21st September

Visit to OGA with university students
Today we were going to visit several places in OGA, a peninsula between Akita city and Noshiro. We didn’t know how Japanese university students were until we were about to get on the bus after breakfast. There were 21 of them, 4 handsome guys and 17 beautiful girls in casual clothes. Our task today was experience exchange with all of them. Unfortunately, Sreyroth could not go with us today due to her health problem.

Just after getting on the bus and sitting down, my eyelids were dropping down, so were all the participants. Our guide, Higoji, stood at the front seat and introduced our destinations. First of all, we were visiting Tempu Maru, a huge electricity-generating fan. There were 11 fans in Japan, and 3 of them are in Akita. Every Tempu Maru costs 2 million US dollars and produces 1500kW of electricity. It is 100 meters tall measured from the bottom to the tip of the fan leaves. All expenses are paid by Akita civilians 50% and the government 50%. Unfortunately, I really wanted to keep listening, but my eyes didn’t allow me to continue.

Tempu Maru
Here we arrived at Tempu Maru. The fan looked simple when we stopped and saw it from distance, but it looked completely huge when we stand under its 3 leaves. There has to be more than 20 people to surround its grand post. The fan spinned slowly due to light wind. All participants and university students had a commemorative picture taken. We were told to walk with Japanese students and have conversation with them. I made friend with a female student whose name is Nozomi. Her English was good and she was friendly to talk with me. However, we did not talk much because we had to move on to another destination.

Mount. Kanpu
On the way, there were two large statues of Namahage, the symbolic landmark of OGA. The second place we were visiting was Mt. Kanpu. Our bus was driven to the top of the mountain, which was 355 meters height. When we got off the bus, the first impression was chilling wind blowing at the top of the mountain. It was the coldest temperature we experienced in Japan, which was maybe 18oC, I thought. The best view was the curved sea line, which we could see it entirely from the mountain. Therefore, all participants, including university students and coordinators had another commemorative picture taken, but we had to take off our jacket in order to have the same JICE T-shirts for 14 participants in the picture. It was hard to with stand the cold wind and sit steadily smiling to camera. When it was finished, we quickly put on our jackets and walked down. We thought we might have gone to another part of the mountain for some more pictures, but we saw our bus waiting for us down there. That was all for Mt. Kanpu and we continued to Namahage museum.

Along the way down, we saw many dead-volcanic mountains lying on a very large area. Talking about Namahage, it was our main topic today. Namahage is a unique Japanese new year tradition, in which some people wear wooden masks of ‘giant’ and go to people houses to find and scare lazy children to make them promise to be hard-working. Although their faces are ugly and scary, they represent for goodness and kind. For more detail, we would find out at Namahage museum.

Namahage Museum
Inside the museum, a lot of Namahage related items were everywhere: paintings on walls, masks on tables, statues of Namahage, etc. We walked to a hall and sit watching the video of Namahage with other Japanese visitors, like inside a cinema.

The story was about the activities of namahage giants inside people house at the night before new year. In fact, Namahage giants had to have allowance from the host family before entering their house. Their task was to help the host family educate their lazy children or kids who always cry. Before entering their house, Namahage giant would scream fiercely and step their feet strongly so as to scare the children, so the children tried to hide from them. However, Namahage giant could seek them and hold them to see their parents. Those children inside the video screamed and cried, while we felt funny of those children who didn’t realize what the Namahage giants were, but it was good for them because they would be hard-working and be a good child due to the fear of Namahage giants. Continuing from the video, the namahage giants sat down with the host family and had some conversation. the children were calmed down and served some wine to Namahage giants. They still remained the fear of Namahage, but they were braved to make a commitment with Namahage that they would be good children.

When the video finished, we moved to another museum nearby, Sinsan Museum. There, we experienced the real performance of Namahage. We sat with other Japanese ordinary people in a Japanese traditional house, which was divided into 2 room, a room for audiences and the other for performance. It was a bit crowded with over 50 people inside a small room, but we were still happy to see the performance, which we had never seen even on TV.

At the performance room, there was a female introducer telling some stories of Namahage in Japanese which we didn’t understand at all. Other 4 performers played the roles of family hosts and the messenger of Namahage. After they talked for a while, the door shook terribly. All of suddence, two Namahages pushed to open the door with heavy footsteps and evil yelling. All audiences including us sere surprised with their sudden entrance, especially a young kid was scared to burst out crying. The two Namahages were seeking for young kids, while I was holding my camera and recording their action. They stopped for a while and started conversation with the host family as we had just seen on video. When they left, they just acted like when they arrived, screaming and frightening the audience aggressively. What a great cultural experience which we could closely and actually witness all the spectacle of performance.

GAO, Globe Aqua Ocean
The next target we were heading for is GAO (Globe Aqua Ocean), the chamber of sea lives in OGA. Its name “GAO” is similar to OGA and its logo color, green, light blue and dark blue, represent respectively the globe, water and ocean. It is famous of its polar bear and penguins.

Now it was 10:00 and we had to leave at 11:00, so we had got only 1 hour for looking around. Nozomi and Mizuho kindly guided me to see around and I asked them to take pictures for me. All the sea lives that I saw will be described as follow.

Before entering the GAO building, there is a small pool with a seal swimming around inside. Getting through the gate, there is a fake polar standing in a friendly way as the symbol of GAO and for the purpose of photographing. The gate was getting darker and darker when we went inside, but immediately the fascinating view and the ocean-blue light appearing on my right-hand side. It was an enormous and the biggest “fish pool” I had ever seen, Thousands of fish were swimming complicatedly in different directions. Varieties of fish, including turtle, were swimming peacefully without caring with tourists. Their every movement created uncountable naturally colorful images which I wanted to capture in every second.

Time was limited, so I couldn’t stay in a place too long. I could still see the huge “fish pool” in another direction when I got to another floor. It was still so attractive that I couldn’t stop taking its pictures. There are more splendid and rare sea lives exhibited in medium glass containers. Sword fish, huge crab, giant octopus, and ‘dragon’ fish are uniquely separated. Colorful coral under lighting effect became more beautiful. Difference size of glass containers described difference type of aquatic lives. Special spices turtles, snake, lizard, were placed under artificial light. Reaching another section, it is the focus of GAO, polar bear. It lazily stayed in a special large area imitating the polar environment and temperature. It may be the only creature which receives the biggest priority of not being interrupted by others and living in such a large area but might also be the loneliest. Leaving the ‘north pole’, I went to the ‘south pole’ to see penguins. They were more active. Some of them were having fun with swimming, while some of them were standing in a handsome way. At another place several types of jelly fish were floating with slow motion. The last place Nozomi guided me to see was the shallow pool of star fish and sea cucumber. There, tourists were allowed to touch those creatures directly with their hands. They did not have much activities when I touched them.

When I finished my seeing, it was nearly 12 o’clock. We still had some time for taking photographs. Another commemorative group photo was taken. Raden gave the speech of appreciation to the chief of GAO, and it’s time for lunch.

Lunch in OGA
We traveled to a famous Japanese restaurant where the lunch had already been prepared for us. In a big room, around 15 tables were arranged in 2 rows face to face. One table was for 3 persons and everyone got a set of meal. Sushi, raw shrimp, salty fish, pickle flowers, tofu soup were our lunch today. Nozomi and I sit and had lunch together. We talked about food in Japan and Cambodia and a lot of things related to everyday life. She also told me how to eat Japanese food in order to feel its delicious taste. Obviously, this was the first time I could feel Sushi was delicious, which was contrary to the taste I tried before. I’d like to say this is the most delicious meal I had in Japan. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to relax and enjoy with our meal because we had to hurry to our next destination.

Fossil exploration
Where? I almost forgot because we had been to 3 places in the morning. It’s time for fossil exploration! What was our mission? We were still in doubts until we arrived at the fossil site. This site was covered by the sea millions years ago. Millions years later when the sea retreated, the dead bodies of shellfish were left on the bay and became fossils as we see nowadays. Our mission was to discover the shell which was large and still remained in its original shape. We were provided with a pair of gloves, a screwdriver and a plastic bag. We had 30 minutes to search around the sand hill of fossils. I didn’t discover any remarkable shell fossil. Maybe the remarkable ones were buried deep inside the sand. We got nothing but sand inside our shoes. It’s the first time we made ourselves dirty in Japan.

Now it was 3:30pm. We had to return to Akita View Hotel and prepare ourselves for the farewell party this evening at 6:30pm. We were totally worn out. We slept on the bus along the way we came back. It seemed to take a long time to return.

Farewell party
I really wanted to lie on my bed when I entered my room, but time didn’t allow me to do so. I had to have a bath, put on my traditional costume, and review the moves of dance for the performance tonight. It was so exciting and nostalgic because tonight was the last night we stayed in Akita. I hoped we could have good memory for our host families, university friends and all coordinators in Akita.

We entered the banquet room before the female participants because they had to take longer time for make-up. Our guests had not arrived yet. We saw the stage for our performance and the tables for our guests, and we could imagine how the banquet was going to be. At the back of the room, chairs were arranged for taking a big commemorative picture. When our host families, university students and our coordinators were all present, the picture was taken. Then, we took a seat around the table, which was set for 2 families. Yoshi, Masako, Takayama, Sunmeng and I sat together with the host family of Sopheak and Virak. The dishes were served one by one as the wedding banquet. During the meal, the most surprising event was that the news of our visit to Akita Shogyo had been recorded and it was played back on LCD slide show in front of everyone. Our teaching appeared to be very funny. This DVD would be included in our gift for staying in Akita was big delight for us.

After that, it’s time for our culture show. We walked on to the stage pair by pair, stood at our position respectively, Som Peah, the music started, and we began to dance. We were satisfied with our performance because we didn’t make any mistake. It was even better than we thought. Our performance lasted for about 4 minutes. Then, all the guests were asked to dance with us along with Cambodian traditional musics, Saravann and Lamleav. Yoshi, Masako and Takayama followed my movements of hands while I wast instructing them in dancing. The atmosphere was relaxing and enjoyable. When the music stopped, it’s time to say goodbye to our host families. Sunmeng and I went along with Yoshi, Masako and Takayama from the banquet room through the lift to down stair. That’s all for the farewell party, but our mission didn’t end yet. We had to review the activities we had done in Akita for the workshop tomorrow. What a drag…