This was the big day, the day of presentation for the Japanese government grant that Mistue wrote to bring me to Tokyo. Mitsue went off early to get ready. I was felling a bit better prepared for my 2nd talk to teachers of English and education students. Bruce and I traveled together as he had a free day and Mitsue's students met us at her office where I made final adjustments to a program for people who operated in English on a wide variety of levels.
I was very worried that I would get excited and talk too fast. Before the talk I needed to use the bathroom so I hurried down the hall and walked into...a traditional bathroom in the floor. I jumped back and rushed out thinking I had gone into a men's room by mistake. Checking the sign I realized that I had not. The day before when I used that room I had used a stall with a Western style toilet. Culture shock was settling in and my gaffe made me laugh. Finally the presentation. My talk seemed to go well at least the teachers laughed at the funny places so I knew we were, at some points at least, on the same wavelength.
Aoyama Lecture Hall - from Sasaki,Yuta's blog
The most astounding thing happened during the break. Mitsue was very eager to introduce me to a young man, who turned out to be none other than Sasaki-san, the kamishibai guy! He had read the emails we sent the night before at 8 AM and there he was at 10:30AM - come all the way from Kuni-tachi ( a fairly distant part of Tokyo). I invited him to perform as a slam-dunk finish to the nearly 90+ minute program and he "brought down the house" with his 3 minute story. Just the day before, two Japanese grad students had told me after hearing me tell stories that I was "lucky to speak English" because there "was no Japanese storytelling". These students looked very unconvinced when I tried to tell them storytelling exists everywhere and must be alive and well in Japan, too. Sasaki-san and his mother and I had lunch together in Mitsue's office along with Bruce who acted as a translator. We talked for hours ! How lucky we were to have such a devoted translator. It seems the Japanese government has forbidden street performance and this, along with TV, has nearly killed the art form in Japan. Sasaki-san is determined to bring it back!
Sasaki-san performs kamishibai w/iPad
It turns out that years ago, Bruce had told me about Sasaki-san's sensei. Sasaki,Yuta began studying the art of kamishibai in 2006 under the late Masao Morishita, who performed in Tokyo to great acclaim for more than 50
years before his death in 2008. Years after Bruce told me the story, I had often repeated to other performers, the moving story of a man who had lost his voice but had recorded his stories so he could continue to perform. Sasaki, is the only '"deshi" ( student/apprentice who trains under and assists a sensei on a committed basis) this master left behind. Sasaki-san showed me one of
Morishita sensei's kamishibai paintings. He has inherited his master's wooden theater and cards and uses them in the tradintional manner in his neighborhood. only there may he practice the art in its natural habitat - the street. I felt so honored but even more, it felt magical somehow, to meet Sasaki and his mother. We know that we share the same passion for the art of storytelling. Now I feel that somehow I need to take his story and his storytelling, to the US.
Bruce had said that jet lag would hit me around 4PM but around 3 PM I started to have uncontrollable yawns and my eyes started to droop. With deep regrets and promises to see how I could to help promote kamishibai, I said goodbye to Sasaki-san and his mother. We took the train home and I crashed. Poor Mitsue had another full afternoon of presentation to sit through. But when we were reunited we reflected and marveled over the serendipity of the day, as we ate delicious sukiyaki that Mitsue made for us.
Where did Thursday go anyway? That pesky international date line! I slept like a baby for over 12 hours and awoke at 6am. Like a little kid at Xmas, I got up before anyone else was awake and padded around to the front of the house to look out and see where I was. I was so excited! Not only were my hosts dear friends who never see enough even though they have been visiting us in Boston, every year since the 80s - but, I thought I would never live long enough to save enough money to see them in Japan. And yet, here I was in their apartment, in the center of one of the many 'centers' of Tokyo, in Japan. I was so excited!
At the front of the condo their 6th floor balcony looks out at a music school like Berkley College on one side and a tiny pocket neighborhood of single family homes and is just a block from a six lane Haksan-Dori or White Mountain Ave. On this a main thoroughfare, there is a high rise with a roller coaster and huge ferris wheel. It was like Mass Ave or Boylston Street. But comparison is hard because Tokyo is so huge it could put all of down-town Boston in it's watch-pocket. And Haksan-Dori is not even the largest or busiest street. In Tokyo, even tho' the streets and sidewalks are full of traffic ( loads of bicycles ridden by people of all ages) most of the action is below ground in the incredible subway system.
After working the entire 13 hour flight from Toronto I was feeling almost prepared for my 1st talk of four. And I still needed to create and decide about handouts for a 90 minute lecture and workshop for Mituse's undergraduates at Aoyama Unversity. My presentation had a lot of new material that was not yet formatted for ppt. and was mixed with some existing material. I was really frustrated that I had not prioritizing my time better to make life a bit easier for myself.
So I ate breakfast and got right to work. First, I checked my email. I noticed that I had comment on my blog about kamishibai and there was also link from Tim Ereneta in CA about a young kamishibai storyteller, Yuta Sasaki in Tokyo who uses an iPad in his work and who had vowed, with his sensei to make "kamishibai storytelling a normal part of everyday life again." [ Cannot thank Tim enough for being the kind of 'social connecter' that we admire and try to emulate]
Forgetting my functional illiteracy, I immediately started looking for this young man, Yuta Sasaki's contact info on google. He had a ton of blogs, loads of video, great graphics and pictures. But contact? Oops! All my google and Firefox controls were now in Japanese, including ones that might say "switch language" so I asked Bruce, who was my guide for the day, to help me. I knew I had to at least try to contact Sasaki-san after I read his vow. He was likely a kindred spirit in "promoting the art of storytelling in the 21st century".
We did not have enough time to find him so I put that on hold and finished the talk, slides and handouts and dressed in time to head out by subway to Aoyama ( Blue Mountain University) via train. Bruce and Mitsue's station, Kasuga ( spring sun ) is a 2 minute walk from the front door of their apartment building. The talk went well. After sharing background and a bit of theory I told the students my fave story - Molly O'Donahugh. I asked them to think of their stories and ran the short Everybody Has a Story workshop for ELL students a first time for me. I was excited but too tired to be nervous and basically enjoyed my time with the students so much that we missed the bell.
Next was Mitsue's graduate class where most students were English Lit majors. Professor Allen led a discussion of orality and "versions of stories" and I was invited to tell the Rough Faced Girl by Rafe Martin as an example of a Cinderella story. Mitsue had a few senior students who were helping us in all aspects from video to making flyers. Mai, Yu and Shunsuke had just been accepted into the graduate school of Aoyama U so we went out for superb coffee and extraordinary pastries to celebrate. Each student told us an extraordinary personal story, in English. It was a lovely end to the school day. We had a fine dinner, prepared at home by Mitsue. She also found the email for Sasaki-san and I wrote to him in English and
she in Japanese, inviting him to meet and/or come to the talk tomorrow. As I still needed to create and decide about handouts for a 90 minute lecture and then the private workshop for teachers the next day, I was up most of the night again. The next day I realized, to my chagrin, that all my formatting struggles were fruitless. The use Japanese use A4 - which is a quite a bit longer and I needn't have gone crazy working to have each story to fit on one page!
This was the big day, the day of presentation for the Japanese government grant that Mistue wrote to bring me to Tokyo. Mitsue went off early to get ready. I was felling a bit better prepared for my 2nd talk to teachers of English and education students. Bruce and I traveled together as he had a free day and Mitsue's students met us at her office where I made final adjustments to a program for people who operated in English on a wide variety of levels.
