Concord Nanae Network Official Website
By Ben Mirin
Nothing reveals the true character and strength of a nation like a disaster. I would never wish such a horrible catastrophe on any people of the world, but as a foreigner living in Japan during the March 11th earthquake, I do consider myself lucky, lucky to have witnessed the incredible resolve of the Japanese people to such a degree as only such a disaster could reveal. Gan-bare Nihon!
By Ben Mirin, CIR
Saturday, December 17th, 2011.
Thirteen contestants performed in Nanae’s annual karaoke contest at the Nanae Bunka (Culture) Center in pristine Pioneer Hall. Out of all thirteen singers, twelve sang Enka, a traditional form of Japanese folk music with vast appeal among the predominantly middle-aged and elderly people who filled the auditorium. One contestant, however, chose to be different.
In a shamelessly narcissistic post, I thought I’d share the videos of my performances from that day. I was very pleased with how they turned out, and had a fantastic time participating in the competition.
Continue reading “Ben Mirin Performs at Nanae Akai Hane (Red Feather) Charity Concert”
Post by Ben Mirin, CIR
Videography by Ben Mirin and Emi Kimura
The following are three short videos shot independently with my iPhone at the Nanae Bunka-sai on October 30th, 2011. These were originally filmed for upload on my live video feed at qik.com/benmirin/videos. However, due to some persistent problems with my account, I am re-posting these videos here. The quality is…well, iPhone quality. Enjoy!
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By Ben Mirin, CIR
Filming by Emi Kimura
For those of you watching in Concord, “jouzu” means “very good” or “skilled.”
Enjoy the video.
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To submit suggestions for future content, please email concordnanae@gmail.com. Thank you for visiting ConcordNanae.org.
By Ben Mirin, CIR
This posting is to announce the upload of the top 100 photographs taken during Nanae’s most recent delegation visit to Concord, Boston, and New York City. The photographs, shot by the CIR (yours truly), document events from the week of September 23rd to 30th in Concord as well as in Boston and, from the following weekend, in New York City.
The 20 latest photographs from this collection are displayed on ConcordNanae.org’s Photo Gallery. To view the complete collection in chronological order, visit the Nanae Delegation 2011 photo set in the CIR’s Flickr Photostream.
Happy viewing!
[FAG id=2486]
By Ben Mirin
As seen in The Concord Journal.
On September 23rd, Concord received its largest ever delegation from Nanae, the town’s Japanese sister city. A group of seventy-two delegates filled the cafeteria of Concord Carlisle High School around 9pm to meet their host families and settle in for a week of exchange programs, official sister-city events, and sightseeing.
“We’ve been planning the events for this delegation visit for nearly a year now,” said Dr. Tom Curtin, Concord-Carlisle High School’s former guidance counselor and Concord’s primary coordinator and linchpin for the towns’ increasingly rich sister city history.
“We’ve just finished arranging all the homestays, and the group we’ve got on board to help host and entertain this year’s delegates is incredibly strong. We’re also excited to welcome some new faces from Boston into the sister city program, who have helped organized some exciting trips for us downtown.”
This year Nanae’s delegates will make several time-honored visits to Concord sites, including the Old North Bridge and the Orchard House. Curtin has also arranged tours of Harvard Square, the Japanese wing at the Museum of Fine Arts, and Berklee College of Music, with a special live performance by Japanese faculty member and trumpet virtuoso Tiger Okoshi.
Nanae has been sending its citizens to Concord almost every year since 1993, first informally and then officially after Concord’s Board of Selectmen voted to formalize the sister-city relationship in 1997. Historically, these groups have been on the smaller side, rarely amounting to more than twenty people. Students and teachers from Nanae’s elementary, middle, and high schools have comprised the majority of each delegation, alongside representatives of the local government. Members of the town’s taiko drum ensemble, interpreters, and many other citizens have also been in the mix.
But this year’s group is so large because of a promise that was made early on in the Concord-Nanae relationship, which will celebrate its fifteenth anniversary in October 2012. The Concord-Carlisle High School band director, Alfred Dentino, has been waiting to see it fulfilled.
“We first sent our Concert and Jazz bands to Nanae in 1998” Dentino said. “The trip was a great success, and our students loved having the chance to visit Japan. I’ve been waiting for the chance to host Nanae’s high school band in Concord ever since.” Continue reading “Concord Receives Largest Nanae Delegation in Town History”
By Ben Mirin, CIR
August 8th, 2011
Nanae’s new Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) and Concord native Ben Haydock arrived sweaty and exhausted at Hakodate airport on July 28th. He had a full week of festivities for the Hakodate Port Festival to look forward to, but his true initiation as a member of the Nanae community would not come until the following week.
Five hundred pounds, dripping with golden chains and clamoring bells, Nanae’s O-Mikoshi (mobile shrine) emerges from the stores of Nanae’s Mishima Shrine only once a year, on the shoulders of two-dozen men. At 7:30am on August 8th, Ben and I suited up in traditional happi robes and joined twenty other local volunteers to carry this cherished relic up and down the streets of Nanae for the town’s annual Summer Festival.
“After dancing the Ika Odori (squid dance) in the Hakodate Port Festival, I didn’t entirely know what to expect from Nanae the following week “ Ben said.
“I knew we would be carrying something heavy, but it wasn’t until we started down the street, with the O-Mikoshi in tow, that I realized my role in this festival was more as a laborer than as a carefree festival goer.”
O-Mikoshi all over Japan travel annually among the neighborhoods that worship at the Shinto shrines where they are kept year round. They serve as vehicles for particular Japanese Shinto deities, traditionally believed to reside in the principle shrines themselves. As they are bourn along the avenues of their respective districts, the O-Mikoshi spread good fortune to deferential residents who emerge from their homes and shops to pray and offer donations that support the festival for the following year.
That day our task was to cover all of Honcho, a district in Nanae that proved far larger than either Ben or I had imagined. At eight o’clock sharp, we shuffled into place around the O-Mikoshi’s wooden supports and prepared to march as five pairs of Yakko, or fan-bearers, took their places at the front of the procession. They carried long staves capped with masses of decorative feathers. Two by two they stepped forward and, swooping down to a crouch, swung these ornaments low over the ground with choreographed precision. They were clearing a path for our shrine to travel.
The last of the Yakko moved off, repeating their ritual every few meters. The veteran marchers began shaking the O-Mikoshi enthusiastically to set the mood for the festive procession. This continued for several minutes until a shout came from the front of the group. As one we hoisted the O-Mikoshi over our heads and marched forward from beneath the shade of Mishima’s iconic curving rooftop. Continue reading “Nanae’s Summer Festival: Carrying the O-Mikoshi”
By Ben Mirin, CIR
July 27th, 2011
NANAE ONUMA—On the morning of July 26th, twenty-four of Nanae’s government employees arrived at the town office in outfits that undoubtedly broke Japan’s “casual bizz” dress code for summer. Instead of collared shirts, slacks, and indoor slippers they tramped inside with dusty sneakers, cargo shorts, bandanas, and the occasional apron.
Moments after the morning bell rang I ran outside with this already sweaty entourage and piled into one of several cars bound for Nagareyama Onsen in the neighboring town of Onuma. When we arrived crates of vegetables and packs of ice were already streaming across the spa’s luxurious grounds. An early start was critical; soon, 235 children and parents from Fukushima would arrive for an all-day barbecue to kickoff the first season of Fukushima Kids’ Summer Camp, and to enjoy their first leisurely day outside in over four months.
“You are wonderful hosts!” exclaimed the Camp’s founder Toru Shinshi. “Normally we have about 80 volunteers with us on the program, but today there is a great local turnout.”
Not thirty minutes had passed and already Nanae’s task force was greeting the first waves of students and summer camp staff. As they arrived, so did volunteers from Nanae’s Board of Education and from the Higashi Onuma Elementary student body and Parent-Teacher Association. Groups from all around Nanae would arrive that day to help the Summer Camp achieve its simple, heartfelt goal:
“All we want is for these kids to be able to play outside again, especially during their summer break,” Shinshi-san explained. “Towns throughout Fukushima Prefecture have cancelled all of their student programs for the summer of 2011 because of the accident and unfolding crisis at the [Fukushima Daiichi] nuclear power plant, and children are being forced to stay indoors.”
By Ben Mirin, CIR
As seen in The Concord Journal column, “The Japan Connection.” Stay tuned for pictures on Concordnanae’s Flickr Photostream and Photo Gallery!
July 4, 2011
Hold the bachi at your navel. Is it touching the surface of the taiko? If not, go lower.
With this mantra in mind, I assumed an increasingly strenuous stance alongside the rest of my family as we merged mid-song into the ranks of Nanae Danshaku Daiko Sosakukai, the Nanae taiko drumming ensemble. Before an audience of nearly one hundred Japanese town office workers, English students, and high-school students, the latest delegation from Concord, MA, struggled to keep the beat.
Like every other day in Nanae, tonight was another chance for my family to be a part of something extraordinary. Eight days had passed since their bleary-eyed arrival at Hakodate Airport. Now, at the farewell potluck party in Nanae’s Bunka Center, Japanese friends from every part of my multifaceted life in the sister city had converged in one place, to treat us one final time as special guests in their community.
The days leading up to the farewell potluck were filled with a rich variety of events and excursions. At the center of the schedule were the routine responsibilities of the CIR. My family visited four of my six English conversation (eikaiwa) classes, toured the town office, ate dinner with Mayor Nakamiya, and made origami with the children of Donguri Kindergarten. With incredible help from Koji Teraya and Emi Kimura (International Relations), we also managed to go sightseeing in Onuma Park and Hakodate. We played park golf, went fly-fishing in Nanae’s Ookawa River, and went bird watching in Onuma and southern Kameda. We even attended a big-band jazz concert in Hakodate’s Public Meeting Hall, and enjoyed a fabulous cooking class with my eikaiwa student, Yoko Sato.
Our final day in Nanae began with a visit to Nanae High School, where we arranged to have a special meeting with Principal Kogoshi before attending the Tea Ceremony and English clubs and the brass band rehearsal. Enthralled by the brass band’s final piece, a stellar rendition of the Super Mario medley, we barely made it to the Bunka Center before Nanae’s Vice Mayor, Shuichi Baba, began his official address to open the Mirin family potluck party. Continue reading “The Mirin Family Visits Nanae”
By Ben Mirin, CIR
July 7th, 2011
The drive home from the Yakuba usually takes about two minutes, but this evening was different. At nearly every intersection, Nanae’s rush hour traffic came to a halt as crowds of children in brightly-colored yukata flooded the crosswalks. They rushed to keep time with the changing of the lights, swinging bulky cloth knapsacks and scattering their contents of sweets and little trinkets that clattered like a festive hail on the pavement.
It was a rare spectacle to see Japanese people trying to cheat the flickering crosswalk signs, but I had to pull over into a 7-11 parking lot to learn what could entice them exhibit such outlandish behavior. I got out just as a group of girls emerged from the store peering intently into their bags and nearly tripping over one another to compare their latest payload. They mingled and danced impatiently on the corner until the lights changed, then merged with an oncoming group of mothers and toddlers and raced over to the yakiniku shop across the street. I followed them up to the door, but there was no way to see inside beyond the crowd that had amassed outside, so I waited.
Through the doorway sounds of chanting could be heard, punctuated frequently by the affirming laughter of several deeper, gruff voices inside. Within moments, the children emerged in a rush to meet up with their parents, who had caught up and were waiting just outside. As they moved off and crossed the street again I pushed through the tousled curtains hanging above the doorway and entered the shop. Continue reading “Tanabata Matsuri”