By the way, we had our first snow about four weeks ago, in October! It was much earlier than in the previous year. A japanese friend of mine assures me that an early first snow will mean that the ‘real’ snow will not begin until even later. The temperature has been yo-yoing up and down over the past few weeks, but can generally just be described as cold. The highest mountains are all capped with snow. (The photo below is from October)
More than one hundred people from the IUJ community piled in to buses, cars or trains on the third weekend of February to attend Tokamachi’s 61st Snow Festival. The Snow Festival in Tokamachi is not only one of the largest of its kind, second only to the Sapporo Snow Festival, but has the distinction of being the oldest snow festival still celebrated in all of Japan. This year the weather coordinated perfectly with the event, as there was steady snowfall throughout the Saturday event (of course, this wasn’t a happy coincidence to everyone).
Tokamachi, a town not far from Urasa that is well known throughout Japan for manufacturing very fine kimono, was filled in nearly every corner with snow sculptures large and small. The statues ranged from a precise, professional miniature of the snow stage, to tiny rudimentary snowmen made in plastic buckets with faces applied using spray paint. The subject matter varied as widely as the size, and the lineup featured different interpretations of the classic snowman, countless variations of the tiger honoring the current year, mascots commemorating the Vancouver Olympics, and even depictions of popular characters like Totoro, Hello Kitty, Chibi Maruko-chan and Anpanman! My personal favorite had to be the huge snow carvings of the temple guardians Agyō and Ungyō, laboriously wrenching a pair of doors, behind which a light was casting a warm glow. This sculpture had a truly magnificent presence, and the energy in the figures combined with the enticing glow of the light made it come alive! (The close second was definitely the Totoro mentioned earlier. He was perfect!)
Small change adds up to a huge difference. Our Haiti Fundraiser is officially over, the posters and donation boxes have been taken down, and our fundraiser week culminated in a gorgeous snow candle memorial ceremony. Around 120 people came out to build snow candles, and two newspapers came to cover the event, including the Asahi Shinbun and the Niigata Nippo! The article in the Niigata Nippo featured a full color photo, and the Asahi Shinbun duplicated their article on the internet edition (sorry, I think it is only available in Japanese)!
My only complaint is that it took so long for me to count all of the change, but it was completely worth it. The photo to the left is the carnage of coin counting as it took over my desk, and by the time I was finished my fingers absolutely reeked of coins (and actually glittered a little bit from fingering all of the aluminum 1 yen coins). Our goal had been to raise 100,000 yen (approximately 1000 USD – a bit more than that with the exchange rate these days), and the Grand Total was 101, 784 yen!
IUJ- IUJ Students’ Earthquake Relief for Haiti
GSO- Haiti Fundraiser a Huge Success
I also received a letter from my grandmother, and a card certifying that she had donated to a charity in my honor. The gift of aiding an organization that is fighting hunger in the poorest of developing countries was so uplifting that it brought me to tears. Thank you, if you’re reading this. You have made me very happy with this thoughtful and sensitive act of generosity.
Lately, I had been a bit concerned that I might have bitten off a lot more than I can chew for this term, but it is times like these that it all gets put into focus and you realize that it is worth it. Every minute of time, every ounce of effort, and every moment of sleep lost adds up to something greater than the sum of these parts.
“Prodigy is, at its essence, adaptability and
persistent, positive obsession. Without persistence,
what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment.
Without adaptability, what remains may be
channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without
positive obsession, there is nothing at all.”
- Lauren Oya Olamina
(from Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler)
The winter is treating me well, and providing a dramatic backdrop. Sometimes the snow creates an illusion that we are living in a monochrome, early TV era where black and white preside. The urge to get some ink on paper becomes overwhelming with sights like this.
