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May has been full of all sorts of fun events- I have traveled to the Philippines, watched the Hiroshima Carps WIN a baseball game, played rice patty mud volleyball, dropped my cell in the river, went to the recontracting conference in Kobe (I ate Kobe beef!), danced till dawn at a club in Osaka with a Japanese man named Yoda, and even got to see my friend Brian perform in a German Opera in Japan. The last weekend in May I felt like I was transported back in time. I spent the last Sunday participating in Taue, or in English, Rice Planting. My friend Stephanie from Berkeley was in town. She definitely picked the BEST weekend to visit because no other time in our lives will be able to participate in something that was so cultural, historical, and fun.

Let There Be Rice

Casey Lary
2006-10-06 16:21:22

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May has been full of all sorts of fun events- I have traveled to the Philippines, watched the Hiroshima Carps WIN a baseball game, played rice patty mud volleyball, dropped my cell in the river, went to the recontracting conference in Kobe (I ate Kobe beef!), danced till dawn at a club in Osaka with a Japanese man named Yoda, and even got to see my friend Brian perform in a German Opera in Japan. The last weekend in May I felt like I was transported back in time. I spent the last Sunday participating in Taue, or in English, Rice Planting. My friend Stephanie from Berkeley was in town. She definitely picked the BEST weekend to visit because no other time in our lives will be able to participate in something that was so cultural, historical, and fun.

No longer is rice planted by hand, but by machine. The rice planting we were participating in was a festival/tradition that was for good luck to bring a good harvest in the Fall. The first order of business was to get decked out in the traditional rice planting yukatas. They were blue and gold, coincidence? I think not! In addition to
the yukatas and obis, they tied a long red sash to keep the arms of the yukata from falling in the mud, a pair of black tights, and a really cool rice hat. We also had these cool rice planting shoes that we called our ninja shoes. Being our first time to be dressed like this it was quite entertaining to get dressed.

After that we headed out to the rice field that we would be planting. Since it is more of a festival/tradition now, only one field is planted by hand. When we stepped outside we were greeted by numerous women who had bountiful amounts of food and sake for us to indulge in before plunging into the mud. My props go out to Stephanie. Before her trip to Italy and Japan, she really did not eat anything besides La Burrita and Noah's Bagels. Japan is definitely the place to start trying random foods! Lisa and I were not much help- we told Stephanie ...

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