Snow and Fertility (read: Penis) Festival

I stayed up way too late the other night. A friend in a Town right next to my village, actually separating my two villages, invited me to come to a snow festival. The festival was to take place on top of a mountain in a village called Niino, which had been assimilated into his larger town of Anan. Niino's snow festival is known throughout Japan (or at least Nagano) and even occupies a slot on the top "1000" or "100" Cultural Events in Japan. That sounds like a really imressive list to be on, except for the fact that they love making lists here. "The 100 Most Famous Foods," "The 50 Most Significant Artists," "The Top 100 Rock Formations on This 50 Meter Stretch of Road." There are lots. But seeing as I'm a little more excited about festivals than rocks, I decided to go.

Left: People praying. Right: Little girl praying

Niino is in the mountains, bitterly cold (for Southern Nagano) and their festival is crazy. Essentially, the whole day is spent preparing for the appearance of Kame- Sama. Kame sama is sort of like a mountain god. So the people pray to him, and for him to bless them with a good crop and fertility for the coming year. There are all sorts of coincedences that can work to your advantage at the festival. If there does, in fact, happen to be snow during the snow festival, that means there will be a bumper crop (Lots of food). If you are conceived during the festival, you're going to be very lucky. This, in particular, used to have special significance in the past when the festival had some more Dionysian aspects to it which have disappeared in recent, more conservative times.

Schooling the kid on the good old days. Lighting the Fires with a boat on a string.

When we got up to the top of the mountain for the start of the festival at 11, many people from the village were dressed up in religious or celebratory clothes, while the rest of us were toting around cameras. The promise of craziness was all around in the forms of a huge pile of dead trees and paper to be burned, a mass of huge logs tied together and sticking straight up in the air (also to be burned) and a never ending supply of sake for cheap next to the drum can fires nearby.

Beating on Kame Sama's door.

People prayed. Made music. Prayed some more. I had work the next day and it was already past my bedtime. At about 1, the firefighters had had enough, so they picked up big sticks, and started beating on the side of Kame Sama's house and shouting for him to come out. Niino replaces that side of the house every year. Kame Sama was having none of this though and refused to show his face. So they pulled out a battering ram. The firefighters spent the next 20 minutes or so beating on Kame Sama's house with sticks and ram, but to no avail. So the priest nearby was like, "Hey. Let's start a fire! That will make him come out!" So they sent a little ship up on a wire to start a fire at the top of the logs. Very slowly, the ship would rise, then fall a little. Two steps forward, one step back, just further building the suspense that was already killing me. Then some more people thought, "Hey! I know! I've got it! Let's dance. He's got to come out if we dance!" So the dancing with bamboo leaves began, and they opened a path for Kame Sama. Middle schoolers with torches pushed the tripod toting Japanese out of the way as the fire was building on the logs. And then, he appeared.

Kame Sama appears, then dances!

Kame Sama appeared with his mask, his huge stick (representative of a penis for fertility) on his head, and another huge stick (guess what this one represents... another penis. He does symbolize fertility.) that he carried with him. If I'd stayed long enough, I could have been whacked on the head with his huge stick and had good luck (Just waiting for the jokes there). But by this point, I had about 3.5 hours of sleep available before a 12 hour work day and a 40 minute ride home, so I turned tail. But I will definitely be going again next year.

Kame Sama doing his thing. Kame Sama's first appearance.

I want some of that good luck.

The Taj Mahal and begging.

After 3 days of travel, 2 nights slept in airports (Christmas Eve included), and a cold that had the girls I was traveling with watching me in my sleep waiting for me to "cough up blood," we had Christmas Dinner in Agra, and this was our view.

Photo Thanks to Laura.

That's the Taj Mahal of course. There were no real Christmas trees, no huge roast piece of meat, and no family in this hemisphere, but I still couldn't have been happier munching down on curry, nan, and drinking King Fisher as the sun set over the rooftops of Agra.

Sunrise at the Taj Gates.

The next day we woke up to actually go to the grounds of the Taj Mahal. We were the second group in line, with only a British couple in front of us. It was still dark at 5:30 when we got there, but we were able to get a great spot for the sunrise when the gates opened at 6. We had our cameras set to long exposure as we watched the ghost of the Taj Mahal fade into view through the foggy sunrise. It's hard to explain just how beautiful the Taj is, but I hope the pictures that we took give some impression. Frankly though, they can't do it justice. It's truly epic, and waking up early, having the sun rising in the east, and the moon still setting in the west was a little too poetic.

Few things get me up that early...

The rest of the day we played connect four with a restaurant owner (he let me win the first one... hustler.) and then wandered around a market buying Sari's and overpriced "95%" silver jewelry. The Sari's were gorgeous and colorful. Cristina went through the whole process of buying one and there are more photos of that up on the album.

That's a lot of colors.

The street with all the markets was interesting , particularly our first experience with begging children in India. It was sad, because A) They don't leave you alone. B) You know their parents sent them to do this because they're adorable, and C) This is a JOB in India. For the children it is something they are born into, but often, given the option of another profession, or real help they return to begging.

One story jumps to mind that we were told at the Yoga Institute in Mumbai (Bombay). An Instructor was lecturing on life, and explained that her friend had seen a beggar with no pants. She went home and got the beggar a sari to wear. The beggar graciously accepted it, and the friend walked away. After a few paces she turned around, and found that the beggar had already taken off the sari and continued begging naked. It's a real departure from what I was used to seeing back home, and very jarring to see so many children doing it. In Mumbai, the children even went so far as to pinch us and tug my arm hair to try to get money out of us.

Taj and the Moon.

So that's the info on the Taj and my rant on begging in India. On the plus side, some of the little kids selling Taj snow globes outside the gates were really entertaining. A dialogue with Laura:

Kid: "A very good gift! You want a snowglobe?"
Laura: "No Thanks."
Kid: "Very good price. 100 Rupees and a kiss!"
Laura: "What?! I think I'm a little old for you."
Kid pauses for a moment then says: "My brother then!"
Laura: "I'm too old for your brother too. I'm 56."
Kid stops to think, then: "My father then! My father!"

Cute.

Bought this shirt off of one of the kids selling things outside the Taj.
He said it was a medium...

Click here for my photos from India