Today was truly a day of art and history.  After waking up and having breakfast, Otousan and Okaasan took me to ShurijoCastle, one of the greatest castles in Okinawa.  It used to be the main castle of the Ryukyu Kingdom(500 years ago) and has apparently recently become a national heritage castle.  The castle was beautiful.  There were multiple gates, and well as a huge central throne room.  I noticed that as people came to the gates the stepped over a huge wooden block, not on it and then over.  That was when I realized those were the thresholds of the castle, and in Japanese culture it is rude to step on the threshold of any house, castle, etc.

When we got to the actual castle building, we had to take off our shoes.  The inside of the castle was huge, with wooden walls and tatami floors (tatami is a special matting made of bamboo – my room is actually matted with tatami, and I am very honored to have that room (apparently it is the most respected room in Japanese culture.))  The castle had pictures of old kings, the kings crown and throne, which we BEAUTIFUL, and a nice Zen Buddhist garden outside.  After we saw the main castle, we went to the courtyard to watch some traditional Okinawan dances of the Ryukan era.

After Shiroju Castle, we went to the National Theatre to watch my host sister/niece`s performance on the Sanshin, a traditional Japanese 3-stringed instrument played like a guitar.  We then stayed through the rest of the performances, which were a plethora of traditional Okinawan dances.  My favorites were one about the coming of spring, a fisherman dance, a dance about a lady whose sweetheart was sailing away, and a dance/play about two princes who kill the samurai that had killed their father.  All these performances had musicians in the back and the dancers in the front. One thing I found interesting was that everyone clapped when the dancers left, as oppose to when the musicians stopped playing (at the end.)  We also saw some traditional courtier dances such as the one we had seen earlier at Shirijo castle.  Otousan told me that they were commonly used to entertain foreign diplomats in order to seal a trade, and that in a way I was a diplomat/representative from America who was being entertained by these dances.  Apparently diplomats from other countries found it hard to believe that without any military prowess the Ryukan kindom could still have such a strong trade-based economy, but according to Otousan it was because of the intricate dances they used to entertain the diplomats.  Overall, it was a really nice day.

Other cool things I learned today include: 1) In Japan, the years are counted as the years after the crowning of a new king, 2) The restroom signs in the national theatre (being a place of art,) were actually pictures of a samurai for guys and a traditional Japanese lady for women, and 3) Okaasan`s father used to own a HUGE cement company at the site of the National Theatre, but that has now been sold.  On the way home, we saw the military base.

Ok, that’s it I think.  I`m looking forward to going to school tomorrow.