With painted-on eyebrows, one good tooth, and a dogged insistence, this old timer attempted to pass on his grievance to us about the way things used to be. As women in long robes circled and chanted around a small altar in front of the large Matzu altar (below), and as another old man played a dingy old synthesizer and a young man banged a drum, this old timer told us that this kind of praying was not the same. Its not the same, not the same, he said over and over. He walked away and came back. He circled around us. I leaned in close to understand his old timer, toothless pronunciation. He pointed at every woman in the ceremony and said, "She's from city A. She's from city B. She's from city C. This prayer is not the same." He eventually came around to the monster-warrior movie projected on the screen behind him. "Do you like this movie," we asked. "This, I like this very much!"
