Job Discussion Forums

fluffyhamster · Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:45 am Post subject:

Your tolerance for the fluffyhamster minority if not paying customers is sooo gracious, natsume. (Meowww! Hiss!)

wabisabi365 · Joined: 04 Feb 2007 Posts: 111 Location: japan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3cgmYrIWhU

By the end of the day, the Tagata Festival looks a lot like, hmm, a few proud festivals I've seen in N. America... go-go boys in loin-cloths even! At this festival they throw mochi instead of Trojans though.

Lots of fun. It takes place close to Inuyama City in Aichi Prefecture.

ws365

shuize · Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 1270

I like gay people. They're funny.

Noxness · Joined: 29 May 2007 Posts: 15 Location: Toronto, ON

I see what you are saying Fluffy. I do feel, however that the idea wasn't to discuss festivals that are similar to Japanese ones, but rather ones that are different and take place outside of Japan? Caribbana is another really big festival in Toronto, and it is akin to Gay Pride, in terms of costumes, floats etc. Should I have not discussed Caribbana either because its Caribbean Pride?

natsume · Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 409 Location: Chongqing, China

OK I'll come to fluffy's defense, kind of. I just got to Japan a month ago. At my high school, for the self-intro I was asked to give all my classes, I chose to show a lot of pictures of San Francisco, along with a few of friends, family, holidays, etc.

I showed them pictures of San Francisco's Carnival, which is a huge Latin American themed parade and street fair, generally "family oriented". I showed them Japantown's Cherry Blossom Festival and parade, and the Chinese New Year's celebration in Chinatown, both very family oriented. I did not show or mention anything about Pride Week. To me, and I am not gay, Pride Week is one of the many amazing and beautiful things San Francisco has to offer, along with the other events I talked about. But I had to give this presentation to literally hundreds of students, and this was also the first time I was meeting all of my classes, so I didn't want to casually throw something in that really requires massive amount of context. And frankly, since I am new to the culture, I am wary of touching anything that would be deemed "controversial" here. Now that I have met my classes and fellow teachers, I can tell already that I only have two classes, out of my 16, in which it might be fruitful to bring this topic up. They happen to be high level third year students, mostly girls, and all in the design program. No big surprise there.

I would never want to treat this topic without the respect that I feel it deserves.

shuize · Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 1270

fat_chris · Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 3198 Location: Beijing

Homonym?