During my time within the culture class at Kumamoto Gakuen I was given the opportunity to see and experience specific aspects of not only the culture within Kumamoto but also of some of the culture all over Japan. Within this blog I will share two of my favorite experiences with you.

Theatre - 山鹿

One of my most memorable field trips was 山鹿. I have always found ancient Japanese arts and cultural aspects very interesting and so getting the chance to see the local theater was a great experience for me.

Standing outside of the theater, I had no idea what to expect from the inside and so when I walked into the main hall of the theater I was pleasantly surprised. Within the theater there was a feeling of old culture meeting modern day life. I found that the inside of the theater was both comfortable and welcoming and I enjoyed the scenery which included an amazing ceiling full of company advertisements. 

I found the most fascinating part of the theater was the way they host their performances, in which the flooring of the stage is still powered by men and the actors and actresses are lifted onto the stage by hand.  I found this to be very traditional approach to their performances. I also noticed advertisement within the theater for traditional and famous performances.  Listening to the explanation of the history of the theater 

I realized that the theater is not very old itself but because of its cultural importance and traditional ways it has become an important part of the local town.

Pottery - 陶芸

One of the most active and enjoyable experiences was our trip to a local pottery house. Within this trip we got to see lots of hand made, beautiful pottery creations. We were also given a demonstration on how the process works from creating some of the more basic pottery items such at cups and plates. 

Following the demonstration we were then given our own clay to mold into anything we wanted to make. Many people chose to make cups and plates but other people made more unusual things such as ash trays and tea pots. My experience of molding clay was very interesting and I found that the process of making my cup was difficult as the clay was hard to shape whilst keeping it all in correct proportion and trying to make sure that the cup looks nice still. 

Once we had finished making our own cups or plates we wrote our name on and were told that in order to make the cups it would take around 2 months to get back to us.  During the time we had left I took some time to look around the rest of the warehouse to see some of the various models which our instructor had created. There was a wide range of things, from small cups and plates to large vases and models of dolls. The detail to each piece was incredible.