I love my town (retropost)

I totally forgot about this post that I wrote up cuz I was intoxicated and saved it until I had pictures. So this is from the last day of the Tokamachi festival last week...


I am in mountain town festival heaven. The Tokamachi festival is over, but Asahi-machi, the district within Nakajo (which is my district of Tokamachi) had its own festival. I woke up with Christian, Lopaka and Russell crashed out on my floor but heard the sounds of the flutes and drums outside. Decided to check it out solo and was immediately taken in by the festival crowd who were carrying a collections box, sake barrel and two different mikoshi (portable shrines) up and down the street in front of my apartment. I went down and gave them a few coins and they immediately started pouring sake down my throat (this was about 3 minutes after I got out of bed). They invited me to help carry the sake barrel and then we headed up the main street.

Later on, Christian joined me and we were fed some rice and random local vegetables in a parking lot...0f course, with more sake. Sometimes they would actually prepare the sake like it was a margarita and put salt around the rim...reminded me of home... and it was damn tasty!

We were invited to carry the mikoshi around. This mikoshi was different than the real mikoshi in Tokamachi festival, this was just caskets of sake and rice on a platform. It wasn't unbearable but it wasn't exactly light either...

We helped carry it up the street. We alternated chants of 'Oi, oi! Oi, oi!' until my throat went raw. When we arrived at a house where someone heard our chants and emerged to give a donation to the shrine, we through the mikoshi into the air 5 times with a chant. We walked down random sideroads along ricefields that didn't even have houses nearby.

At the end, we brought the mikoshi to its destination, but not without a battle...a bunch of people took the ropes attached to the back of our portable shrine and pulled on it to keep it away from being put down. That was the hardest part...me and 10 other guys trying to carry this heavy thing while people are pulling on it with ropes from every direction to keep you from actually being able to stop and rest. It was awesome.

Later the Asahi-machi people thanked us graciously as we thanked them back, and I was invited to an enkai (party) which I ended up at about 3 PM after dropping off the boys in town.

The enkai was fantastic.

It was in a shell-like building, the open bottom floor underneath the upper floors. Tatami layers were spread out under tables which were filled with beer, sake, shochu (local sweet potato vodka) and lots of mountain food. Pickled eggplant, grilled chicken sticks, squid, mystery meats and vegetables...

It was the first time I've really been welcomed with fully open arms by a large group of locals...not just locals though, these are my absolute closest neighbors. Everyone there was a resident of Asahi-machi, Nakajo, Tokamachi. A very small district and people I have seen but haven't actually enjoyed food and drink and laughter with.

They were thrilled for me to be there and I went in with an attitude of just 'get to know the neighbors!'. Of course I ended up drunk by the end because you can't go 4 minutes here without someone pouring you more beer, shochu AND sake. Whether or not you want to drink you absolutely have NO choice and you just have to give up and accept every offering rather than be rude and uptight. But it was a lazy Sunday and I was happy to accept their kind offerings...

Spoke with some random, very country-like farmer folks for a few hours before the enkai ended. We spoke a lot about my life here, their childeren, our neighborhood and schools. They wanted to learn a lot about New Mexico and why the hell I came here. It was very open and meaningful and underneath the superficial stuff was a deeper sense of connection than I usually feel. Usually takes an enkai drinking party to get that out of the locals though...

At the end I was honored with the invitation to lead the BANZAI! closing procession. I got in front of the whole neighborhood and led the banzais with three shouts while you raise your arms...everyone shouted and jumped and clapped and hugged me and shook my hand with appreciation. It was absolutely great.

I've come to love my sad little neighborhood because I've been exposed to a part of it that was never brought to me before. Being able to communicate with them a year later was thrilling and it felt great to connect with my Asahi-machi Nakajo people.

But now it's 5 PM on Sunday, the party is over, I'm in my apartment and I'm drunk. I guess I'll just go to sleep now...

Goodnight.