When I started writing this, I was wearing this shirt on the bullet train back from Ishinomaki. I firstly apologise for not posting for a few days, but I have been so busy. For what I firstly thought was a ghost town, it gets pretty busy...
We woke on Monday morning in our hostel, knowing we had a workshop today and that we would be working with Japanese teenagers, some affected by the tsunami, and that was it. We all took the short walk up to the hall where we were to be productive.... which had the shutters down. Not quite productive as we'd hope. However, our Japanese comrades were there, and we began the formalities. We introduced ourselves, and everyone Japanese seemed very excitable. I got recognised as 'the one who wrote the blog', and it felt ace!
We finally got in the building, and I started to two young Japanese teenagers, Mari & Noritosi, and that's where we hit the language wall a bit. Not everyone speaks the perfect Queens English. Noritosi didn't really speak it. I was essentially speaking the Cockney Rhyming Slang equivalent of sign language. It was quite fun, actually
With all workshops, you have to start with introductory games (if you don't play games, you're running your workshop wrong). The first we played was a Japanese playground game, where you build houses and "crabs" move in. Lots of running, lots of sweating. We then played another game. This one was my favourite.
We had to draw each other without looking at the paper. If you know me in real life, you will know my artistic skills are.... shoddy at best, so not looking at the paper, and staring at the persons face, whilst pulling a part gurning part concentrating face isn't the best way to make a first impression. My drawing looked awful. We then had to ask each other questions, and then introduce our partner to the group by pretending to be them. Showing them my 'skills', then saying I love shopping for girly things and Hello Kitty really makes a great first impression. Everyone was lovely though.
We then were taken around the city by a guy from the Ishinomaki 2.0 base called Yoichi. He was a total dude. We left the base.
The tour hit hard.
So much emptiness. So much damage still there. I was told that people are still scared of helicopters, as when the tsunami hit, the rescue people came in cars, not helicopters. The helicopters were just the news crews reporting the news, not saving lives. It was just weird.
However, the sense of community is so much stronger because of it. Everyone seems to be together for making 'the most interesting town on earth'. There's just too much debate over what to do with it.
We then headed out to lunch, some of us English, some Japanese, and I had possibly the greatest noodles ever. It's a big shout, I know, but they were that good. I should also point out that I am well versed in the art of chopsticks now.
We headed back to the hall, and we showed the Japanese what we (Heads Together/ ELFM/ Two Valleys) are all about, which was quite cool, and then we told stories from 3 people about their experiences about the earthquake, and what has happened to their lives since then.
The first was told by a guy called Kohei. He was in school when the earthquake hit (as were he other two, but I'll get onto them later). His home was destroyed, and so had to move into temporary accommodation. However, since the monstrosity of the earthquake, his life has constantly been on the up. He started performing his home's traditional dance in the town he was staying. The people of the new town asked them to perform at the town's festival, and since then, the group have been invited to perform around the world, even in places as far as Austin, TX, literally the other side of the world.
The second was told by a girl called Suku. The beginnings are quite similar to Kohei's story, but told the story of what was essentially 'youth power'. A group of her colleagues put together a group, so they could have a voice in what direction the re-building the city would take. They decided that they wanted a community centre for all people could put forward ideas, and presented it to the mayor, and hey-ho, it got built. Teenagers are powerful people, y'know guys. We're not all bastards.
The final story was told by Asuka, who has done a ton of stuff since the earthquake. In her own words, the earthquake motivated her so much that she had to something. She started working at a youth radio station, founded an online television station, founded the Ishinomaki tour (where you get shown lots of shopping opportunities), and has even visited America. It's a lot, ain't it?
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| Pout skills levelling over 9000 |
When the workshop was done, me and Ruby were asked to go do an interview for the local radio station... and I was pretty knackered by this point. I think I almost dozed off as we were being introduced. But everything went swimmingly, and then I spent the rest of the evening writing blogs for you guys (these things take time man). Niall was absolutely spent.
We woke up the next morning in our hostel, quite eager to be productive. I walked over to the girls hostel, where the communal space was, and Alex was working on a song. When Asuka showed us her online videos, she showed us a guy playing a song he'd written, summing up th feelings of the earthquake, and more about what the station was about. Alex used these words as a translation for a song, and... it gave chills.
When the song was done, we then took what was the now semi-traditional walk to the convenience store for a traditional breakfast of... French pastries...
We started the workshop in what should be the official, traditional way of starting any workshop - which is with games. Somebody is 'it', and you have to stop them sitting on the empty chair. Lots of running, lots of sweating, lots of bonding. S'all good.
We then were put into our groups, with each group having one of the 'storytellers' in them, and my group had Asuka. We were told our work had to be in three sections, and based on Asuka's story, and then we were left on our own. Some people in the group had the idea of setting the first section immediately after the tsunami hit, the second section being based around people's feelings and emotions a few months after the tsunami, and the final section detailing Asuka's work. To differentiate these sections even more, we did the first section as a poem, the second as a song, and the third as a drama/script kinda thingy. I worked on the second part, the song, mostly...... and it was stressful to say the least.
There wasn't really that many instruments around, just a piano and a guitar, and they were both being used, so I nicked Adrian's iPad, and essentially just messed around with drum machines and retro synths for a good hour at least. There are not enough synths in the world. I blame folk and David Guetta.
After getting the basic bits going, and making it sound like you were in the man's room who sold you those 'dodgy' cigarettes, it got to the hard bit of writing the words. I'm a shocking lyricist by the way. I was proud of this though.
I wrote the shoddiest chorus on the planet. It was so cheesy, and corny. I was being really selfish as well; it was my work, nobody else got to see it until I finished it. And then I got a tap on the shoulder. Aokin, the woman who was working with us and also acting as a translator, asked me what the rest of the group should do. I panicked, and said the first thing that came to my head - 'sing that in Japanese'. So they translated it, and we rehearsed it over and over so we could record it later, and I got super stressed. So much stuff to record, I had probably over-complicated it, and I was doing an awful job at explaining what the hell was going on.
Eventually, we got called in. We had 20 minutes to record everything we'd done. This didn't help with the stress levels. We got the other two parts (the poem and the drama) just about done, but we were out of time to record the song. After panicking and a hell of a lot of confusion, we went to our/the boys hostel to record the song.
We got back to the room (make your 'taking girls back to the room' jokes now) and ran through it a few times. This was a good thing. We weren't rushed, no pressure, we just took our time to get it right.
We got chills. We got serious vibes. There was just something there. Alex recorded his song that he'd written that morning too, and we felt the same thing. We came out of that room absolutely beaming, on a massive high. It felt awesome. Alex said he'd like to record it properly some time, but I don't think we'll get as close to coming out of it feeling like this.
We then went out to get some food, and after spending ages looking for a restaurant... we just raided the convenience store, and chilled back at the office space/communal area/whatever you want to call it at the girls hostel. It was just nice to have some time off after what was essentially a big 11 hour day. I apologise for not writing this then, but I lacked electronic device nor energy.
Our last day in Ishinomaki started weirdly, because it was a relatively relaxed day. All we knew would be that we were performing, and then we just had time to go and chill out all by ourselves. No plans. What?
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| Team Photo! |
However, of the few remaining Japanese people that had remained in Ishinomaki, they came to the girl's hostel, and we started rehearsing what we'd written. I felt a lot better about the song, and really good about the whole piece, but it just didn't feel as good as the night before. Everything went swimmingly, though, so it was all good.
We were supposed to be playing outside on the day, which I was really looking forward to, but then it did that typical English thing and rained. Even in Japan, we can't escape it. So as a last minute thing, we were moved into a kimono shop to perform.
Kimono shops make brilliant gig venues. Honestly, they do. There was a little elevated stage bit too, which was badass. We (Excess Baggage/$w4gg@ge/Cabbage/Marriage etc.) opened it all up! It went so well, we were asked to do an encore! Which I did without my guitar plugged in. Oh. It was a shit heap of fun though.
Some 10 year olds played after us, and I got jealous. They were ace. At ten. I'd never even touched a guitar at that age, let alone wrote a song. So many girls won over with the cute factor too, we didn't get that (or did we? ;) ). But yeah, I think we were out-played by children.
A girl from Asuka's online show then came and shoed everybody the song that Alex based his song on (am I confusing you yet?), and then it was time to show what we'd been working on.
Grace's group came on first, and they had worked on Kohei's story. Part drumming, part poem, part song, all stitched together by acoustic guitar, t'was rather nice.
We played next, and everything was rather dandy. I played on electric guitar, with a load of effects and a really awkward tuning (Ed, I know you're cringing as you're reading this, but sometimes lots of reverb is needed, and I had Alex's blessing). The words that the rest of the group had written were rather beautiful too. The poem at the start uses words scarcely, like what was left after the tsunami had hit (thank you 3 months of AS English Literature), and the drama at the end really told how even at the very worst of times, there are still those amazing people that just take it on the chin and moved on.
The final performance was by Alex's group, who created a performance poetry piece, mixing Japanese and English words together, not just translations of sentences. It was very clever, and something I really enjoyed. We then performed the song that Alex had written the day before, we named it 'The Blue'. Balls-y, blues-y, breathtaking. It summed up the community spirit of Ishinomaki, and something Leeds should aspire to have.
We were then done. We had the rest of the day to ourselves. It turned out that there was a massive festival going on throughout the city, going on for the whole week, called 'Stand Up Week', so we spent the rest of the evening and afternoon exploring, eating and generally having a really fun time.
You forget this place was almost wiped out by a tsunami two years ago.
Me, Alex, Frankie, Eugene and Lottie then stumbled into a jazz cafe by accident.... and it was bonkers. But a heap of fun. 4 saxophones and an old dude on ukelele. That shouldn't work, but my god it did.
We then headed over to the bridge, to see the lanterns be released onto the river. It was beautiful. We asked Isami, the man who had organised our trip, and had been our tour guide all the way through what each lantern was for, and he said it was for each life lost in the tsunami. We stayed quite for a minute or so. It was dark, and little orange and green orbs floated downstream, and we just looked. It was special.
About half an hour later, the fireworks started, probably nicked from China (poor joke, I'm sorry). Lots of flowers, glitter, gold and explosions in the sky, and lots of gasps and applause from the residents too. It's a weird, but nice change from having fireworks on just one day that promotes the execution of Catholics.
After the fireworks were done though, the party still went on, and the streets were still rammed, with the stalls still throwing out drinks and food. Next to a pizza van were a group of Japanese hippies (yes, you read that right) playing a load of African drums, and a load of us joined in. Mega party vibes, man.
You get bored after a while though, so I went back to the Ishinomaki 2.0 base, where there was Yoichi, Asuka, and a load of other totally awesome guys whose names I've forgotten (sidenote - Yoichi did a Jeremy Clarkson impression. Funniest thing ever.), where they were all pissed. They showed me some of the stuff that they'd personally done. I was thrown an architecture book, where the 2.0 team had a few pages dedicated to their project, and I think I finally got what they were all about at that moment.
I then bought a T-shirt from them, the one you see at the top of this post, as a little way of supporting them. They asked me to put it on, so they could Instagram it, which was weird, but cool. They then asked me if I knew what the Japanese said on it. I said no. They then told me what it said.
'Let's build the most interesting town on earth'.
They're doing it. I will be back in Ishinomaki in the future. You're pretty damn interesting already. Things can only get better.
