"My Boom"

The Japanese have lately come to love using the english word "my" as a fuzzy little adjective that really means something more like "personal or individual." You can buy a "My Car," or a "My House." At frisbee I'm often asked if I brought my "My Disc." But the most overused of this construction is "My Boom." What are you into lately?

Lately, "My Boom" is dancing. And so when my old host family took me to their little neighborhood festival and everyone was doing the O-Bon Odori (O-bon dance). I thought it would be fun to join in.

The tradition of an O-bon Odori goes way back to when the dances were performed as part of the sending away ceremony for the spirits visiting during O-bon. It has been passed down for hundreds of years and is still performed around O-bon by small neighborhoods, although without the context of a religious rite.

The dance is fairly simple. Everyone joins together in a circle and the dance proceeds counterclockwise around and around. The little old ladies taught me the steps and hand gestures using a little song that matches the action. I asked my host father whether the song had anything to do with the meaning of the dance, and this is what he explained.

"The words that describe the actions are actually describing a coal miner's work: Dig it up, dig it up. Throw the sack on your back. Wipe the sweat off your forehead. Push the cart. Sweep it clean." Neither he nor my host mother knew how that explanation came to be used.

Anyway, I learned the dance, and after three or four turns I was dragged up to the platform where everyone could watch the foreigner doing the traditional Japanese dance. My host family is convinced that a picture of me will be in the little neighborhood newspaper next week.