From the Hayashi of Kobanashi.

I'm so not an actor. Nevertheless, I've been trying to learn a 'kobanashi' for a competition that I will certainly not win, nor come close in, but for which there is a nice participation prize in the form of a specially designed tenugui (hand-towel). Reader, I covet it.

So, here I am trying to tell a story about a monk who enrols in a temple with a vow of silence. The monks are only allowed to say two words every ten years. At the end of the first decade, he says, 'Food, disgusting!' At the end of the second, it's 'Futon, thin!' At the end of thirty years he tells the chief monk, 'I quit!'

The chief monk shakes his head and says, 'I'm not surprised - you've been complaining ever since you got here.' (This is not a Japanese joke - I swiped it from an English-language site - but it's the kind of joke they tell in kobanashi.)

Hopefully you could tell all that anyway, from my body language, etc., as well as my expert use of chopsticks and tenugui - the kobanashi artist's traditional props.



(Once again, I know this is not good, but I put it here as a matter of record, and because this is my way of taking breaks from marking.)