Hyakunin-isshu (Traditional card game)

I spent my afternoon playing a traditional Japanese card game, which is apparently played in January.     

Cards are placed on the floor (about 100 - plus or minus).  They are covered in writing.   Yes, in Japanese writing (it was a good thing I remembered that Japanese writing goes top to bottom and right to left - or I would've really been stuck!).  The writing was the second half of a poem/song that was sang/chanted.  Obviously we had to match the card with the song.  Much easier said than done!  

It was difficult for a number of reasons - 1.  it was all Japanese to me :P  2. I had difficulty knowing where they were starting to sing the part on the card.  3. The students were all faster than me (I guess if didn't take them as long to translate the random sounds to writing) and some of the kids even knew the ending to the song before they got to the card!    

I have to admit that it was fun, it was also challenging, frustrating, uncomfortable (sitting on my legs for an hour and a half) and cold (my poor feet were frozen by the end of it).  I felt like I had quite a distinct disadvantage.  But I was pleased to be invited and included and for someone who doesn't know the language, I felt I did ok, picking up 2 cards and being slightly slow at 3 more (I was reading the card - making sure when a hand sneaked under my nose and got to it first).  So sad to be defeated by all these ichi-nen sai (year 7) kids! 

                      

I did a little more research and this is what I discovered....

About 750 years ago, a famous poet, Teika Fujiwara, selected 100 excellent poems among the poems written by the poets from the 7th to the 13th centuries. Hyaku-Nin-Isshu is 100 poems by 100 poets in Japan.

There's more info on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyakunin_Isshu