Last day with the Ainu People

Sorry it has taken me awhile to get back to this blog, but had to focus on other things for a while. Hope to catch up quickly in the next few days.

The last day of the festival, we went to say our goodbyes. Everyone was picking up rubbish from the grounds (there was not much really) and sorting it into glass, paper, plastic, compost, tin and miscellaneous items that were then placed in sectioned areas. This happened everywhere we went in Japan, as people  are very concious about recycling and everywhere you see bins that have at least 3 sections for sorting rubbish. The festival grounds were left clean and with minimum impact on the environment. The long drop toilets were getting pretty smelly by the end of the 5 days and An was glad that we would not be there for much longer.

I went to say goodbye to some of the lovely Ainu people we had met there, as well as some of the other festival goers we had connected with. The Ainu people were still hoping that Gudju Gudju would be coming and I explained how disappointed the members of the band were that they were not able to get the grant to come this year and how they had tried till the end to find a way to travel there. One of the ladies we met on that last day even sang two of Gudja Gudja’s songs word for word.

It was  such an honour to witness the esteem they held for the music and lyrics, memorised from 10 years previously. We swapped contact details with some of the people there, thanked them for their marvelous hospitality and wished we had brought Gudja Gudja cds with us.

Then back to pack up camp and have a breakfast of noodles cooked on the camp fire before the rain got too serious.

After a couple of days without showering (except for washing at the creek)  we set off to find some hot spring baths (sento) The girls love them and Hokkaido has plenty, and each one is different. Firstly, though, we went to the Ainu museum to look at Ainu cultural artifacts and see more of the traditional housing. We spoke to one of the local women

who was tending the hearth inside one of the community huts. The building was pretty roomy and comfortable with its thatched walls and roof. This particular lady was not sure whether the festival was a good idea for Ainu people, as it attracted many alternative festival goers and in her opinion posed a risk to the young vulnerable and more  culturally protected Ainu youth.

However the lady in the next hut we went into, who was Ainu, believed that it was an important part of educating people about the indigenous culture and strengthening the Ainu culture at the same time.  She was weaving mats from grasses and told us that she taught Ainu language at the Ainu school. After leaving the Ainu museum,  we visited the Ainu school, as we heard that people could stay there sometimes to learn the language and culture.The school comprised of a set of dwellings, made up of some traditional cise and  other more regular buildings. We were taken into one of the huts,  but the occupant was recovering from the festival, so we left him to his reading and the fire in the hearth and went into town to have some lunch.

We ate at an Ainu owned and run restaurant and tried some delicious local specialties, including deer meat in a broth with noodles. As a side dish we tried something that the girls referred to as ‘like dim sims’ but as we found out later it is quite a rare specialty, only found at this restaurant and prepared by this one lady.

After lunch we left again to find the hot baths  so we could take a much needed shower and soak in the hot baths. Hokkaido is popular for its hot springs which are located everywhere. We found one attached to a resort and had a much welcome shower and bath.  Ken and Ayumi left after the baths to go back to Sapporo, as they had a hotel booked there as part of their hire car deal and we left to find the accommodation that Mumiko had reserved. It turned out to be an Indian Style hostel and there was an Indian music concert starting shortly after our arrival, performed by a talented Japanese musician called Sagar (who had studied music in India for several years), his Nepalese wife and a young Japanese woman who played Indian drums with passion and skill. The way she used her fingers to play the percussion, you could tell she must have practiced for quite while to toughen them, as well as master the intensity of the playing style. The concert was played in a small hall outside adjoining the hostel,  and the performance area was decorated with Indian cloths. It was quite an unexpected treat and free for the people staying at the hostel.

After the concert we had tea in the hostel dining room and chatted with the musicians. They also had with them some beautiful Nepalese jewelry for sale, but we were being careful with money, though I did buy one of Sagar’s cds. I hope he is able to go back and study some more, as he told us that grants do not exist for musicians like himself to further their knowledge and skills and he would have to raise his own funds if he were to go back to India and learn more.

It was a well kept hostel, and interestingly presented with its accents on Indian culture and the musicians came back each year to play there and visit the area.

It was a pretty big day and we slept well that night, especially Yuko and Mumiko.

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