Honto ni kando shimashita.

Today was one of those incredible days that will never be forgotten.

I attended the culture class portion of the program today, once again lectured by Japan's first baseball player, Mr. Yagino Koji. In preparation for the Kabuki play we were set to attend, Mr. Yagino gave an overview of the three prominent forms of Japanese theater: Kabuki, Noh, and Bunraku. Japanese theater is a favorite subject of mine, and given my coursework in Japanese literature of the court and pre-modern periods I know a fair bit about the subject. Consequently, I spent some of the lecture contributing information - much to Mr. Yagino's delight. Despite speaking perfectly lovely English, Mr. Yagino feels his speaking abilities to be terrible and relished the opportunity to have a native speaker convey core concepts to the rest of the class.

At the end of class, I bowed profusely to Mr. Yagino and thanked him heartily. I was really delighted with this elderly gentleman, and so honored to have met him and been able to benefit from a small portion of his knowledge and experience. But I was in for a surprise. After I had thanked him, Mr. Yagino presented me with a book on the current Kabuki actors, saying that in all his years of teaching I was the most knowledgeable student of Japanese culture that he'd ever encountered.

In my amazement - and delight - I could only blush, bow some more, and murmur in my broken Japanese that I was truly surprised (honto ni bikuri shimashita ga) and deeply moved (kando shimashita). I shook his hand and told him that it had been my honor. On Monday I'm going to speak with Tanaka-san about the possibility of getting a gift to Mr. Yagino. I'd like to thank him once again, and appropriately, for his tremendous kindness to me.

I'll post my experience at the Kabuki theater separately.

At the Kabuki Theater.

The class attended a Kabuki play today at the National Theater of Japan. We saw a single act from a long play entitled Futatsu chocho kuruwa nikki ("A Tale of Two Butterflies in the Red Light District"). The act depicted is one of the most popular tales in Kabuki theater. It tells the story of two stepbrothers who have been separated all their lives. The eldest son is the true child of the old widow, Oko, who gave her child away at birth and later married the younger son's father and looked after him as her own. Some twenty years after that time, her stepson has just achieved the rank of samurai - an occasion that will bring great honor to the family - when his stepbrother (unbeknownst to him) arrives at their house on the run from the law. The younger brother is charged, as his first mission, with the capture of this dangerous fugitive.

And thus begins a gripping domestic drama.

The mother, loving both of her sons, is torn between her desire to do right by each of them. And the brothers, in their turn, are torn between their duty to themselves (and in the case of the samurai his duty to his lord) and their duty to one another. In the end, each brother elects to do right by the other; the samurai offers his brother a chance to run while the fugitive ultimately refuses this chance, asking his mother to tie him up that he might be brought to justice. In the final sequence, the younger brother frees the older from his bonds and, pressing money into his brother's hand, sends him away to safety outside the city. In a particularly captivating sequence, the fugitive, nearly overcome by this kindness, reaches out to the brother he never knew even as the doors of the home are closed to him.

Each man knows that, despite the fact that they have never before met and will never again meet, nothing will ever be the same for either of them.

I was in tears as the curtains were drawn.