This summer I started attending a class off base twice a month. It is a small class, we meet in the bottom of a japanese apartment building and we do what is called kimekomi. Kimekomi is a japanese craft where you make fabric covered balls and dolls (it sounds weird, but is really fun). Anyways, there are usually about 4-5 american women and we meet with 7-8 japanese women. Their husbands are all retired japanese navy and the women all speak excellent english. We all sit together and work on our balls or dolls and then we eat lunch. The japanese provide lunch and americans bring dessert. Lunch is the best part, it is always so fun to see what they make and we eat some amazing things and we also have a lot of fun conversations. They ask us about American things and we ask our japanese questions. Anyways, back in february they took us on a field trip to one of the shrines in Kamakura for Setsubun festival.
Setsubun is the day before the beginning of Spring, always celebrated on February 3rd. One of their traditions is that they throw roasted soybeans. The soybeans celebrate luck and keep evil spirits away. So at all the major shrines they have big festivals and bring in celebrities to throw beans at you. Where we were we had a sumo wrestler, an actor, a writer, a weather woman, etc. that threw the beans along with some priests. Usually the japanese are so orderly and nice, but this was the one time they weren't. What would happen is a whistle would be blown and they celebrities would start throwing beans to the crowd--as they threw beans it was wild. I had little old men and women shoving me out of the way to catch beans--it was like being in a mosh pit. If you get certain packets of beans you can win a prize--the big prizes were t.v.s, rice cookers, etc. I won a set of 5 pairs of chopsticks--they are very nice. This was one of the most interesting festivals I had been to, but I LOVED it--we had a blast.
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| The celebrities with their boxes of beans to throw |
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| Getting ready to throw. |
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| The crowd ready with their bags |
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