It hasn’t been that long.
Of course I remember the typical New Years holiday celebrations in the U.S.!
The shots of Buttery Nipples, Afterburners, and White Gummy Bears, the beer chugging contests, DUIs, the streaking of police patrol cars, mooning at McDonald’s drive-thru, the totaled rental cars, 72-hour hangovers, the arrest warrants, getting herpes from kissing some stranger at midnight, the Rose Parade, lying in the den in a puke-soaked Kurt Cobain sweat shirt through 12 hours of football — Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Tangerine Bowl, Toilet Bowl, Oxycontin Bowl.
It’s impossible to overstate how different New Years is for me here in Japan.
Granted, there might be some revelry in the big cities like Osaka and Tokyo. Compared to what typically goes on in America, even these are more like Thursday afternoon bingo in Butte, Montana or octogenarian shuffleboard in Sun City, Florida.
Fasten your seat belts, people, to keep from falling off your chair when you nod off reading this. A pot of hearty espresso is recommended if you’re serious about making it to the end.
New Years Eve day, Masumi, her daughter Azusa, and I, climbed a mountain I’ve written about twice before. It looks like a mountain but it’s really not that high. It has steps and trails, so we left the GPS, emergency flares, ropes, and rappelling gear at home. What I like about it, besides offering a decent work out, a couple hours in nature, and splendid views of the valley which contains most of my home town, Sasayama, is that by bike it’s only about five minutes from my house. It couldn’t be more convenient.
This time, we also brought Azusa’s Black Labrador puppy too. We all headed over — Azusa on foot, Masumi and I on our bikes — to the trail head, which is situated right in front of a small shrine. Of course! Shrines are as ubiquitous here as fire hydrants are in the States. Anyway, about 45 minutes later, we were on top the small mountain, had a picnic lunch, then returned via the same trail.
It was cool but comfortable, perfect for this relatively easy hike. However, as we made our way back down, the temperature started quickly dropping. And continued dropping right into the evening.
Masumi and I had the option of visiting the grounds of a local temple to “ring in the New Year”. They have a No Theater performance, a bonfire, and serve free non-alcoholic sake. This is a real family affair for all ages.
But we decided it was just too damn cold!
So we stayed home, falling asleep before midnight. We missed the tofu cannons, whale juggling, sky diving ninjas, and laser holograms of Godzilla eating the Moon. This was prudent. We needed to rest up for the next wild and dazzling phase of our extended weekend, Land of the Rising Sun New Years extravaganza, set for next morning.
That would be at べんてん神社 (Benten Shrine), the Shinto shrine which belongs to our village. We live on the very east end of Sasayama proper, in a village called Noma. Each village of several in our city of 50,000 or so typically has its own shrine and community center. Living in Japan is about community life and getting to know your neighbors.
The motif at the shrine was similar to what we missed at the big temple downtown the previous evening. There was a small bonfire, free kelp and squid snacks, and sake. This sake was the real stuff but only dispensed in thimblefuls, so no one exactly got rowdy.
This being a shrine and to the rather meager extent that Japanese indulge in religious services, there was singing. Mind you, this bore no resemblance to Handel’s Hallelujah chorus or a medley of tent revival spirituals. In fact, what we apparently were singing was the national anthem, which is why my lovely, principled wife was not singing along. She is categorically and staunchly opposed to nationalism, even superficial celebrations of what has not served humankind very well over its blood-soaked history. Which explains why I had to burn all of my American flag Hanes boxer shorts right after we got married.
Of course, anyone who knows me knows that I am joking. All of my American flag undies were long gone decades ago. I believe they were used as rags to stuff Molotov cocktails at some street protests in Berkeley back in the late 60s. I can’t say for sure. It’s difficult to track where things end up after you drop them in a Salvation Army collection box.
Let me add that Masumi thought the idea of singing the national anthem on this special occasion was very strange, a total anomaly. Somebody certainly made a very odd choice. Personally, I found it to be a rather doleful affair, not the stuff of conquest and plunder.
Anyway, here’s a very short video clip of my neighbors singing at the shrine.
Okay . . .
Enough is never enough, especially when it comes to wild abandon and revelry. Sure, we were exhausted from all the whoopee. But driven by relentless surges of hedonism and the insatiable urge to party like its 2099, as soon as we got home we decided to go to Kaibara, the town both near to where Masumi grew up and where we officially got married.
柏原八幡宮 (Hachiman Shrine) is a beautiful place at the top of a hill. It maybe takes ten minutes to walk up the stairs.
People step to the front of a shrine, make a contribution, sometimes light incense, ring a very dissonant, clanking bell to get the attention of whoever up there might be listening, then make an appeal for some desired improvement in their lives — new husband, better job, health, long life, happiness, money — the usual things. They also write these requests on pieces of paper and tie them to a tree on the grounds.
Whew! Wild and crazy times here in Japan, eh? We know how to party!
Personally, I find this all very calming, informal, charming, especially since I mercilessly was subjected to the tortures of the Catholic Mass for way too many years. What can I say? Buddhism and Shintoism rock!
I’ll end this account on what I find an interesting note. While there is some god, a spirit entity, associated with each shrine — our local shrine described above is in dedicated to Benten, goddess of art, music, literature, especially appropriate for Masumi and I — the Japanese, and most Asian people, especially Buddhists, don’t pray to a specific god, saint, angel, virgin. At least not the way Christians do. The Catholic Church has a precise org chart for all of its holy representatives. St. Christopher was assigned assuring safe travel, St. Anthony unobstructed breathing passages. Then there was the Virgin Mary, who had what could only be called a cult following of her own, rivaling that of Jesus, who of course was the Savior, source of salvation. Asians just send their prayers out there, as Masumi quite patiently tries to explain to me. Buddhists are very much into flooding outer space with prayers.
You may find this interesting. When you visit Buddhist monasteries, you see prayer wheels, hundreds of them, all different sizes, from ones which could fit in a bowling bag to ones that are taller than a human. Each prayer wheel contains hundreds — sometimes even thousands! — of sacred inscriptions from holy Buddhist texts. Again we have appeals for peace, harmony, long life, etc. Spinning a prayer wheel, it is claimed, sends these good messages out into the universe, inundating it with the highest spiritual content and aspirations.
While from what I can tell, it’s not working, it’s most certainly an admirable enterprise, and so different from the Western framework of a person’s relationship with God and his heavenly ecclesiastical staff. Take a moment and picture those televangelists, furrowed brows sweating, faces bulging with the power of the Lord, yelling: “You want that new car? You want your bills paid? You want that ugly goiter to disappear? To be able to sing along with Mariah Carey and slam dunk like the Shaq? Well, just put your hands on your television screen! I say, put ’em both right here on my face, and FEEL THE POWER OF THE LORD FILL YOUR LIFE with money, success, happiness! Ask and ye shall receive! PRAISE GOD!”
Just something to think about next year during half-time of the Rose Bowl.
Life In Japan: Bicycle Theft
Yes, they sell Schwinn, an “American” bicycle, manufactured of course in China. But there is quite a selection based on this standard model. They cost between $50 and $150. The pictured one is pretty fancy. Pink adds at least $50 to the sale price.
I’m going to talk about something which recently happened here, not that far from where I live, maybe within four hours driving. I seriously doubt if the bike involved was anywhere near as high-end as the pink beauty pictured. But it certainly looked something like this, being a basic boilerplate ride-to-school-and-back bike. They’re ubiquitous here.
It’s EXTREMELY rare. But a girl who lived in Shikoku had her bike stolen.
She reported it to the police. Seriously . . . she did! That’s what you do in Japan.
It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. All bikes must have a registration tag. A couple years back, I was riding my bike back from the grocery store and a young police officer on a motor scooter stopped me, looked at my tag, thanked me, and drove merrily away.
Anyway, a month later, the school girl got a call from a police department northeast of Osaka. They had found her bike, and wanted to get it back to her. The young lady was understandably very happy! She told the police that she had an aunt who lived in Akashi. If they could arrange to bring the bike there, she could pick it up.
The police welcomed the suggestion. They were much closer to Akashi than the little town the girl lived in on Shikoku Island.
Next day, they personally delivered the bike to the girl’s aunt in Akashi, a trip which took nearly two hours each way, a total of almost four hours of their valuable police time.
I want to put this in perspective, especially the distances involved. Here’s a map.
Mind you, while Shikoku is sparsely populated, the entire area around Osaka is quite congested. Two hours is not excessive, considering traffic, having to locate the aunt’s residence, etc. And to return it to the girl’s home town would have been close to four hours each way.
The most significant point is that the bike turned up 219 km (136 miles by car) from where it was stolen. The police officers at this distant location tracked down the owner via the ID tag, and personally made sure the bike got back to her.
I don’t know if this is blowing your mind or not. I’ve lived here on and off for over ten years and this type of thing still leaves me slack-jawed.
Granted, in a small town like Elizaville, Indiana or Wanblee, South Dakota, I can imagine someone telling the sheriff about a stolen bike. But for most Americans — over 80% live in urban areas — the thought of going to the police about a stolen bike seems absurd.
“You want to report a what? Listen, buster. While you’ve been standing here teary-eyed, telling me about your $50 bike, we’ve had two shootings, three car jackings, some bozo dressed like Michael Jackson jumped off a bridge singing ‘Beat It’, and there’s a 152-car traffic pile-up on the freeway because some idiot at the Department of Transportation posted a warning on all the traffic advisory signs that there was a missile carrying a hydrogen bomb incoming from North Korea. Get a job and buy a new bike, loser!”
It’s obvious, priorities are different here in Japan. We’re not in a constant frenzy, in a constant state of paranoia, convinced there are terrorists lurking in every doorway and child molesters hanging out by the monkey bars at every city park, suspicious of every individual who isn’t suspicious of everyone else because obviously this person is out of touch with reality and a clear danger to the community. People here aren’t armed to the teeth, such that everyone’s worried about a mass shooting, or that a minor disagreement about a parking space will result in the barrel of an AR-15 being shoved down our throat.
But it goes even deeper than that. There’s an innocence here, and a sense of honor and courtesy, a respect for the possessions of others. So much so that a bicycle theft is truly out-of-the-ordinary. And thus it warrants extraordinary response by the authorities.
No country is perfect. Japan has many issues as well. There is still a difficult struggle with its past, its military aggression and savagery. There is racism. There is a bit of arrogance, a condescending attitude toward other Asian countries. There is — in my opinion — a mindless, unnecessary obeisance to the U.S. in military and diplomatic matters, and a puzzling infatuation with Western culture, especially American pop culture.
No country is perfect. But some are certainly far superior than others.
I take great comfort in knowing . . . I don’t have to worry about my bike.