The Ballad of Bone and Kuma (いもたき会)

Since last Tuesday was the Japanese national holiday Autumn Equinox Day (秋分の日), Cara and I took it upon ourselves to attend a local imotaki-kai (いもたき会) and gorge ourselves on this traditional seasonal soup.

Imotaki-kai (the "kai" means a meeting or party) is a seasonal celebration held throughout Ehime Prefecture from the middle of September until early October. The outdoor gathering is a chance to meet with family and friends and eat a hearty soup as you gaze at the moon.

One pays for the dining atmosphere at an imotaki-kai. The set admission fee gives you a seat on a towel in front of a tiny gas burner and a tray of ingredients. You are expected to boil the soup to your own individual liking.  Since we were the only two non-Japanese people present, we had to smile and reassure multiple staff members that we understood the basic cooking concept of "put stuff in bowl and boil until done."

The "Imotaki" soup that gives the celebration its name can be loosely likened to American chicken soup. Among its many ingredients are noodles (albeit udon), chicken, onions, and potatoes (specifically taro potatoes, known as "imo" in Japanese). The soup also contains traditional Japanese ingredients like fish cake, konyaku, and tofu as well. The resulting soup is rich, flavorful, and incredible filling. So filling in fact, that Cara and I both had to lay down and rest our bellies due to over-fullness immediately after finishing the pot.

As we neared the end of our meal, a friendly woman from a party sitting on the towel across from us came over and offered to take our picture. She proceeded to take no fewer than ten different pictures using every setting imaginable on Cara's camera. While a good 2/3 or them turned out comically blurry or underexposed, there were a few keepers.

It wasn't long after the photo shoot that the remaining members of the party fluttered their hands upwards, signaling for us to come join their group. Turns out our photographer's name was Kuma. Kuma means bear in Japanese and she demonstrated this by holding her arms above her head and growling for us all. While this may be the way she commonly introduces herself, I think the added theatrics were likely a result of the flowing booze.

Indeed, every member of our new "adopted family" was heavily intoxicated by the time we pulled up a cushion. Our hosts immediately asked for drink selections. I was poured heaping glasses of a yellowish colored shochu (sake). I happily drank all the cups given to me.

The more I drink the more I lose my ability to speak coherent Japanese. Luckily, I seem to retain most of my listening comprehension skills. It turns out that the group of eight middle-aged adults all met when they were middle school or high school students (I can't remember which). One group member's parents used to own a little eating place that the kids would all go to after school and hang out. I was told that for them, the imotaki-kai was a class reunion of sorts and that they don't have many opportunities to see each other.

By far the most entertaining member of the group was Mr. Ki*. Mr. Ki volunteers at the sightseeing center in Matsuyama City, and as such, in addition to sporting an encyclopedic knowledge of every festival and event in the area, spoke some English. To be fair, his English mostly followed the pattern of emphatically saying words like "YEAH" "ALL RIGHT" or "WOW!" after a long string of Japanese.

Mr. Ki couldn't remember our names. He asked Cara what her name was for the third time and Kuma, thinking he was talking to her, began to growl and wave her arms above her head again while repeating the word Kuma over and over. Thus, Cara became linked to the name Kuma (the bear) for the rest of the evening. Meanwhile, my name changed every time it was spoken aloud. I was Bill, Bob, and Ban. My personal favorite of the evening was Bone. Cara and I still use the nicknames Kuma and Bone when referring to each other.

A karaoke box sat on a small stage underneath the Shigenobu River imotaki-kai banner. After listening to an untold number of shy children whisper the theme song to the latest Power Rangers series into the mic, it was our turn to sing in English. We successfully performed "Let it Be" and tried our best to harmonize as the different parties in the audience all clapped along.

Returning back to the towel, our new friends were disappointed to hear that Cara and I weren't married. Further frowns greeted us when we used the label "friends" and admitted that we hadn't yet held hands (or held minds? This bit about sharing each other's thoughts was completely lost in translation for me).

The only remedy it seemed was for us to return to the karaoke box and sing some traditional Japanese enka (folk music) duets about falling in love. Our final song of the evening was, "The Day Love Was Born" ( 愛が生まれた日). Since neither of us had any idea as to the melody of these songs, we had no choice but to make up our own while reading the Japanese lyrics off the screen. The rest of the group joined us onstage and acted as backup dancers and singers. They, it would seem, were singing the actual melody

And so concluded Bone and Kuma's live stage show. Mr. Ki gave us souvenir packs of udon noodles as we parted ways for the evening. Walking back home, our last love song's two distinct melodies lingered in my ears...

Sometimes its the songs you make up on the spot that end up sounding the best.

B.E.W.

*One reason why I call the man in question "Mr. Ki" is because I simply forgot his real name while ingesting multiple cups of shochu. However, this name also references a very special Matsuyama festival that he told me all about during our time together. For the full explanation, you'll have to wait a few more posts...

TO BE CONTINUED!