Kamiyama

This weekend was the Earth Day festival in a little mountain town called Kamiyama. "Kami" means god or spirit and "yama" is mountain. I arrived on the second day at noon. After a 3 hour drive through winding mountain roads that are as wide as alleyways with hairpin corners and sudden drops on either side, I was happy to make it in one piece.

Kamiyama has a program called "Artist in Residence" where, every year, an artist or two from anywhere in the world can come and live in Kamiyama for 5 weeks and work on their art projects while getting to know the local people. It is a very small and close-knit community and they like to get involved. You can read all about it here: http://www.in-kamiyama.jp/en/art They have an NPO organisation and, as the website says, work to keep their community as environmentally friendly and economically independant as possible. So this festival helped to raise money and awareness for their community on Earth Day.



When I arrived a group of Taiko drummers were performing. This group performs every year at the prefecture's Awa-Odori dance festival and also at other gigs around the place. Their drumming is amazing! But I couldn't help but feel like an outsider. Of course, this feeling is nothing new to me as a foreigner in Japan, but when faced with such a closely knit community like that, the feeling is somewhat accentuated. Whats more, these beautiful people didnt seem to have any of the traits that usually make me feel alienated around Japanese people. Nobody was wearing highheels. There was no shiny, straight and perfectly trimmed hair. Nobody seemed to be having mindless heady gossip about where they were going to eat or what their boyfriends were doing. Everyone was just really relaxed and happy, totally unassuming and completely welcoming. So why then was I having so much trouble relaxing? Maybe I had just gotten so used to my Gaijin status that I couldn't break out of it..

Anyway, in Japan, if you are a member of a sub-group of people, be it the punks, the goths, the Yankees (bleached haired kids) or whatever, you are clearly identifiable by your appearance. These kids follow all the rules for clothing and hairstyles and even mannerisms TO THE BOOK. So these lovely people at the festival were all dressed in the most beautiful tie-dyed and embroidered loosely fitting clothes. When I first arrived in Japan I would scoff at this kind of thing, thinking, "Well you think you're being so unique and rebellious when really you're just wearing a different kind of uniform to the other groups." But since then I've realised that this isn't really a fair judgement to make, because they probably don't think they're being unique or rebellious at all. It's more likely that they are proud and happy to be representing their group with such fidelity. If you draw your identity from your group then you want to be damn clear about which group that is. Hence the immaculate uniforms.

Hey! Back to Kamiyama! I was really happy to be at a festival where there were bands playing outside and people sitting on the grass and delicious vegetarian food and markets selling heaps of handmade treasures! And to my absolute delight an old man with a long grey beard and the biggest smile incessantly danced his heart out! Even to the point of stripping down to a loin cloth! My two favourite music groups of the day were a trio called "Eurasian Rung" and a couple who invited up a whole host of different people as guest musicians. Eurasian Rung had a digeridoo, sitar and taiko drum. They had that lovely fluid and easy feel to them that allowed them to build up the rhythm and bring the audience with them. I couldn't STOP myself dancing. The couple was a lady who played an Erhu (2 stringed vertical violin) and a man on keyboard and dig. This lady was AWESOME. They way she used her voice was creative and playful but aaalways musically sound. She started a call and repeat game with the taiko drummer, making the most complicated and rythmically challenging voice licks she could think of and challenging him to imitate her. He succeeded most of the time. She was absolutely beautiful.

So all in all I'm happy (and relieved) to know that there is a community of people not too far away who are alive in ways that I love and can hopefully be a part of sometime in the near future.