So I've meant to write for months about this, but I never found enough time. But now I'm on holiday! So let's go back nine months to one of my busiest and most exciting times in Japan. Enjoy!

Halloween came and went in a flurry of forced fun at work. I was talked into wearing a pumpkin wig for a full week up to Halloween by Ryoko. We had a sad little collection of costume pieces and decorations in a cardboard box in the storage room, so Ryoko and Nozu-san wore antenna and devil horns to greet the students. (One young fellow walked in, took one look at us and almost walked out again – just too weird for him.) Halloween is known in Japan, but is more a curious idea than a celebrated holiday. Decorating with paper and plastic jack-o-lanterns is big, but Halloween parties and dressing in costumes is unusual. In all of my classes, I asked if anyone had ever worn a costume. About three people had. But Masaki, who continues to surprise me, said “No,” then paused as if remembering something and told me that actually, he had worn bondage gear at a private party around Christmas once. He went as a dominatrix. Well, knock me over with a feather. If you could see this lean, gaunt, rather dour-looking man, you would be as surprised as I was – maybe more. But one thing I have learned in a year and a half here is that what you see is not what you get.

After work on Wednesday, Halloween night, I borrowed the pumpkin wig to go to ARGO. The bar was decked out with spider webs and spiders, jack-o-lanterns and other holiday paraphernalia. There weren’t a lot of people there, and The Nightmare Before Christmas was playing on the screen. After that, Cleve put on the Dawn of the Dead remake – the one with Sarah Polley – and I was reminded why I MUST NEVER WATCH HORROR MOVIES. The opening sequence in particular – when Sarah Polley’s character watches her own ten-year-old daughter kill her husband, who then promptly wakes up as a zombie and tries to eat her (she jumps out the bathroom window to ‘safety’) – remained lodged in my mind for about three months, keeping me awake sometimes and making my bicycle ride home a little more interesting. My imagination is a touch too vivid for horror. And the salarymen walking home from their overtime work or their nightcap at an izakaya look a lot like zombies…

The following Saturday was Halloween Night Flight. Night Flight is an event where participating bars and restaurants offer special deals and people basically ‘pub crawl’ in downtown Matsue. ARGO spearheaded this with a fundraising campaign to create scholarships for high school students wanting to study abroad. It was also a costume party. I had the toughest time deciding what to wear. For a while, I thought about skipping it altogether. Then, with a flash of comic book inspiration and a lot of white make-up supplied by Cleve, I went as the Joker. After a fruitless week of trying to find temporary green hair dye, I bought a tube of kid’s watercolour paint and mixed it with hair wax. It was messy, but effective. I had also cut my hair short that week, and surprised a lot of people. I won a prize for ‘Best Look-Alike’. Jennifer went as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Bill went as “American Foreign Policy” (fatigues and a gun). Cleve and Yusuke went as the ‘dick in a box’ guys from Saturday Night Live. Kei and Yuki came as “Ana” and “Tomy”, a skeleton and a scientific cadaver. Julia dressed as a gold digger, complete with a little golden shovel and money coming out of her boots. It was a fun night. Yumi came as a ‘Japanese girl who’s not into costumes but wants to have fun’ – at least, that’s what she said. There were a lot of good costumes.

Then, in November, I was a volunteer for the Yakumo International Theatre Festival, or YITF. It was a really interesting time for me. I was on the Translation Committee (yes, you may all laugh now – go ahead). The Yakumo Theatre Festival takes place once every four years. This was the third festival. I can’t actually remember how I got involved in it. I know last February, Seiji drove me up to see the building while we were in the area. Then Heather Dixon, a ten-year resident of Japan, was working for the festival as international coordinator, and she’s a friend of Seiji’s. Somehow we ended up on the translation committee sometime last summer.

The YITF is basically the brainchild of one woman of incredible will. Her name is Tsukushi Sonoyama, and she has nerves of steel and the wiliness of ten politicians. Heather, who was rapidly growing very tired of working for the festival, wryly called her “Dear Leader” behind her back. Sonoyama-san created a remarkable little theatre high on a hill in the remote little farming community  of Yakumo, about a half-hour drive from Matsue. Shiinomi (“Little Acorn”) Theatre is a wooden building with a curved roof and an incredible view of the forested valley below from the balcony. The theatre holds about 120 people on benches with rough, natural-looking edges, polished and lacquered smooth and made more comfortable with small square cushions. Outside, stone steps lit at night by candles in hollow bamboo holders curl up the hill to the building, and true to Japanese style, there is also a big round clock on the outside of the building. Shows start ON TIME, dammit.

Gauche the Cellist

In the months before the festival, I went about three times to watch the rehearsals of Se-ro-hi-ki no Go-shu (Gauche the Cellist), Shiinomi’s host performance for the festival. It was developed by Sonoyama-san and the Shiinomi company seventeen years ago, and they have been performing it on and off at theatre festivals across the world ever since. The charming young fellow who plays Gauche is the third actor to do so, and the other two Gauche’s were still involved with the company, one as an administrator and one as the production manager (I had a mild crush on the PM, but Heather pointed out that he was gay. Dang.). I became involved in Gauche because, for the first time, they were adding some dialogue in English to make the play more comprehensible to foreign audiences.

Gauche the Cellist is, on the surface, a simple little fable based on a book by the Buddhist poet Kenji Miyazawa. A mediocre cellist named Gauche is practicing with his orchestra for a concert, but he is repeatedly singled out and criticized by the conductor for his poor playing. When he goes home to practice, he is visited by several animals who teach him how to play better. A cat, insisting on being serenaded after giving him a plant ripped up from his own garden as a gift, teaches him about passion (mostly anger). A cuckoo, desperate to practice its singing to be perfect for the dawn chorus, is accidentally injured by Gauche when he drives it away after it repeatedly corrects him for being off-key. A baby raccoon dog gently points out that his timing is off when it comes to play its drum with him, and incidentally teaches him about playing with child-like joy in the music. And finally, a field mouse with a sick baby reminds him of the healing power of his music, and he is able to cure the baby. When he finally returns to play at the concert, his playing is so much improved that he is singled out for an encore. Thinking they are mocking him, he plays fiercely and brilliantly. When he finally realizes he is not being mocked, he recognizes the gifts given him by the animals and weeps at the thought of the cuckoo, whom he hurt in his frustration.

I had to ask a lot of questions to understand the nuances of the story, and we tweaked the lines. None of the actors spoke English, though of course they had studied reading and writing at school. And as we practiced, I noticed an annoying problem. I was attending some rehearsals and giving line notes, but so were other people on different days, and frequently our pronunciation notes clashed. At the second rehearsal, I could see the actors were getting confused. I went to the last rehearsal before the show was going to open, and so did Cat and Emily, two JETs from Australia. I hunkered down with them and talked about the problem, and we worked together to give a unified, final set of line notes for the actors. (I also learned during this process that, in Japanese, the words for “different” and “wrong” are the same. Interesting, ne?)

There are some really beautiful details in Gauche the Cellist that raised it above many other amateur productions. The set was beautiful, representing the broken-down old mill that Gauche lived in nicely. Off to the side, by the stage left wing, was a little patch of garden. There is a lovely little interlude in the play where Gauche gets up in the morning, puts on his straw hat and goes out to tend his garden. A tiny fluttering butterfly drifts about him as he putters in the heat, content. Knowing the butterfly is just a bit of silk on a wire doesn’t destroy the imagery at all. And the costumes of the animals were lovely, but I was particularly taken with the cuckoo’s. The actress was a tall, slender, strong-faced girl with short hair. Her costume included a close-fitting, tufted cap of white feathers and a long-tailed waistcoat in blues and jewel tones with a deliberately tattered yellow lining, and iridescent teal stockings. The proud cuckoo cut quite a splendid figure.

I also proofread the company bios and synopses of the plays for Heather, and we worked together to translate the opening scene of the Newfoundland musical revue, Heave Away, into Japanese (basically I translated the Newfoundlandese to Heather, and Heather turned it into Japanese). Oh yeah, did I mention Newfoundland was coming? The Stephenville Festival sent the cast to perform on opening night and for a special presentation, and also to visit schools. Seiji was appointed their translator, and would travel with them to all of their destinations.

It was an unexpected fight to get time off to take part in the festival. I was lucky because one of the days was a public holiday, but when I put in my request for two days off, Ryoko firmly pointed out the difficulties involved in replacing me or moving my classes. I grudgingly ended up compromising. I went to assist at the festival in the afternoon, but I had to find a way back in time for my evening classes. Ryoko, prompted by honsho (head office), pointed out that technically I’m not supposed to volunteer at all. For anything. I stifled my natural response to that.

My job was to assist Heather with translation in the little theatre (there was a much larger theatre for the festival showcases near the school). I studied that manual of technical theatre terms in Japanese that she had put together, and informed people, “I don’t speak Japanese very well, but I DO speak theatre.”

For the festival, a series of temporary buildings and tents had been erected for various purposes. The biggest was the cafeteria/pub, staffed by volunteers. (Did I mention that this theatre festival in this tiny little community had mustered over 400 volunteers? Pretty impressive.) The entrance to this long structure was decorated with branches of green bamboo hung with pretty geometric paper balls. The pub, or “pab” as the sign outside said, had an incongruous glittering white plastic Christmas tree strung with paper chains. The coffee was weak, but plentiful, and the volunteers were very friendly.

The weather was unbelievably beautiful – fall in Shimane is a long, lovely season. In my free time, I lingered on the theatre balcony, looking down into the valley below, with the morning sun in my eyes. The hills were covered with bursts of orange and red leaves, feathery yellow-green bamboo and velvet-tipped sugi. This time of year is called koyo, or ‘leaves turning time’, in Japan. Though not quite as cherished as spring’s cherry blossom season, it’s a beloved time of year here. I’ve been told I have to see Kyoto in the autumn, so I’m hoping to do that this year

Life with Seiji at this point – not long after our break-up - had its ups and downs, so I was mostly getting drives back and forth from Matsue with other people. Shigeko Sakamoto, the company administrator, drove me out in the mornings. She was a kind, quiet woman who always looked a little worried. She had a big job organizing this festival. Heather often blew off the organization of the festival, but from my outside point of view, it looked quite smooth. We had a white-knuckle ride one morning, on these crazily winding Japanese country roads, in thick, billowing fog like a whiteout. But even that cleared up fast.

I attended the first meeting of all the companies on Wednesday morning. Here I met the companies from Syria, France, Korea, America and Venezuela who were taking part in the play contest. I also met a clown from Belgium, travelling with his wife (it was his second or third time here), a gaggle of kids from Singapore and the Newfoundland gang. Seiji had already met the Newfoundlanders when they arrived the night before, and they had taken to him immediately, and he to them. I said hello to Julia Moore and her mum Eva, with many “small world, isn’t it?”-type comments. I met Daniel Payne, an outgoing red-haired giant (whom I had actually met once before, when he was touring Tempting Providence), Andrew O’Brian (smaller, but equally outgoing), Keith Pike and Paul Blake, their genial, broad-faced technician. Really lovely people, thrilled beyond belief to be in here in Japan and trying to soak up the culture as quickly as possible. Paul, who has kids, brought English Pokemon cards to give to students in the elementary schools they visited, which made him a hero among the school kids.

Everybody took their shoes off and put on the slippers provided before entering the theatre… except Daniel, whose feet wouldn’t fit even the biggest of the slippers. All the theatre groups were present except the Venezuelans, who had decided to rent a car and drive from Tokyo and were incommunicado, leaving the YITF staff white-knuckled with anxiety. The Korean group were the most fun – they were presenting a very stylish Asian-flavoured version of A Christmas Carol (which unfortunately I missed – I heard it was amazing), and they were young, cool and keen. When their group’s name was called in the theatre, they roared and cheered. The American group were doing Alice in Wonderland, the French group brought - what else? - a sex farce, and the two Syrians performed a modern fable about friendship in hard times. (Heather was quite ga-ga over the two Syrians, Ramez and Nawar, who were handsome men but very intense).

I helped as much as I could that afternoon with the American rehearsal. When it came to focusing lights, I quickly learned the Japanese for “a little higher/lower/to the left/to the right”. Michinori-san, the head lighting technician, a professional hired for the festival, was a tall, quiet, grey-haired man with a deep voice. On the breaks, he patiently answered my theatre questions. Satsuki and Setsuko were two of the backstage technicians. They were very friendly and giggly; we chatted as much as was possible, given our halting communication.

The next day I was back to help with the Syria and Venezuela rehearsals. I grabbed a coffee in the dining hall and chatted with one of the adjudicators. Venezuela still hadn’t shown up, and Sakamoto-san was silently freaking out.

The Syrians had a fairly simple set-up, but the lighting cues were more complicated, and they didn’t bring their own technicians, so it took some time to figure it all out. I doubled as translator/errand girl, running up and down from the theatre to HQ, or the dining hall or other places, very glad I had worn my sneakers (even though they were a pain to take off and put on at the theatre door). The Syrian play was very good. Nawar played a cobbler who had had his legs blown off in a bombing, and Ramez played his one-armed best friend. These two damaged people shared a dream of escaping to Europe and a love for the same woman. On the stage, there was only a pile of shoes that the cobbler was fixing on one side of the stage, and an open suitcase on an impossibly high table on the other. The shoes represented people in the play; a lovely pair of red pumps represented their missing lover. I noticed that they laid a plastic sheet down for the shoes and I wondered if they always did that, or if it was a polite nod to the Japanese hosts.

They finished and we took our lunch break. AND Venezuela showed up, with about an hour to go till their tech rehearsal. Gustavo and David were hilarious. Gustavo is a big, relaxed, deep-voiced playwright and director with excellent English. David is a small, flamboyant and energetic actor, jumping around like a live wire. In response to the concern over their late arrival, Gustavo just said, “Time is an opinion,” with a careless shrug. They had intended to bring a different show with two more actors, but the others couldn’t get visas. So David was doing a one-man show instead.

The strangest moment of the whole festival for me must have been when the French group was rehearsing and I ended up ‘translating’ French to Japanese and vice versa. The French group had the most elaborate set-up, but they had brought their own stage manager and technician. They were a good-looking group of people, but a little high-strung. And it was hard to tell what I was worse at, speaking my limited Japanese or remembering the French I learned, oh so long ago. We managed, but I had a good laugh about it later.

Friday was a national holiday and I spent the whole day to the festival. Sakamoto-san picked me up early, so I had some free time. I went for a walk on an amazing November morning (more like a beautiful September day at home) and took pictures of the beautiful countryside (inaka, in Japanese), admiring the spears of the sugi trees jutting out of the misty forest, and the glimmering droplets of water on telephone lines and bare, leafless trees, with the familiar, childhood scent of woodsmoke in my nose. It reminded me of home. I walked past copses of yellow-green bamboo trees following the winding road, and stopped at the nearby Kayabuki Koryukan, a traditional thatch-roofed cottage where a children’s festival was going to take place on the weekend. Steam was rising from the steep thatched roof as the sun grew stronger. Small stalls with games and food were being set up outside the Koryukan, and I practiced my Japanese with one of the vendors.

On my winding way back, I met Paul and Daniel smoking outside the home of the host family. They were having the time of their lives. They had just made breakfast, including miso soup, for their hosts as a thank you for the grand hospitality they had received. It sounded like their hosts had got them drunk a couple of times in the evenings, and they had played music for the older couple. A splendid meeting of cultures.

We went up together to watch the packed performance of Gauche the Cellist. I was so proud of the actors, who delivered their English lines really well. I thought the approach of sprinkling English at important points through the play worked really well. And I cried at the end of the little fable. Many of us did.

Then down to business. We set up Syria’s show. My job was to stay backstage and assist if necessary with communication. I was never needed in that capacity, but I ran a few errands, then watched the show from the stairs on stage left. They performed the show twice, with a short break in between. I was inspired by all the theatrical activity around me , and jotted down some ideas which came to me for my play (which, since then, I must admit has been lying fallow. I have to wonder if I’ll ever finish it…) After a short dinner break down at the dinner hall, we set up France’s show and they also performed twice.

There were three adjudicators present, and every show was critiqued by at least two adjudicators. I was very interested in what they had to say. Syria’s performance was the critics’ darling that day, while France received points for style but was generally judged lacking in substance.

On Saturday, I couldn’t make it to the festival, as I had to work all day. It was fortunate that I didn’t have many classes, as I must have been very distracted. After class, I changed into a ‘60’s mod-style black dress that I picked up at a vintage clothing store in Halifax, and went to Jennifer’s 007-themed birthday party at ARGO. She decided on the theme because she was turning 27 in 2007.  As a present, we all chipped in on a box of vegan delicacies that Cleve had brought back from the States – she was thrilled. Yumi dressed up in a striking strapless mumber, and Stephen and William wore great suits. Yukiko and Kei showed up as spies – they always look great! I didn’t stay there too long, however, as I knew that the Newfoundland gang was headed for Kaya to play. I collected Adam Cooke, an Irishman fairly new to Matsue who wasn’t into the atmosphere at ARGO. He had told me before he liked traditional Irish music.

Kaya was so much fun. There was a small group of people there, but it wasn’t too crowded. Daniel and Andrew played fiddle and guitar, including some jigs and reels that got us dancing. Andrew also made up a rap on the spot, called The Oisshii Rap, detailing the great experiences they had had in Japan. (“oisshii” means ‘delicious’; if you know this word, you can make a lot of friends in Japan). I got up later and sang, totally massacring The Night That Paddy Murphy Died, though Daniel fed me the many lyrics I forgot out of the side of his mouth, and doing a decent job of ‘Summertime’ with the accompaniment of the fiddle. It was great!

The next day, Sunday, was the last day of the festival. Venezuela performed. David played a number of down-and-out characters , changing clothes and costumes smoothly. The most memorable character was a red-haired, dirt-talking tart full of life and sex appeal. Before the show, Gustavo requested a splash of whiskey for David, though he said, “We don’t call it whiskey; we call it technique”.

Finally there was the Sayonara Party at Alba Hall, the big theatre down the road. It opened with an amazing taiko drumming performance, followed by a group of about fifty dancers of all ages. Then the volunteers – all 400 of us – were introduced by committee. Each committee stood up as the committee name was called. It took a long time. Prizes were given and speeches were made, and finally we went upstairs to eat and drink. So much food! It was lovely. One of my students, Yoshio, is a resident of Yakumo. He was there, red-faced and beaming, and he started to buy me beer. There were some performances, and everyone listened politely to the music. Then, Newfoundland played. At first, everyone just stood and listened, but then I linked arms with Satsuki and we started to spin and dance. Well, apparently that was all that people needed to let off some steam after a long, stressful week. Suddenly the floor flooded with people dancing. I found myself dancing in a circle with a bunch of old guys in traditional drumming costumes. Keith showed some step-dancing moves, which many people tried to imitate to hilarious effect. We were exhausted and sweaty when they finished the final song. After a while, everyone started saying their farewells. Seiji was pretty sad to say good-bye to Paul, Daniel and Andrew.

On the way back to the city, Seiji announced he wanted another drink, and asked to be dropped off at ARGO. Since the week had been so good, I wanted to extend it a little too, so I went. Kei and Yukiko dropped us off, but decided not to come in. Cleve was working, but it was pretty quiet. Only Jennifer and Cat were there with us after a while. And it was then that I was reminded forcefully why it’s a bad idea to go drinking with your recent ex. We were sitting at the bar and talking about the festival, when Seiji suddenly said that I was afraid of performing because I was a terrible actor. I was shocked, because he had unerringly found a weak point in my armour and stabbed into it. It was not a fear I had ever directly told him, so I was (later) dubiously amazed by his powers of observation. At the time, I burst into tears. I did not directly attack him back, but I told him a number of times to get out. Over his shoulder, I could see Cleve, Cat and Jennifer clustered in the corner, trying to figure out what to do. It was certainly the nastiest argument I’ve ever had in public. It ended abruptly when Seiji dramatically announced he was going to throw himself off a bridge and made for the door. Jennifer intercepted him, talking him down and eventually telling him, “You just can’t SAY things like that, Seiji.” Cat came over to where I was watering the bar (though I’m hardly the first to spill tears on the bar at ARGO) and hugged me and asked me how I was. “How can he say things like that?” I asked her. “Well, he’s hurting too, you know,” she said. When Jennifer was finally satisfied that Seiji wasn’t going to make good on his threat, she let him go and he left.

So there you have it; a very dramatic month in the life of Sarah, all told. Most of it was a lot of fun, some of it was awful. But it was always very interesting…