To describe the Gakuensai at the University of Hyogo and nothing else would be a rehash of the previous post that explains the tradition of Gakuensai itself. In fact, I cannot explain the three days of the festival without going into depth about the Folk Song Club, because it was through the club that I experienced the festival. As most students experience the festival through some academic activity rather than paying it a simple visit (even the various exchange students from China and other parts of Asia formed a vending stand to serve Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean food), it was fortunate that I too could experience it through a club activity like most students do.
As a member of the Folk Song Club, my part in preparations for Gakuensai simply involved me in being ready to perform on the third day of the festival. I could have done more, but the feeling of being an outsider within the Folk Song Club seems to emerge (conveniently) when everyone is required to perform some shared duty. The preparations included both setting up the venue for performing and the food stand that the Folk Song Club runs every year, selling "Buta-Kimchi" (豚キムチ, basically kimchi and seared-pork), which all members take part in operating and selling. For the most part, I was free by myself to tag along and enjoy the festival, which probably created some friction with other members, but that's another dimension of being in the Folk Song Club that will be explored later in this post.
As I walked onto campus the first day of the festival I immediately noticed the traffic of people was far greater than the other two campus Gakuensai I had attended. From the start of the entrance that leads up the hill to campus, there was a flea market with vendors lining both sides of the walkway. The amount of people in the entry path made it difficult to navigate, particularly with the parents and their toddlers being pushed around in strollers. It signified the variety of people in attendance of the school's Gakuensai, offering flea market bargain hunting with vendors of food and alcohol toward the heart of the campus. Students were carrying food and drinks for sale down to the flea market. One student I know from the ESS Club (English Speaking Society) offered to sell me a beer, but I wasn't trying to get things going so early in the day. Eventually I made my way to where the Folk Song Club had set up shop.
The rest of the day was filled with fulfilling promises to buy food and drinks from familiar faces around campus and enjoying the Folk Song performances and other festivities. The food, and inevitably the drinks, were all satisfactory and the mood of the festival exceeded my expectations. There were ongoing events on a larger stage toward the far side of the campus near the lecture halls (I will have to get an entry up that shows what the campus looks like through photos, really, it's long overdue) throughout the day, and concerts by both music clubs at school- Keion and of course, Folk Song. The Folk Song shows that day were nothing mind-blowing compared to anything I had seen before. The last show of the day, however, was filled with explosive energy, mainly due to the exceptional talent of one of the first year drummers.
That night I was lucky enough to go to an annual event for the Folk Song Club, an event that also occurs for most any college club activity. As clubs have a well-defined structure with chairmen, sub-chairmen, and various other positions that undoubtedly create some level of petty politics, Folk Song is no different, and every year at the Gakuensai the new club management takes charge. As the Folk Song Club is operated by third year students (probably the same for other clubs too), the third years were ready to have their positions handed down to second year members. This event, held at an izakaya (居酒屋, meaning a Japanese traditional eatery/bar) in Sannomiya, involves a special get-together with second year students and above as well as former Folk Song members who had graduated one, two, even ten years before, coming to join their underclassmen for a night of drinking and celebration. The importance of the event seemed to me a bit bloated, which is why I felt little guilt in tagging along while all but three other first-year members of the club were invited. After all the sentimentality and sense of purpose, the evening all boiled down to the drunkenness that occurred at any club get-together. However, it was fascinating to meet former club members who were into their thirties, married and with careers, but nonetheless took the time to revisit the Folk Song Club through this ceremonious occasion. Some alumni had married through the romantic relationships they formed in the Folk Song Club. This shows the level of bonding that can happen in college clubs, something I may have underestimated in my prior assessments of the Folk Song Club. The newly chosen club leader, who looked a bit nervous and unconfident throughout the night, remarked throughout the night that he envied foreigners, clearly implying he envied me, as I freely talked with the alumni who seemed surprised to see a foreigner attending the occasion. I felt a little bit bad, but only for the sake of the new leader, because I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong; he was simply intimidated by the people who would undoubtedly judge him in his position as the head of the club. The alumni members were generally friendly to him, however, and everyone got along well.
Following the end of the night's festivities and as everyone was stumbling home, I went with the current Folk Song leader and another second year student to eat at a ramen stand. The current leader openly expressed his doubts about his successor, saying he doesn't have confidence, and none of the second year students really seem to do. I asked well, why not a female club leader? He laughed at the idea. Of course, it was not surprising, as the club has always been under the same structure. This night, I felt, was one of the most defining moments for what the club activity really meant. It's as serious a component in the lives of college students as any other structure in Japanese society. While extracurricular activities can be as serious in the United States, the focus is still a group of individuals, whereas in Japan the group identity comes to define the individuals. There are members of Folk Song that fit this mold and members who could go either way. While I felt before I had a good grasp on what the Folk Song Club is, but from this night I had at least learned that I can never fully understand what things like this mean in the context of another culture. As the next couple of days of Gakuensai went on, I would continue to learn more about the club that I had taken for granted for so long.
The next day was more of the same in terms of Gakuensai. I saw a bit of the Folk Song performances and generally just hung around the campus grounds. Toward the end of the day the Keion club had a performance that nearly all Folk Song members flocked to. This performance was a cover of a popular girls' group, AKB48 (I'll do a post about them later, as it's pretty integral to modern Japanese pop culture). The following day, Folk Song would do their own cover of the same girls' group, so it was a kind of friendly rivalry between the two music clubs, and generally just idiotic in my eyes. Nevertheless, the sight of legs and mini-skirts was too tempting to dismiss entirely, so I watched the Keion show with everyone else. The sound operation was terrible, as two microphones failed to produce any sound, generally making it seem amateurish. The crowd still went wild for the girls in the Keion club, and after the show ended the Folk Song members quickly assembled to practice for their own version the following day. The first year boys of the club were required to sing a song in the show, although I snuck off as to not get involved in the ordeal. I didn't end up seeing the guys perform with the girls the next day, but they were all dressed in a nerdy fashion (or for Japan, dressed like otaku, a word for Japanese nerds/geeks/maniacs/shut-ins/outcasts) so I assume they had some part on stage with the girls of the Folk Song club. That concluded the second day of Gakuensai.
That night, however, there was one more practice session with the band I was to perform with, a group of utterly novice first year students covering Oasis songs. The full band would play two songs, and then one song with just me on acoustic guitar and a girl on violin (for Oasis' "Wonderwall"), and nobody was confident. At times like this, when bands can no longer use the Folk Song club room to practice in, they book studio space in Sannomiya. I was well aware, however, that the songs wouldn't be spectacular even with the extra practice. Throughout the night came several ideas on how to improve the set. One member, the lead guitarist, had been well-known to be fond of another first year girl in the Folk Song Club. I asked him when he was going to make the relationship official, and he said within the next couple of days. Someone else in the band said "You're not going to ask her tomorrow at the show??", and he said no. From that point on, I adamantly told him he would do it at the show, although he protested to the thought in a passive way. I said even if he refused, and came to hate me for it, I would put him on the spot during the emcee segment after the first two songs of the set. And so it was decided that would be what would spice up the show. That, and a freestyle rap during practice that the band members begged me to turn into a part of the show, to which I eventually caved in.
The next day, last day of Gakuensai, the girl who would play violin arrived early to the festival, as she had been gone the previous two days in Nagoya to attend a family member's wedding. We were supposed to practice once more before the actual show, and so I eventually made my way to campus to catch the end of the AKB48 cover set, performed outside on the large stage that had hosted other events during the previous two days. The Folk Song performance looked flawless, and was mainly brought up by some of the girls who were extremely talented vocalists. The dancing and choreography looked well-enough, and the band who provided the instrumentals was perfectly on point. The amount of people watching the performance was the largest I had seen at any of the events during Gakuensai. Folk Song certainly proved their fortitude at Gakuensai, surely to boost its already high level of popularity.
After that I practiced with the violinist, and everything seemed ready to go. I hung around outside of the cafeteria where the Folk Song shows were being performed. I spoke with some fifth year Folk Song members, one who was already quite drunk and running around exposing himself around the campus grounds (a usual activity for him), and someone from outside the Folk Song Club, a part-Japanese American from Hawaii who is in a metal band with some of the older Folk Song Club members. I hung out with them until it was my time to go on. The show kicked off at 2PM and all the members were nervous, except for me because I already knew I'd be superb (I told this to them, which they didn't take very enthusiastically). The guitarist who was supposed to spill his feelings to the first year girl, who happened to be in charge of holding the time cards that display how much time remains in a band's set, continued his protests to what I had laid out the night before. Since his opposition appeared genuine, I had second thoughts, but the other band members told me it was the right thing to do, and the violinist, who had just learned about the idea, thought it sounded great (she and the girl in question are in the same nursing department at the University of Hyogo [nursing students stay on the main campus for one year before continuing the rest of their education at another campus in Akashi]). And so, we went on.
The room was pretty well-crowded, and the professor, Ueno-sensei from "Interchanging Cultures" was there to see me perform. We went through the first two songs relatively smoothly, with the rapping interlude the other members had demanded to introduce the members playing in the band. The first two songs concluded, and I announced that I would need a chair to sit and play acoustic guitar, and while the preparations for that took place I handed the mic over to the guitarist after telling the crowd he had something important to say. The girl, holding the time cards, waited in baited breath until he called her by name. Putting down the time cards she stepped onto the stage and people looked with a degree of excitement that was only audible in the occasional gasps and whispers but fully palpable through the energy that filled the room. The guitarist simply said, "I like you, please go out with me" and she answered, tears in her eyes, with a yes and a bow, and the room exploded in applause and photo-flashes. I sat down with my guitar ready and the violinist stood beside me ready to play, and I announced that I would dedicate the song to their relationship, only I used the English word "dedication" with my Japanese, puzzling the crowd, "'Dedication', what's that?", to which I responded "Look it up in a dictionary later". We played the song with room largely silent, with nothing but the strings of the guitar and the violin and my downplayed vocals. There was a special kind of intimacy in the performance, a rare moment in a club that focuses mainly on pseudo-mosh-pit punk thrashing for its shows rather than subtle emotional performances. The violinist received her due accolades, and the show was undeniably a success. While my description of what went on seems more like sentimental fluff rather than academic observation, it did show something that remains uniquely Japanese. Japanese people, no matter how Westernized they become, always go crazy over the kind of pureness and innocence of young love that was displayed during the set. I was aware of how the situation would play out, and was glad that I put the kid on the spot (he later thanked me for doing it, in spite of his prior reservations) so that I could create a memory for myself and the Folk Song Club members.
After the show there were a series of other performances to close out the festival. I walked in and out while spending time with the aforementioned fifth year students and the Hawaiian. This created a problem later, however, when the shows ended and the Folk Song Club gathered in its entirety for a group photo on the school athletic grounds. I was off somewhere else and received several messages and finally a phone call telling me to hurry up and get there in time for the picture. People were apparently furious, and when they sat me next to the third year club members there were audible protests that I shouldn't be in the picture next to the senior members. The third year students responded that because I was only there for one year it was alright. The politics of the club came to mind and I prompted me to think a bit more about just how much class levels within the club mean to some of its members. The photo was a success, however, and I stayed around to help with the huge task of cleaning up after the end of the festival. By taking part in the club as a member of the group rather than an outsider, it definitely relieved whatever tension I created because of the group photo.
When cleaning was completed the underclassmen members rushed to a building by the train station near campus for a short commemoration for the third year students who would be handing down their club management duties to the second-years. There were long speeches and a toast between all the club members before the meeting was quickly adjourned so the club could head off to Sannomiya for the real celebration. On the subway train I sat down with the Folk Song Club leader from two years before, who was already quite plastered, raising his voice loudly in our conversation on the train. I asked if he saw my performance, and he said he saw a bit before he walked out because of the lack of skill in the first-year performers. His open criticalness was at first a bit surprising, as Japanese will beat around the bush in telling you that someone sucks. However, I was glad to hear his thoughts on it and I was inclined to degree. As much as the Folk Song Club has been a learning experience for me, in terms of musicality, it doesn't always add up. But this, of course, is beside the point. Had the show I played in been all-out flawless (playing Oasis flawlessly isn't really mind-blowing anyway), it wouldn't have made a difference in what the show was about. While before the lack of focus on music had frustrated me in the Folk Song Club, I was now finally at a point where I could appreciate the other value it had on creating interpersonal relationships.
The rest of the night went on without anything really shocking, aside from the fact that people went full-out binge-drinking to celebrate the end to the business of Gakuensai. Of all the events throughout the year, this must be the most crucial one for the Folk Song Club, judging by the noise levels they produced in the izakaya, causing the employees to ask several times for people to quiet down. The club members are heavily involved in the entertainment and in vending food at the festival, the leadership is handed down, and everyone generally creates a closer bond. To me, Gakuensai gave me a new perspective on the Folk Song Club, and also the possibility to become more involved and closer in the experience than I have been before. Not taking this opportunity would mean missing out on a Japanese cultural experience that gives insight to all the things I set out to study on this exchange. With less than just five months, I will strive to be more involved in the club, and while I'll never fully understand what it means to its members being the foreigner I am, I will try my best to capture the feeling of it and make it last a lifetime.
And that's it for Gakuensai. お疲れさまでした。(otsukaresama-deshita, "Job well done").
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