Hokkaido Bears GAA

Yes, you read that title correctly. When the history of the GAA in the 21st century comes to be written, the small town of Jouzankei will merit a mention. It was there last Sunday that Hokkaido's first GAA club emerged, blinking in the strong June sunshine, unsure of itself, but willing to have a go anyway. 24 of us turned out, most of us gaels lost to parishes and towns all across Ireland, finding ourselves the other side of the world kicking an 0'Neills ball around and grinning with the sheer incongruous delight of it all.
We hailed from Kildare, Donegal, Carlow, Galway, Kerry, Dublin, Clare, Down, America, England, Australia, Japan and places in between, and if some of us had kicked better balls in younger days, we made up for the wayward passes with our consistent enthusiasm. 15 minutes aside we played and for those of us on the wrong side of 40 they were some of the toughest 15 minutes we've wheezed our way through in a long, long time. Shouts of "let it go, let it go now!" and "watch yer house!" brought a nostalgic tear to the eye, as did the sight of so many puffing furiously on fags during the half time break.
Our aim is to have a fully fledged team up and, well, if not running, jogging gently by this time next year, with the hope of participating in the Asian GAA Gaelic Games competition come the following year.
And after that, Croke Park, the third Sunday in September when the inaugural Japan teams sweeps the competition on their debut.

Sports Day

Saturday, 5:00am
Am awoken by the sound of Cian scampering down the stairs and into the toilet for an exceedingly early morning 'poo'. Today is his undokai, his first in elementary school and the boy is literally shitting himself with excitement. However, outside the rain is pouring down. I tell Sanae not bother getting up as its bound to be cancelled.
Saturday, 5:30am
I'm just drifting back to sleep when Sanae's alarm goes off and the girl gets up. It's still pouring outside. I point this out to her. In Japanese. But no, until official confirmation is received, she is in full on preparation mode. Should you live long enough in Japan you become painfully aware that following the rules too often triumphs common sense.
Saturday, 6:00am
I am just crossing over that fine line between drowsy wakefulness and pleasant slumber when the phone rings. It is the school telling us the undokai has been officially cancelled. The rain continues to pour down. Cian has started singing the 'shake samba' to Sanae's mother who is staying with us for the weekend. I give up and get up.
Saturday, 11:30am
The rain ends, the clouds clear and the sun comes shining through. Low tide is just after midday, so I grab my Bruce Jones and head for the beach. In life, my friends, you just have to play the hand that's dealt you. And if that hand is an afternoon's worth of surfing, then them be the (left-hand) breaks.

Sunday, 5:30am
Sanae's alarm goes off. There's no rain this morning. She has to be up at the school ground to claim a viewing place.
Seriously.
Parents queue up to bag the best spots around the track. By rights this is the father's job but I claim cultural ignorance of such bizarre oriental customs. Sanae told me later that when she arrived there was already a queue of 20 people ahead of her. When the school principal let them into the ground they sprinted, yes sprinted, to stake out the prime viewing spots.
Sunday, 6:00am
There is the sudden onset of an artillery barrage. Or at least it sounds that way. In Japan schools notify parents and residents that 'sports day is a go' by letting off a series of deafening fireworks. At six in the morning. As several schools throughout Muroran were holding their undokais on the same day, this resulted in a barrage of early morning explosions across the city, not unlike, I suspect, Sarajevo circa 1994.
Sunday, 8:00am
The Takahashi members of the Gaynor-Takahashi family set off for the school, a good hour before events begin. I begin eating breakfast.
Sunday, 8:30am
I am still eating breakfast but have to field an exasperated call from Sanae as to why I'm not there yet. Because, I reasonably reply, things don't begin for another half hour and it's only going to take me about 8 minutes to walk up there. Reason, however, has no place on undokai day. Only emotions are welcome, especially those that run high.
Sunday, 8:52am
Arrive at the ground. They haven't even begun the speeches yet.
Sunday, 9:00am
Speeches begin.
Sunday, 9:16am
Four speakers later, the speeches end. I have no real idea what the School Principle, the head of the PTA, the representative from the city's Board of Education, and the local residents' association said, but I'm feeling pretty fired up all the same.
Sunday, 9:20
Events begin with some blood curling speeches from the leaders of the red and white teams respectively. Unlike back home, sports days in Japan are all about the collective rather than the individual. The entire school is divided up into red and white teams and results in the various activities go towards a points total. The team with the most points wins which ensures that individual glory is subsumed into the greater good. (If only some of the Clare hurlers could buy into this philosophy).
After the near hysterical rallying of the bán and dearg troops, 6 representatives of each team come forward and engaged in a dance off.
No, seriously.
A dance off.
I was so taken aback by the sheer Zoolander like awesomeness of it all that I forgot to take a video. And I will regret that till the day I die. It was like everybody was Kung Fu fighting, but to really, really bad Japanese pop music. Still, there kicks were indeed as fast as lightening. And yes, for some of us, it was a little bit frightening.
Huh!


It took a while for both the crowd and competitors to calm down after that display of expert timing, but then it was on with the games.

And the highlights were:

(1) Musical: the 'Shake Samba' was finally revealed in all its legs-and-arms-akimbo-purple-pom-pom glory. I have previously blogged about Cian's nascent talent as this century's Nureyev, but to see it begin to bloom into its full carnival like splendour... I tell ya, he'd kick Michael Flatley's arse any day of the week.

 (2) The tug of war. Despite Cian's hackle raising roar of defiance - a sort of one man Haka - the white team were out muscled by the communist Reds. Too much individualism, not enough collective state socialism was Sanae's take on it.



 

(3) The 60 metre dash. I think the dancing took a lot out of him. That or his body was still caught up in the samba rhythm. How else to explain his unique 'windscreen wipers in heavy downpour' sprinting style.



(3) Thankfully by the time of the relay race he had managed to get his arms back under control. Ahh the relay. For sheer, heart stopping drama the only comparison I can make is with the '94 All Ireland Hurling Final between Offaly and Limerick. This race had everything - a seesawing change in positions throughout, deft baton passes, spills, falls, amazing turns of speed, and a photo finish.
You can, if you can take the tension, watch it in its entirety here.
11:30
And it's all over. At least for Cian and the rest of first class. The rest of the school has to plough on until half two, but after the relay everything else was just anti-climax. Emotionally we scaled the heights and then the sparse, wind blown tundra stretched before us and, well, I have no idea where I am trying to go with this analogy.

 

"We choose to build this human pyramid here today and do other things. Not because they are easy, but because we are Japanese".

Gaelforce West

So what are you doing on Saturday, August 17^th?

Nothing. Really? Well how about this: you and me, we rock on down to Glassilaun beach. Yeah Glassilaun, out west, way out west. Synge country, Playboy of the Western World and all that. It’s there on the road out beyond Leenane, this side of Newfoundland. 

Anyway, they’re organizing a bit of a run there, 10km I make, no, no, 14km there after telling me, all along the coast. Smashing scenery, you have the Mweelrea mountains sweeping down to the sea, you have the shore, the sand, the stones, the, eh, sheep, you know the whole John Hinde postcard thing.

So what do you say? 14km, a gentle jog along some of the most glorious, God-given scenery this island has to offer followed by pints in Gaynors in Leenaun.

Oh, hang on, there’s more apparently. A kayak section. After the run, you jump in a kayak and paddle across the fjord there. Ahh that’s lovely. Then we can double back for the pints in Leenaun.

What, hush down there, let the man speak. There’s more. Well, now. Right, it seems after the kayak there’s another bit of an auld jog up to the delphi road. Apparently its a bit boggy in places. That said there’s a wonderful wee restaurant up in Delphi that does a lovely bowl of soup. We could aim for that then - we’d need it I’d say, to be honest with you. And thus, suitably fortified we can head south back down the road for the scoops.

What?! Say again... there’s more. What? Go away. Really? A bike section. Right, yeah, I’m with you, go on. How far, like? Good jaysus, how many. 33 feckin kilometres. That’s a fair auld pedal all the same now. As far as Croagh Patrick you say. Ahh sure, if you have the weather for it and it’s lovely country to be up on the back of a bike. Plus there’s a great pub up in Murrisk that does this smashing seafood chowder. Not to mention the pints. 

So what do you say? You up for it? Course you are?

Ahh lads, don’t be telling me there’s more. There is ... what?

You what?

You feckin what?!

Your telling me, serious like, that we have to run up and down Croagh Patrick after dismounting from the bike.

That’s a big ask now. Especially after the bike. But I suppose we’ll put up and shut up. But then it’s down to Murrisk for the victuals. And let that be the end of it.

What?

It’s not what?

The end of it. You’re telling me there’s more. How much more?

12 kilometres on the bike on the back road into Westport. Why? Cause the race finishes there. Fair enough. I’ll probably be finished long before that, but I’ll give it a bit of d’auld Stephen Roche and freewheel across the finish line.

I can’t, can I. Why not? You have to leap off the rothar and run the last kilometre to the line. Run you say. Crawling would be ore like it. Probably pitifully crawling too. 

And then we’re finished? Are you sure? No swimming out and around Clew Bay or anything like that. 

Fine, grand then. We’re finished, so it’s a shower (optional), a bite to eat and off to Matt Molloys for a feed of pints. 

So you still up for it? Course you are. 

I’ll see you all then on Glassilaun beach on the morning of the 17^th. 

You can enter here.

And yes, I already have.

Hachiman Shrine

We took ourselves off for a bit of stroll the weekend before last as the sun, well, it wasn’t exactly shining, but as the fog was a little less dense than usual, you could catch glimpses of this glowing orb in the sky.

We went to Hachiman Jinja (shrine) near the old port. In over eight years living in the city it was my first time to visit. While I can’t say that those eight years were blighted by my ignorance of the place, it was still a pleasant surprise. That said, the bar is set quite low in Muroran, so ‘pleasant surprise’ can be applied to anything that isn’t made from corrugated iron and/or belching noxious smoke.

Anyway we pottered around for a while ringing bells, clapping hands, splashing water and generally letting the gods at Hachiman know that we were here and could they please do something about the fog. 

Turns out they were the wrong gods. Enshrined at Hachiman is Ukemochi-no-Kami (the goddess of food) who, according to Wikipedia, “was visited by Tsukuyomi as she prepared a feast by facing the ocean and spitting out a fish, then she faced the forest and bountiful game spewed out of her mouth, finally turning to a rice paddy she coughed up a bowl of rice. Tsukuyomi was so disgusted he killed her. Even her dead body produced food: millet, rice, and beans sprang forth. Her eyebrows even became silkworms”.

To which all I can say is “eeuuughhh”. I am totally with Tsukuyomi-san on this one. Though I can relate to the eyebrows-becoming-silkworms. I wonder if anything similar happened to her ear-hair. I am expecting mine to turn into creeper vines.

But I digress.

Also there is Kotohira-no-kami, the god of the sea, who is a whole lot more acceptable than his fellow food-regurgitating deity.

Thankfully there were a couple of late blooming cherry trees to distract us from the thoughts of bountiful game spewing and coughing up rice bowls, though Cian reckons he wouldn't mind giving the latter a try.

The sounds of summer

In Hokkaido June is the season of the undokai. Literally translated as 'exercise meeting', it approximates the school sports day back home, though without the edgy glamour of the egg and spoon race. Sanae's school has their undokai this coming Saturday with Cian's following a week later. 

I will have more to write about this over the next fortnight or so as events unroll (most of it in complaining mode about PTA conscription), but for now I want to talk about music. And dance.

Yes, I know, not something you would traditionally associate with a sports day, but from observing both my wife and son over the last couple of days, it seems to be by far and away the most important part of the undokai. There has been singing, there has been dancing, there has been singing and dancing. And there has, sweet merciful Jesus, been a lot of it.

Apparently each class in school 'must' perform its own unique song and dance routine on the day. Why? I have no idea. This is Japan. They don't explain that sort of thing to us foreigners. 

Anyway preparing for this little bit of Broadway takes an inordinate amount of time, sweat and body beat coordination. As a home room teacher of second class, Sanae has spent pretty much the past month choosing a song, choreographing an accompanying dance, practicing it, refining it, practicing it again, and finally teaching her students how to do it. 

I'd like to write that the girl has got her groove down, but I can't lie to you dear reader. The end result is  a sort of frenetic mishmash of random limb movement and some heavy panting. Like you were being attacked by an aroused octopus off its head on ecstasy. Set to music. Ahh the music. This is where she really went wrong. She chose the song 'PONPONPON' by that well known Japanese chanteuse, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. 

You can experience it in all its bewitching, melodic glory here. Now, try dancing to it.

Cian meanwhile has been concentrating on his own 'Lord of the Dance' routine. He is quite coy about the dancing, but he has revealed that he will be 'bustin out the mad moves' to a song entitled 'shake sanba', or in English, the 'Salmon Samba'. 

I swear I am not making this up. You can see one interpretation of it here. It helps though if you go out to your car, pop open the petrol tank cap and inhale as much fumes as you can before watching it. 

I have no idea, none, whatsoever as to what is going on in that video. Maids and the serial killer from Scream. Like I wrote; this is Japan. They don't explain that sort of thing to foreigners.