Senryuu baby, yeah!

I'll never really get over how short winter really is here. It's snowed way more this year than in almost any year in memory, but it's still hardly anything. Now it's back to raining and the alcohol has come up to about 12 degrees again. This is apparently typical of the San-In coast. The San-In has feelings of shadow, the negative, rhymed verse, yin, gloom and crappy weather/gloomy life and an inward looking nature wrapped up in the Japanese meaning. I think most people just feel a little hard done by that they don't live in a vast mega-city.
Matsue, although not a particularly lively city does have its merits. the view from my window at work, the cheap rent, the old-folks growing vegetables and selling them at dirt cheap prices. There's also the access to the country-side, the relatively unspoiled coast and the relatively clean air. Living on the edge of the city, I can walk 10 minutes and find myself in farmland. Which is pretty cool, I think.
Anyway, things do happen in Matsue, just not a lot of big things, not a lot of high-key things, or a lot of things interesting for young people. It's an old-folks town. Still, that didn't stop us from having a bit of a 1950s prom-fund raiser. There was a contest for prom king and I was chosen as a lucky contestant. I was to perform a talent and answer a battery of questions. 15 minutes before the show, I still didn't have my talent together. I'd decided to read poetry, cause I didn't think about singing or... well anything really. Bit silly. Anyhow, I cranked out an English haiku and what turned out to be a Japanese Senryuu. I meant to write a Japanese haiku, but my friend Yoshi looked it over and said, "that's a senryuu, not a haiku". "Oh, I see..." I was thinking why the heck isn't this a haiku? It's got 5 then 7 then 5 syllables, it's nature themed... what's wrong with it? Turns out that the rules for actual haiku are pretty strict and it can't deal with feelings. Nature only. No action, no feelings, no people. Just nature. The poem went like this.

雨が降る (ame ga furu)
**it's raining
気が滅入ったな (ki ga meitta na)
**my spirit feels gloomy
山陰ですから (San-in des kara)
**It's because it's the San-In

While it sounds pretty glum in English, it's actually pretty funny in Japanese. If you live in the San-In and say it just right. First like is flat, second droops at the end and the third reveals the realization of cause in the tone. I did it with my own special brand of expression that anyone who knows me will probably recall with ease.
Alas, I did not garner the prize. That went to the only Italian JET in Japan. He sang a song he'd written words for to some Italian music about all the stereo-typing he's encountered in Japan about Italians. Hilarious! Truly inspired. After all that, everyone started getting pissed up, went off to a nomi-hodai (all you can drink) for two hours, after telling me they were all heading to a club down-town. I showed up and talked with a bunch of Japanese and some random foreigners who don't come out more than once a season before deciding my time would be better spent elsewhere. I have to admit, although I do enjoy getting drunk now and again, the drinking culture's getting me down a bit. Anyway, the evening wound up with me hangin' out with Maya, shooting the shit and drinking coffee until an ungodly hour with the next day being pleasantly restful. Beat the snot out of a smokey bar, expensive drinks, conversation limited by music volume and a greasy feeling style hangover the next day.