My little sister is a Japanese culture addict. Anything Japanese, I am sure she can tell you the whole history till its core. She can even speak fluently by watching anime and now I am proud to say that she has pass her Japanese language test conducted by the Japan Foundation (JF) with flying colour *mode kakak yang bangga*.
Last year she had been offered to learn Japanese language exclusively in Japan via a summer program conducted by JF. And boy, I can tell you that it was the happiest moment of her life sampai tak nak balik Malaysia. Nasib baik dia tak mintak jadi warga negara Jepun. During her stay there, she bought two beautiful Yukata. Nak tau apa Yukata? Yukata is a traditional costume that is made from cotton which is common seen wore by the ladies during summer festival such as bon odori. Tak der lah mahal sangat. Its only RM150 per set. Quite cheap if you consider the quality. My sister even learned how to wear the Yukata, coz if you wrapped the Yukata wrongly it would have a different meaning. Nak tau apa meaning dia, silalah tanya Pak Cik Google.
So, since she bought the Yukatas last summer, it has been sitting idle in a closet waiting for us to wear it. Tapi gila lah pulak kalau sekadar nak pakai Yukata tu pegi berjalan kat tengah-tengah KL. Tak pasal-pasal orang kata moi as orang Jepun gila. Therefore, we decided that the best time to make use of the Yukatas is by going to the Bon Odori Festival which was held in Matsushita Stadium Shah Alam last night. My reason to go to the festival? Lots and lots of Japanese food..nyum nyum.
So, we arrived at the Stadium at 6 p.m, the parking is limited and we was told to park at the graveyard. I was like "Biar betul? dah la nanti nak balik gelap"..But we have no choice. It took us almost 10 minutes to walk to the stadium and upon reaching there we were given a fan each by the volunteers. Once we were inside, we can see there are a lot of food stalls selling Japanese food. I feel like I'm in heaven. You can choose any type of food and drink. Eventhough the price is quite expensive tapi oklah. Its authentic Japanese food. After we had our light dinner, we decided to go and seat near the center stage to wait for the event to start. Masa ni lah you can see a sea of people wearing their own definition of Japanese costume. Ada yang boleh menyebabkan anda tergelak guling-guling pun sebab you can see that they are trying to hard sampai jadi fashion victim.
At 7 p.m the event start with a drum performance. My little sister is the one that are most excited. Biasalah dia dah pernah sentuh bendalah tu. She keep on telling us how hard it is to play this thing and yada yada yada. After that the announcer asked everyone to gather at the middle field in circle. Owh acara nak mula dah. On the stage there are a group of teens wearing Yukata, they will show us the step to the bon odori dance. The funny thing is, me and my sis and also her friends have no intention to dance at all. Ingat nak tangkap gambar, makan and balik. But after thinking for a while, might as well we just follow them. Like they say, masuk kandang kambing mengembek and masuk kandang harimau mengaum. And mengaum la akhirnya kami.
Hahaha none of us know how to dance and even though there are people on the stage to lead tapi I guess our hands and feet are not coordinated. Hancur. In the middle of the dance, suddenly we noticed there is a guy with a big camera recording our move for quite sometimes. Scary but we decided to ignore the camera. Buat bodoh jelah kan. I'm not an artist. After the end of round one, a petite lady came to us and ask us whether we are local. I said yes and she said she from local network (tak ingat tv mana) and want to ask us few questions. We thought what harm could it be, so layan je lah. After the interview, the second round start and to our surprise the crew had decided to record our steps all the way till the end of round 2. Oh my! Gila step hancus and muka serabai. At first we thought of running but there is this one Japanese uncle keep on giving us words of encouragement so we decided to continue. Apa lagi, kami pun menari sampai habis round 3.
We decided to call it a night at 9 pm since I think it is kinda scary to walk to the car when its too late. So berjalan lah kami berempat melalui kubur Melayu, Cina dan India (like a friend of my sister said "Kubur 1Malaysia"). Since we only had light dinner, all of us decided to go to McDonald Section 3 for supper. When we reached there all eyes were on us. Yelah mesti semua orang dok fikir, Jepun mana lah sesat kat Shah Alam ni pakai Yukata berselirat. But with our ability to keep on our poker face, we managed to eat our food happily. Tired, happy and satisfied, we continue our journey home and sleep with a happy thought.
