Machine Gun Sarariman: Summer and festivity

[Edit: put a few pics below]

So, what was once every two days has now seemingly turned into once a month. Posting here in China is hard work, I'll have you know - I have to overcome the massive obstacles of bad internet, and the collossus known as "meh, can't be stuffed"-syndrome. Getting home at 11.30pm and usually slightly drunk really isn't a help for the cause. Try telling that to my boss though: "I don't want to go out for dinner, because the world-wide web awaits my written word!" Actually I'd say that, if I thought he understood English.

Before we get back into the "How's China" motif that is my life lately, I thought I'd mention that I was back in Japan recently, albeit for only 3 days. I had to cram nearly 2 months of catching up and chores into a weekend and half a Monday (I spent the other half at work). Luckily I had timed my return perfectly to coincide with the summer festival of my old uni, Osaka University of Foreign Studies ("Gaidai"), in its final year before it merges with the local mammoth, Osaka Uni ("Handai").

This was my third summer festival, and my first one in which it didn't rain. The problem is timing - its placed at the end of the monsoon in Japan (not as extreme as in India and the like, but May-June is certainly the "rainy season"). Any later (in actual "summer") and the students have exams, and then the summer break, when hardly anyone is around. However, this year we got lucky, and the rain didn't make a cameo. Good stuff, seeing as I don't think there's going to be another "Gaidai" festival. Shame really, as you can always rely on arts students to put on a good show (seeing as most of them don't go to class).

Highlights of the day included Mio's flamenco group, one of the few clubs that will survive the merger (Handai doesn't have flamenco, its probably too cultural for them). Japanese doing flamenco sounds a little odd, as would Latinos doing judo or Maoris doing Riverdance. But it works, probably more than if blondes or gingas did it. Japanese still have that darkness (and I don't mean "dark side", I mean like black coffee or dark chocolate), and their beauty is not unlike Latinos. The performance is less "passionate" and more "elegant", but it works, mate.

Mio and Kaori on stage.

Checked out the futsal soccer tournament going on too, and caught up with guys who had graduated and I hadn't seen in ages. Overall the day was full of that: people I hadn't seen in months or years, and all our lives are heading in such different directions that I really don't know when (or if) I'll see most of them again. It was awesome and yet honestly, really depressing. In perspective, I spend insane multiples of time with people at work compared with the amount I even spend with my girlfriend or family. And yet, without trying to sound arrogant, none of the guys in my company deserve more than an hour of my whole life, in my humble opinion. Life is too short as it is, why should I be spending it with people who I can barely stand, and who don't seem to have much time for me? Life is cruel and ironic like that.

Funny, this post was supposed to be about Japanese universities in the summer. But now we've digressed to the flaw of employment. I blame the fact that in the last two weeks all I've really had time for is work, which is why I haven't been able to post this yet. Still, that's how I felt on the day. Like a kid at a candy store with only a dollar and 2 minutes in which to spend it, because the place is about to close down and all the lollies will be burned. That's pretty much my life in a nutshell. Splendour on fast-forward.

The day ended with a bang, as everyone danced the "Bon Odori", the dance for departed souls. Usually I find it kinda cheesy and overrated. But with a few thousand people massed around a stage with a taiko drum, everyone chanting and jumping around, it felt like a rock concert full of friends. Topped off with a mass balloon release, it was a pretty neat sendoff to a university that has been the hub of my social life for the last 3 years. The place won't change, and hears hoping the vibe doesn't either. Famous for the second highest suicide rate in universities in Japan, but the guys and girls that didn't kill themselves were awesome.