On Holiday

Monday was another busy and strange day for me. Several exciting and less-than-exciting things were happening all at once. The most importnat less-than-exciting thing was the fact that my car is in the shop, forcing me to walk or hitch rides from friends any time I want to go anywhere. My car had a slight run-in with the concrete wall outside my house. I was the driver, and I spent a long time feeling extremely foolish, but then every person who's heard the story and knows what my driveway looks like reacted with "oh! That was bound to happen eventually..." So I'm getting over it, and now so is the car. The nice (American) man who was recommended by the many people on base who have had similar issues said it would take 3-4 days to fix. Today is day 7. Granted, two of those days were holidays, but still... I wish I could have found someone Japanese to fix it...
Not having the car was not a big deal for the first five days. The only place I had to go was base, and I walk that sometimes just for the fun of it. Other than having to carry groceries home, it didn't really have much effect on my life. But Monday, I had a Family Readiness Group meeting to go to in Hario housing, which is a solid 30 minute drive from my house. Not having a car was not such a good thing. I woke up very irritated at my unfortunate postion. Luckily, I have some very patient friends, and I was able to catch a ride for that, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Monday was a Japanese holiday. According to my handy list of Japanese holidays, it's commemorating the day that, according to historical records, the first Japanese emperor was crowned. As a result, the main shopping center in town, lovingly referred to as the Ginza by the Americans, was jam packed with people when I arrived there on my way to base Monday morning. The Ginza is a pedestrian only street in the middle of town with any type of shop you might desire. It runs for several blocks. I managed to arrive just in time to see a parade go by. It was the biggest display of Japanese nationalism I've seen in my year here. There was a marching band playing an upbeat, marchy version of the national anthem (which sounds really weird because the normal version is slow and mellow sounding), followed by a whole bunch of people who presumably represented various civic groups carrying paper flags. As I walked, I ran into a major gap in the parade. Further along, I discovered the reason for this gap: the parade was stopping at the cross walk and only proceeded when the pedestrian light was green. It made me laugh because no procession like that in the states would just stop for a light.
Anyway, if off base was a little festive, then on base was an all out party. Sasebo is currently being visited by a big ship that is apparently coming from the middle east somewhere. By big ship, I mean that it probably doubles the number of Americans in Sasebo for the time that it's here. It arrived on Monday morning. The last time this happened, I'd been living here for all of a week, and didn't understand what base is normally like. Now that I do understand what base is normally like, I can understand why the "locals" avoid base when there's a big ship in. See, the normal population of Americans here has been carefully trained to behave significantly better than the average American. We've adopted Japanese standards of politeness... almost. Most of the Japanese people we meet here base their entire opinion of Americans on us, and we want them to like us, so we play nice. When a big ship comes in, the base is flooded with not ordinary Americans, but sailors, and there's a reason sailors have the reputation they have. Some of the sailors will probably be delightful guests, but the sheer number of them makes it almost guaranteed that there will be an "incident" between an American and a Japanese person before they leave. Plus, they hang out all over base, and make it a signficantly less pleasant place to be. Also, security closes off several main streets, so driving on base becomes quite a hassle, too. So the rest of us quietly hide and wait for it to be over.
Unfortunately, I had to be on base, so I braved the crowds to get my groceries and found myself leaving base again behind a group of newcomers set on finding downtown. They were the more stereotypical sailors and I really felt uncomfortable being anywhere near them. Right as we exited base, a big black bus came by with speakers on the top. The speakers were blaring the Imperial March from Star Wars. I felt the urge to crawl into the pavement. I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly confident that the truck was a response to the ship that came in. Why? Well, Japanese people are not exactly fond of nuclear power for the most part (and can you really blame them?). I'm not sure about the ship that's currently visiting, but most of the big ships in the US Navy are nuclear powered, and it bugs the heck out of Japanese people when they're visited by those ships. So I'm guessing that the truck was a protest to that. What was really mortifying was the way the sailors reacted to this truck, as if it was privately owned and some weird quirk of Japanese society. They took pictures while shouting obseneties and jokes at each other. Hence my mortification.
On the way home, I passed a gathering that was either in honor of the Japanese holiday or another protest about the ship (it's really hard to tell since protests aren't really that loud or angry here for the most part). I also pondered just how nice it was that I didn't have a car today. If I had, I would have missed all the excitement.