by Pattarapong Choopanya
We used a primary school in Pak-sang village to host the Culture Night. All villagers either from Pak-sang or neighbouring villages were most welcome…The kids from the Pak-sang village, which were also students of this primary school, also took part in the event, including traditional E-san dances…The highlight was Buy-see-soo-kwan ceremony, a very unique E-san tradition which will only be done to important guests. It is a belief that each of the student has their own spirits or KWAN’s (more than one, I’m not sure the exact number of Kwan’s), often times, these spirits are fled away and not around to protect self. So, by doing this Buy-see-soo-kwan, we recall all kwan’s that are fled away, hidden away, or lost to return to protect the student… The sacred white ropes will be tied around the students’ wrist, usually by older attendees, and this signifies the end of the ceremony…As expected!!! The ceremony was flooded with tears — Ahhh… what a touching moment! I was strong enough not to cry, the only reason you guys will see me crying is I won a multi-million pounds lotto!!! 555+
The students and their sensei’s had prepared 5 shows for tonight, incredible!!! These included Okinawa shamisen (Japanese traditional 3-string guitar) played by Shigenobu sensei and Mai-chan and sung along by the other students… very very very Japanese… And Soran Bushi dance which I personally thought was the highlight of the event… the audience loved it so they had to perform twice!!!
I was really appreciated their effort and devotion in preparing (and bringing a lot of equipment) 5 performances to make tonight special… JAPANESE SPIRITS!!! Sugoiii \(^o^)/
Tonight was special to me too, because it was the first time I did a roleplay in front of a very big audience… moreover, fully dressed an old woman… I thought everyone would dress up their own character as well, but it turned out to be that only me and Shuhei-san dressed, the rest were in jeans and T’s, what da f…!?!! — imitating old lady’s voice was the most difficult bit, how did I do, guys???
We finished earlier than expected and at the perfect time just before a heavy downpour… It was good though, as we can go home and have a relaxing evening after a long, tiring day…
Thank you very much everyone for every single contribution from each one of you to make tonight such a memorable evening… Arigato…