February 2011: Tsushima Tourism, Demon Exorcism, Dazaifu (again), and the Nagasaki Lantern Festival

It's only half-way through February, but it's been a busy two weeks; if I don't post now it may never happen ^^ So here's the past 2 weeks in review.

I noticed a bunch of new posters at one of my middle schools early this month; there were cultural and calculation-based posters, making me think that some of them were math-related and others general studies-related. My middle-schoolers don't make posters very often, but I thought these were interesting and very informational about Tsushima.

First, a look at tourism last year, broken down by month (across the top; 1st month, 2nd month, etc) and what countries the tourists came from (first row is the total # of tourists, 2nd is Korean tourists, 3rd is Japanese tourists, and 4th is other tourists). The final column on the right are totals for the year.

Looking at the chart, then, in 2010 Tsushima got 60,295 tourists. 58,554 of them were Korean. Only 1,133 were Japanese. More Japanese tourists tended to come in October (why?!?!), while the most Korean tourists came in August and November (much more sensible! ..swimming and maple leaf/festival time, respectively).

Another poster charted the number of total tourists to Tsushima over the past decade. The x-axis describes the years (2000-2010), while the y-axis is # of tourists.


As you can see, tourism has skyrocketed since 2000, when Tsushima only got 8,759 tourists. There was no explanation, but I can guess that the rising numbers probably have something to do with one or more of the following: more tunnel construction/creation of better roads on-island; more ferries to/from Busan, Korea; and better advertisement of Tsushima as a tourist destination in Korea. I see loads of buses full of Korean tourists every weekend, but it's rare to see tourists in a rental car. (Of course, they'd probably be less obviously tourists). This makes me think that the tour bus companies and classier Tsushima hotels (most of which have their own tour buses) are doing a good job of advertising in Korea.

I was also talking with one of my older taxi drivers last week about the roads in Tsushima. He said that when he was in elementary school in the 1950's, there wasn't a road that ran the length of Tsushima, north to south. Neither today's Nagasaki Prefectural Route 382 nor the eastern 'coastal route' were one full length of road, they were both only segmented bits. People got around the island by their own boat, water-taxis, or small boat-ferries, which were on a schedule. My taxi driver says he remembers going by one of the water-taxis from Hitakatsu to Shushi with his elementary sports team for a tournament. Those two locations are now linked by the coastal route; it's a 20-minute drive. Apparently people used Tsushima horses a lot more back then, too, to carry work tools and other things to and from their gardens.

I'm not sure when the coastal route or Route 382 were made into one continuous road, but even in my 2 1/2 years in Tsushima, two major tunnels have been completed. Thanks to that, I can get to the airport about 15 minutes faster now than I could when I first came. So it's easy to imagine how the road systems have improved by leaps and bounds since 1950 and even in the last 10 years, influencing the convenience of getting around and tourism on the island.

Another group's poster examined the number of fishermen/women in Tsushima and the respective "towns." The y-axis below is the # of fishermen/women, and the x-axis lists location (columns in order: all of Tsushima, Mitsushima, Mine, Izuhara, Toyotama, Kamiagata, and Kamitsushima).
So, there are 3,060 fishermen in Tsushima, and 922 of them live in Mitsushima (the Kechi area). 465 are from Kamitsushima, my area. Although it would've been more work, I wish the group would have made a graph representing what percentage of the population of the various "towns" were fishermen/women. Mitsushima technically has more fishermen/women, but it's also got a lot bigger population than Kamitsushima. I wonder how the towns would've ranked by percentage.

Another poster I found interesting discussed Ton-chan, the delicious local grilled-pork dish famous in Tsushima. (It's best in a backyard BBQ setting but can be tasty in a restaurant too).


I learned from the poster how ton-chan got its name: 'ton' (pronounced 'tohn') is Korean for pork, and Tsushimans added -chan to make it sound more Japanese.

This poster lists some of the flavors added to the pork to make it ton-chan:

...there are more than 10 ingredients in the sauce. While it's basically a shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) and miso base, the ton-chan sauce also has sugar, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, and hot mustard. The amounts and other ingredients are, of course, secret ^^ Tsushima ton-chan has been entered a couple of times into food contents on the mainland and has won recently, so you can see pictures of it on some Japanese websites: www.asahibeer.co.jp/area/10/42/tsushima/tonchan/ Mmmm delicious ton-chan!

Shortly after seeing these posters, I went to one of my elementary schools on February 3rd, which is Setsubun. I blogged a couple of years ago about the events at temples (like throwing beans to get rid of demons), but this was the first time I'd had the chance to participated in school setsubun activities.

First, we got some Setsubun beans with our school lunch. They came in a cute and informational package labeled "Setsubun Classroom."

The back of the package explained about Setsubun:

...basically, Setsubun marks the beginning of spring (or what should be the beginning of spring... think Groundhog's Day but always with a good outcome). It's thought that illnesses are easier to catch/disasters come more often at the change of seasons, as the weather changes from hot-->cold or vice-versa. So in ancient times, Japanese people called these bad things (illnesses and disasters) "demons" and would say, "Demons, out! Happiness, in!" while throwing beans out of their doors.

My elementary school's first-graders had a different and much more interesting take on Setsubun. First, they colored demon masks. Then they wrote on the back what kinds of 'personal demons' they wanted to exorcise. They're first-grade elementary kids, so their demons were adorable.

For instance, "The Demon Who Doesn't Eat School Lunch Fast"....

....."The Selfish Demon" and "The Demon Who Doesn't Take Good Care of His Things"....

..."The Shy Demon" and "The Demon Who Cries."

I got to participate too. After infusing our demon-masks with the "demons" that we wanted to eliminate, we put on our masks. Another teacher volunteered to help with the exorcision process. He threw peanuts at us (an alternative to the usual soybeans because the shells would protect them from the floor) while saying, "Demons, out with you!" ...and of course the kids scrambled around to collect the falling peanuts.

Here's the post-exorcism "Demons, OUT!" ("Oni wa SOTO!") group shot.

Yeah, Setsubun with my first-graders was all kinds of awesome.

A couple of weekends ago I went on a rather nice bike ride around Kamitsushima, from Furusato up to Waniura and circling around to Oura/Value, then back home. I got to peer down on Waniura (with the air force's base-island in the background):

...and coming from Waniura down to Oura, see a nice ocean-mountain view.

...but wait, what's that in the water?

...swimming lanes.. in the ocean?

Or a water-mine field set before...

...the Eye of Sauron and Mordor?!

Okay, maybe it's just a communications tower... but that's so 21st century and boring.

Fast-foward to last weekend, which was a 3-day weekend, so I went off-island. First stop: Dazaifu! I wanted to take another stab and catching the Flying Plum Tree in bloom.

...stopping to admire a moss-covered lantern on the way...

And, shucks, I was a bit early this year. Better than late, I suppose.

Here's the informational sign about the Flying Plum Tree:

While most of the tree was still budding, there were a few plum blossoms open...

..but yeah, mostly buds.

A ~lot~ of buds!

While the shrine wasn't nearly as busy as it was when I went in January (on my way back from Christmas in the states), it was still pretty hopping. Many people were lined up to have special prayers said for them, presumably for the upcoming high school and college entrance exams. It definetely kept the shrine officials busy:

It was kind of an on-and-off drizzly day, so I didn't stay long. One last farewell to the blossoms...

Oh, and on the way out there were bonzai-style plum trees for sale. They were kind of a steal, too, only about $20 for one, but I didn't want to be traveling with a tree.

The next day, it was on to Nagasaki and the lantern festival!

According to my awesome guide, Nick, the festival is really a celebration of the Chinese New Year... but in order to make it a bigger event, it's stretched out for about 3 weeks and called a lantern festival.

One of the first things I saw was this scary fire-breathing panda.

...and a herd of dinosaurs.

...and random kung-fu style men.

I later came to the conclusion that it's easy to make the lanterns look scary (the dragons are awesome), but "cute" is much harder to pull off. There were strings of simple round lanters everywhere, though, and I thought those did "elegant" quite well.

...although, when combined with the craziness of swans and frogs and flamingos (oh my!) at Megane-bashi ("Spectacles Bridge"), it did get a little trippy.

..but the strings of yellow lanterns on the other side of the bridge were quite nice.

There were many lanterns of various animals, far too many to begin to post pictures of all of them. I liked a few near Megane Bridge; there was a line-up of all the zodiac animals. I espeically liked the dragon and tiger lanterns.

A lot of the street corners and various other places had strings of lanterns more elaborate than the standard round ones, with Chinese-style poetry and paintings on the sides.

Making our way over to Chinatown, there were two enormous dragons poised nearby in a face-off:

Looking up near the entrance to Chinatown, a group of lanterns:

...and crowds of people!

I really liked the strings of round lanterns in Chinatown.

While I had a resident of Nagasaki as lantern festival tour-guide, I noticed in one of my informational phamphlets that there is a route between the two major lantern-infested parks. It's marked by lanterns like this, which have the Chinese character for "good luck" upside-down:

After making our way through Chinatown to one of the other lantern-spots, we found ourselves under a tent with tons of lanterns above, including flying birds.

...and an angry warrior on a red horse...

...and the most shocking part of the festival. Those with weak stomachs might want to skip this part. We were wandering through the lantern exhibits and came across a glassed-in shrine-like area with all of these offerings of incense, fruit, and...yes... pigs' heads.

I really thought they were fake at first, plastic or something, but when viewed from behind... nope, that's really real.

Moving beyond the pigs'-heads shrine, we entered an area of underwater creatures' lanterns. I rather liked the turtle.

Dragons, dragons, everywhere!

We also went to a quieter part of the festival, the 'historical' Chinese district of the city. There were far fewer people and food-vendors here, but it was nice to see a different side of the festival and lanterns hanging around historical Chinese buildings.

This part of the city also had much larger Chinese-painting-style lanterns. This one's much bigger than me.

On the way out of the festival, heading for warmth and drinks, I saw this giant monkey-person-statue. I think it's related to an ancient tale, but I forget which one.

One last dragon-lantern picture!

I'm really glad I was able to go to Nagasaki for the lantern festival. It was my first time to see it and well worth the trip. I'm also glad I dressed very warmly; February is still quite cold in Nagasaki!

I think that's about all of interest from the past 2 weeks ^^ Onto the rest of February!