Today I went shopping at Atsugi's Fair Trade store, a really nice store with great people and a great atmosphere. Despite the cultural difference it is so much like German Fair Trade stores I know.
For example there are some lists for signatures about local and global problems, a lot of free information material, cool books from all over the world.
And of course food, clothing, art and other things out of Fair Trade from all over the world.
Apart from that the interior is warmly decorated and floor, walls and ceiling of a nice bright wood. As are the shop keepers :)
some pictures of the shop, I found on the net
and here is some self introduction of the store (Japanese only)
農業大学 University of Agriculture
After shopping I went out and heard some loud Japanese drum (太鼓) coming from the direction of Saty, a big shopping mall in Atsugi. Curiosity aroused, I went there and found a group of students performing. There was a banner where 農業大学 was written on. And a police officer explained me that these are students from the Atsugi university of agriculture and they are holding their annual performance in the city center.
Being a university of agriculture 8 male students came in a black uniform armed with two radishes each. With these they performed an opening performance moving them maybe like a sword or something else.
Afterwards two 先生 "sensei" (Japanese for master, teacher) exchanged each other in leading a performance. Apart from that there was the guy on the 太鼓, Cheer Leaders having "Radish" written in green letters on their dresses and a strong guy holding on of those huuuuge Japanese kind of flags. A green flag of their university. Since they are too heavy to life, he had wore leather equipment around his human reproducer. Starting from this, the rest of him fit the Japanese TV-Show character Hard Gay. A Japanese guy in a typical black leather outfit, with the stereotypical hat and sun glasses. So Hard Gay held the flag, 太鼓boy drummed the drum and the boys made some cool performances with the Cheer Leaders in between.
Apart from that they sang songs and using military / martial arts like language, all in a very loud voice. It was also a performance of Japanese discipline, since they only moved and sang on command and since a lot of other students span a rope around the performance place by holding the rope in a kneeling position without moving, having their head down, for the at least one hour long performance.
After the cool show, they distributed a bag of free vegetables from their university. Of course I got one. Inside was a carrot a huuuge sweet potato and two somethings covered with earth, which I can not make out yet. :)
Really cool and I run into it by chance :)
wondering how there can be a whole university dedicated to agriculture
mika
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