January OSC

This month, OSC planned to meet to see some Chinese acrobats at Hosch Ten Bosch (which I'm almost certainly misspelling). Hosch Ten Bosch is the Dutch Village Amusement Park located near here. For a (not so) small fee, you can go in and walk around in the village, feeling very much like you've left Japan and gone to Europe. Inside, you can pay extra to do things like ride a boat through the canals, see museums related to all things Dutch, or see special shows, like the acrobats we went to see. They also have restaurants serving every type of food you might desire and shops selling mostly foreign stuff, like very expensive cheese (cheese is a rare commodity in Japan). Here's what the place looks like on the inside:


So why would anyone build such a place? Well, two reasons: 1) from the Japanese perspective, it's exotic. While we Americans may not especially want to see a European Village in the middle of Japan, they love the place and go often to get away from "boring old Japanese stuff". 2) The Dutch had a major influence in this area. When the Japanese government went isolationist and closed every port except Nagasaki, they allowed the Dutch to come into Nagasaki's port to do business, no one else. (Apparently the Dutch were considered the least likely to try to convert anyone religiously, making them the most desirable business partners.) So actually, there are little Dutch-related things all over Kyushu island. Most are historical buildings like old warehouses, this one just happens to be a replication of some of the more interesting buildings from that area.
Anyway, we had lunch at a nice little Italian restaurant in the area, took the boat around the canals, and saw the Chinese acrobats. Unfortunately, no flash photograph was allowed in the actual show, so most of my pictures came out blurry, but here are two of the acts we saw:


I know that second one is hard to see, but each girl in that tower was laying on her her chin and chest with her legs bent up and around backwards so her feet would touch her shoulders... on top of another girl doing the same thing. My back is sore just thinking about it!

It was quite a nice event, and I'm glad I got the chance to see another set of acrobats (I've seen them in Beijing and Nagasaki before). It was also good to see what the whole Hosch Ten Bosch thing was all about. I can't say that I'll be investing in a year long pass any time soon, but it was good to check out.