Last night, okaasan and I went to visit her brother and his wife, who live down the street. It was a little nerve-wracking at first, and I was nervous about not knowing visiting manners or keigo (honorific speech) sufficiently. They served us tea, and I was kind of amused as okaasan told them (seeming very pleased) about my ability to eat Japnese food, my ookisa (height) and the fact that I had gone jogging that afternoon. Luckily, both of them spoke slowly, and unlike my otousan, okaasan's brother was quite easy to understand. Okaasan's brother brought out his calligraphy to show us, which was really pretty and then got out his shamisen and started playing (I got to hold it!) This was all very interesting, and my iPhone dictionary saved the day more than a few times. The conversation was definitely way out of my vocabulary range as they ended up talking about things like the epic poetry sung along with shamisens and the type of dancing used in kabuki. I was following along as best I could with my dictionary, and learn all kinds of interesting words like 音感 (onkan, sense of pitch.) They then tried to describe the evolution of the shamisen, but all I could make out was that it originated in Okinawa and they used to use cat skin for it but that broke too easily, so now they use dog skin. Then we discussed how traditionally, blind people were travelling shamisen players.
Here are a few pictures:
