Farewell Party

Thanks for the going away party my friends!







Thanks to my cousin Danny and the Catch-22 Lounge for hosting the party.
www.catch22lounge.com

Danny & Laikens Wedding

My cousin Danny got married to his girlfriend Laiken at the First Baptist Church in Golden. It was strange to be back in the old stomping grounds of my college years.

And weddings are funny things anyways. I'm situated in a room full of people and I don't recognize many of them. I'm not sure if I should Is that my second cousin, what's their name? The guilt at not recognizing your own family...

After seeing weddings from some Asian cultures, I try and see the festival through a foreigner's eyes. What would a Laos person think about all of this?

I get seated with the rest of the rowdy family members - in the corner. It was good to Corky and Carol and plan family camping trips for this summer. To see Betty, Susie, Norm and Brittany. How is it that I don't have a picture of her yellow pumps?!? Good to see Danette, Larry and Scooter. Ed and Karen and Joleen were all preoccupied with wedding stuff.



Somehow I don't have a single decent picture of Danny & Laiken. I'll post one when they send one to me.

Thanksgiving '08

Images of Thanksgiving 2008. That's what Thanksgiving is to me: family, raspberry pie and playing cards.




Before & after.

Respect for the Aged Day (keiro no hi)

The third Monday in September is keiro no hi, a national holiday to celebrate long life, and show respect for the elders of society.

The community meets at the local temple to invite the spirit into the mini shrine. The door in the mini shrine is opened to let the spirit inside and given gifts. Once inside, the yukata clad lads from the neighborhood bounce the shrine around on their shoulders while chanting.

At night paper lanterns are strewn across the square and everyone eats and drinks. Men and women take turns playing the drums and everyone dances to thank the spirits for a good harvest.

Laa's Wedding

A wedding for one of my English students. Eat strange, delicious foods. Drink beerlao. Dance the lam vong lao. Repeat.

What really strikes me Laos weddings is how simple and much fun they are. The reception was held in the dirt road between Laa's house and her neighbor. A keyboard, an electric guitar, a microphone and a bunch of speakers. That's right, if people aren't willing to play instruments and sing there would be no music. I can only imagine trying this in the US, it would be dead silence... My favorite was a little old lady that didn't bother with dance partners and simply rocked out to every song.

The culinary treat for me this night was buffalo skin straight from the fire. You take a strip of buffalo skin and toss it in the fire. It resembles a rib from a cow except beneath the dry outer layer of skin you can feel squishy inside. After you remember that you tossed a strip in the fire you fish it out with a stick and scrape off the charred outside with a knife. A chewy, buffalo skin, aptly named Jerky Buffalao.

birthday parties

Not sure why every Buddhist monk I am friends with has a birthday in January... Photos from the monk birthday parties in January!

Merry Christmas from Colorado

Lots of snow back home...


My family...


and my Christmas present...

Merry Christmas from Laos

First time its ever snowed in Laos...

Merry Christmas!

Baci Ceremony

We were told that today was a particularly lucky day to hold a Baci ceremony as it was the new moon that starts the new year. When a orange-robed novice monk shows up at your guesthouse inviting you to attend a Baci ceremony what else can you say but yes? And that's how I met Sipon the novice monk...

The adventure started with a Mekong river crossing in a pirogue, a motorized craft carved from a single tree trunk. Picture a grandma totting a rooster in a bamboo cage, a throng of young girls returning home from selling "lucky birds" and bracelets, a novice monk named Sipon and three volunteer English teachers all overflowing in a boat a few inches off the Mekong.

We walked the thirty minutes of the dirt road to the Hmong village and were introduced to the village headman with hands raised as if in prayer, the nop of greeting.

The table was decorated with a marigold and banana leaf cone similar to the Krathong of Thailand. Two bowls were filled with the contents of a chicken

The Baci ceremony consisted of touching the table and saying a few prayers for good luck and fortune. Then each member of the family tied a bundle of white cotton fibers around each wrist of all of the guests while saying individualized prayers and gently giving a two-handed handshake. A feast of chicken and cooked vegetables was laid out on the best linens (banana leaves) on the floor with sticky rice.

In a show of friendship, the headman put his hand on my knee. Luckily I had seen this cultural sign before and understood it to be a sign of friendship...

Its amazing how far a few words in a foreign language will get you. By learning just a few key phrases in the local language I speak infinitely more Lao than the typical tourist and its times like these that make me so happy to be able to communicate with my hosts. Even if just a little.

We were offered shots of backyard hooch called, "Lau Lao". As we drank the potent homemade rice whiskey, the hosts seemed to enjoy our gnarled faces the most... After each shot of whiskey we were handed a piece of chicken. Interesting to note that we were handed generous pieces of the best meat...

As things were being cleared we were asked if we wanted to buy beer. From the western perspective its a little strange to be invited to a party and then told to buy beer... But we had to remind ourselves that we have more money in our wallets than the whole village makes in month. For them this party was an investment... An investment in the education of their children... So we each kicked out the equivalent of a few dollars. The headman's wife returned a little while later with Pepsi's for everyone. She said the store was closed, but we weren't sure if that meant the store was closed or we hadn't contributed enough for the beer fund...

If you look close at some of the photos you can see the red-ringed mouths of some of the Grandmas who were chewing betel... Also interesting to note was the poster of UXO (unexploded ordinances) on the bamboo wall of their home...

Loi Krathong festival

Was lucky enough that my week of layover in Bangkok between Japan and Laos landed on a major festival called Loi Krathong that is celebrated on the full moon night of the 12th lunar month (mid-November). Also known as the Festival of Lights, the banks of the Chao Phraya river shine with Krathong and boom with fireworks.

The word Loi means to float and Krathong is a cup created with banana leaves in the shape of lotus petals and adorned with flowers, incense, candles and coins. People dress in their finest clothes and make a wish before drifting their Krathong onto the river. The floating of the Krathong is intended to expel all sins and sufferings as well as ask for amnesties to the Goddess of the River in contaminating her bounty.

I thought it was interesting they floated a bunch of junk, albeit beautiful at night, to ask forgiveness for "contaminating her bounty". Heard a second explanation that the ritual is meant to worship the Buddha's footprint on the bank of the Narmada River...



And then there were fireworks. Although not as impressive as Japanese fireworks in terms of size, the proximity to the crowds certainly made up for it. My chest was reverberating with each shell they exploded...

Apparently the festivals vary quite a lot across Thailand. A friend staying in Chiang Mai described thousands of Khom Fai released into the air. Imagine mini hot air balloons floating in the sky instead of the river. Sounded interesting..

Loi Krathong

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from Bangkok everyone!

Send me photos of your feast and family and I will post them here if you like.

Traditional Japanese Concert

Today was a day of concerts and festivals! Yina took me to a concert for traditional Japanese music. The first piece was three women each playing a stringed instrument called a koto. Each koto was slightly different: a normal koto, a bass koto, and a soprano koto; no doubt each with a unique Japanese name but I only know the generic name. After each song, they would reconfigure which instruments were to play. The women also played the shamisen, a fretless, three-string guitar with that traditional Japanese sound. Twangy, dissonant and dramatic. A man was playing a shakuhachi, a large bamboo flute with a haunting meditative sound.

They played a variety of songs, some the subject of nature: rain, mtns and the like. One song surprised me, they played a song about 9-11 that is apparently quite popular around Japan.

We took dinner at the Asian month festival. Unfortunately it was raining, but they had a stage set up for various Asian performances and a slew of Asian food stands. we ate Thai shrimp noodles, Chinese rice tamales, gyoza and egg rolls, Japanese veggie pancakes. It was all delicious. The show that evening was Thai dancing. Two women wearing intricate colorful costumes. One with long golden fingernails and wings the other with ornate spinning squares on her back. The men wore a dancing sheep costume with lots of character. Scratching himself. The kids loved him.

Kagoshima Festivals

So my friends are famous... I just thought they like to play the guitar and drink beer on the patio. They took me to a summer festival at the meat packers plant where they were the headlining band! We met up with one of their friends, Una, a local Okinawan guitar celebrity.

I knew I was in for good treatment when we arrived and the president of the plant immediately gave us as much shochu and beer as we could drink.

While my friends got ready to play, I looked for a good place to take pictures and videos. Lots of yatai stands selling beer and shochu and all kinds of pork products. They had roped off an area for the VIPs in the middle near the sound guy that would be perfect... So I decided to sneak in (if a 6 foot tall white guy can sneak anywhere) to the VIP area and take an unoccupied table near the front. One guy took a liking to my ability to speak Japanglish and said I had to meet someone, the "top guy" in Kagoshima. I wasn't sure what to make of it all, but OK... The man I was introduced to really is the "top guy" in the Kagoshima perfecture, the representative to the Japanese government for the whole perfecture. The equivalent of a congressman back home... A few shochu and kamupai later we were good buddies watching the show. This Japan place is crazy.



After the show we adjourned to the meat packers bar with the president for more drinks. And karaoke! The whole bar was singing and dancing. Our friend Hiromi arrived late to the festival and wasn't able to sing Nada So So; I was glad she got a chance to sing it at the bar.

Yamaga Toro Matsuri

The town of Yamaga is obsessed with the lantern; it has its own museum, it is on the manhole covers, it is everywhere! The lanterns are made out of gold and silver paper by hand, each one taking three days to complete. The dance is said to commemorate a visit by the legendary Emperor Keiko when the villagers greeted them with one thousand torches. The tradition of lighting the streets has continued to the present day.

The first night is the fireworks display, it was amazing, and it lasted for an hour and a half! Yina forgot the mat so we spread out paper from a pamphlet to sit on, like a homeless person. The show reminded me of the E-days fireworks show at CSM from the days of old. Huge fireworks that are so close that your chest reverberates with the firing of every shell. And there were commercials. There was a pause every once in a while, a name would light up and the announcer would give the credit. Odd, but I actually enjoyed the moment to reset my brain and eyes before the next round of fireworks. All along the river, yatai stands were set up selling all kinds of food and beer. Yina bought me octopus on a stick and soba noodles. Delicious!

The second night was the dance of one thousand Yamaga Toro women. Imagine just after sunset, one thousand women dancing with lanterns on their heads and wearing white yukata. I couldn't imagine it either. But it was amazing to see them all dancing in unison to sound of traditional biwagaku music.

It was a wonderful experience to be in Yamaga during the annual Toro Festival. Just walking around the town, I felt like a celebrity, everyone wanted to know where I was from. Such a friendly small town. Thanks Yina for organizing such a great trip. Sugoi desu ne?












The music is absolutely addicting. I tried posting a video, let me know if it works or not.

Hiroshima Peace Festival

The Peace Festival was amazing. And powerful. It was a lot to take in for just a single day and I am still digesting it all in my head... There were so many photos. There were so many people. So much noise and action.

The festival started with speeches from the mayor of Hiroshima and the prime minister and other VIPs followed by a moment of silence at exactly 8:15. The entire city was quiet for that one minute. A city as big as Hiroshima entirely silent. Every person was thinking the same thing: those poor people, the war, the politics.

This apparent degree of organization was followed by chaos. Anyone and everyone who had　something to say could just carve themselves out a space in the park and make noise. Or hand out leaflets. Groups would hang graphic photos of a-bomb victims on the fence around the dome. Groups of monks drumming. A flag ceremony with every country in the world. Origami crane folding sessions. Children's book readings. Korean demonstrations. Iraqi demonstrations. It was very moving although it felt more like a funeral than a peace festival.

That night there was a floating lantern ceremony. Thousands of colored-paper floating lanterns with writing on them were released into the river. Children would put hordes of the lanterns into the river together. It was all very scenic. Too scenic in fact, the photographers were almost coming to blows to get the best spot with the A-bomb dome in the background.

I was a little skeptical about attending the festival as an American, I wasn't sure how I would be received. It could not have been better, in fact, I almost felt like a celebrity. Everyone wanted to ask me questions. Questions about my perspective on WWII and history. Questions about America. Questions about the current war in Iraq. Questions about my perspective on Japan.

The dome at night reminds me of R2D2.

There are many, many more photos online on my flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-bug/sets/72157601248349995/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-bug/sets/72157601244030990/

Karaoke Competition

Went to Ueno park to see the museums and enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the park to stave off jet lag. The Tokyo National Museum was loads of fun, all kinds of great exhibits. The Buddhism special exhibit had a lot of great sculptures and paintings but little for English explanations. Bought some funny fish stuff and a drink from a convenience type store and had a picnic lunch in the park. Very peaceful except some bugs were biting me and I didn't realize it until too late. I'm screwed if I go to a country with malaria, my blood is just too sweet. ha. The weird thing about this place is that they have these umbrella lockers outside every building. They work just like a locker with a key and a little hole for the handle - these folks must have some fancy umbrellas!

That night they had set up lanterns and booths for a street carnival along the bank of the pond (full of turtles, koi, and flowering lily pads) at the NW end of the park. Lots of street vendors selling their wares and the Japanese version of carnie food. I heard music down by the pagoda and went to investigate, this iｓ where things got a little crazy...

Looking through the wrought iron fence, I could see five guys wearing tights. They looked Japanese but had painted their entire skin, except their ears - I thought they were some sort of indigenous acrobatic tribe at first. I had to get inside to see what this was about.

I took a seat at the back of the stadium style seating inside the pagoda. Could not tell what was happening at first, lots of singing and silly dancing, crazy costumes and terrible singing... It was a karaoke performance! Some random guy was handing out beers to the suits sitting next to me and he decided I needed a beer too. What a nice guy! He must have spotted me as the obvious stiff in the crowd and thought I needed a beer. He came back later and gave me another Asahi and a bento box of sushi! Turns out he was the VP of the Japan Travel Bureau of Tokyo and he was putting on this event! 14 sets of terrible karaoke singing later and we were friends. Well, a bit tipsy at least.

Not bad for the first full day in Tokyo, culture shock 0 : Japanese friendliness 1.