ahead in their ambitions to develop tourism locally. Jim has been involved with the Yokoso Matsumoto project for a couple of years now (as has Tana more recently), and is glad to be contributing to our neighbouring "city's" outreach too.

This evening 20 local business operators in the local tourist industry took part in a two and a half hour introductory workshop with Jim. All participants were self-declared "beginners" (some more so than others). The aim this evening was to give a lot of encouragement, as quickly as possible, in genuinely useful situations. For Jim, it was actually unusual to have a group of people in such urgent need of even basic English - and therefore very challenging to provide relevant, simple language.

How do you satisfy 20 people from different sectors of the tourist trade with little in common other than location and a large 'fear of English' factor? Not possible. What you can do is facilitate their latent learning (8+ years through school for a start) & in-service experience to speak up - with a template. Give them a pattern to form their language around, show there is a place to start and that they 'can do'.

Today, speaking was top priority - overcoming that "Oh my God. A foreigner has rocked up & wants to check in" syndrome. Name, rank & number. Observe, practice, do!

Some useful language - counting is 'different' in Japan. Foreigners don't know katakana (the most useless script ever) so "How do you spell that?" has to be Q1a at a hotel/ryokan, doesn't it?

Time flew; the Shimin Times lady came, flashed, and went. Everyone made new friends, English questions and answers in the air (Jim's threat to charge Japanese usage with a beer tax was taken seriously). Everyone got the chance to practice some simple exchanges, and it looked like everyone relaxed and got a lot out of the evening.

What do you think?