Traditional Japanese New Year, Old School Style

Yuko's grandpa has been wanting to take me places recently. Last week before we picked kiwis, we went to Hasedera, a sweet looking temple with lots of traditional buildings in the middle of the mountains, with a butt-load of steps.





Yesterday, I didn't celebrate the new year in front of the tube, watching a countdown, or at some party, but I celebrated it like the Japknees would have done in medieval times. Me and gramps went WAY up in the middle of the mountains (the road was WAY small. And that's comparing to normal Japanese roads, NOT wide-load American roads) to some lonely shrine that was built in the 700s, where we wrote our names and ages on flat wood sticks (which were to be burned I guess). We then lit candles and stuck them on something at the front, then sat down, listening to some guy do some rockin' chanting, and another guy dinging the bell outside. Where I was sitting, the smoke from the burning incense was in my face almost the entire time. That's good for the black lung. The bell is to be dung 108 times, and the people there take turns dinging at the end to complete 108. Grandpa went before me and when he hit it, I thought it was way too fricking loud. Resolved to not hit it as hard as he had, I took my turn and hit it. DEAFENING... WTF? Everybody there then ate sweet bean soup with mochi in it. Then we went home. Surprisingly, in the middle of the mountains at this shrine, the guy that lives there spoke English, some girl spoke a little too, and his son (who was visiting for the holidays) spoke really good English and was living in the German part of Switzerland, but said that rather than using German, he almost always spoke with everybody in English. He said that almost everybody speaks English there... Interesting... Is this true?

There were probably less than 20 people there, so it was a very different experience than one would have from going to Miwa shrine, where thousands of people went. We luckily avoided that traffic that was going to the shrine (people go after midnight and do the "first trip of the year to a shrine") that was at a standstill, by taking backroads home.

A Japanese Funeral

Yuko's grandpa's older brother passed away Friday. We found out on our way to Sakurai, so we had to turn around and go back down the first mountain to get my suit and jack like that. I also had to buy a white shirt (who knows where my old one is), a black tie and some buddhist looking beads to hold at the place. Traditionally at Japanese funerals, everybody would sit in the seiza position, which I can handle comfortably for about 20 seconds. After 5 minutes though, my legs will be completely dead, so I was wondering what would happen after about an hour at this thing. Fortunately for me, there were chairs, so instead of losing my legs, I merely had to move around from time to time due to the restlessness of my butt. Across the entire front of the room, there were many vases of flowers, in 3 rows from lowest to highest, and the sponsors' names were displayed on each vase of flowers for everyone to see. In the middle of all this was a small wooden shrine with his picture displayed. There were also HUGE baskets of assorted fruits in the mix.

There were 2 female monks that did some chanting and bell ringing, which was amplified through 2 speakers. Why? Who knows. The speaker doubled the loudness of the bell sound when the monk hit it though, and it was way too fricking loud. At one point, everybody had to go up family by family (there was a prearranged sitting order according to rank) and take turns taking some incense and putting it into the small burning place next to it. You're supposed to go to the middle, bow to each side of seats, go to the front, bow while putting your hands together praying mantis style with the beads dangling, grab some powder like incense and sprinkle it on the other smoldering incense, bow again, then turn around and bow to both sides of people again, then sit down. It was complete chaos! People slamming into each other, head butting people when they bow... awesome. It was done WAY too fast. It was a nice rest for my butt though. Then for what seemed like forever, all the sponsors came out of nowhere, did the same thing, then vanished back into oblivion. At the end, they opened the casket and gave everybody flowers to put into it, anywhere except for on his face, of course. One thing I found myself wondering is if they do anything to the body to make it look more presentable, because I noticed a nose hair sticking out. Yeah, I was looking, but that's beside the point.

After that, they closed it up, and some relatives carried it outside to a place that had what seemed to be 4 elevator doors with 2 fancy looking lights above each one. They pushed the casket into the open elevator door, one of the relatives pushed the button, a worker put his ear to the door and said with approval, "It's lit." Then we all left. The immediate family stayed at the place however, and had a light lunch or something, waiting for a little over an hour until the cremation was over, after which they would go pick out the bones to bury them. And I guess they keep the ashes and put them in a small fancy container on a shrine at their house. Good times.

The Kiwi Harvest

In the backyard (if that's what you want to call the 2 to 3 meter wide area behind the house) of Yuko's house in Nara, her Grandpa has some kiwis growing. This year, the kiwis were growing in the area he made for them, but a lot of them were growing above the shed, some were in the tree/bush, and there were even some on the roof of the house. The vines are naked because these are all "after" pics. From that tiny area, we filled 4 boxes overflowing with about a couple thousand kiwis. We're going to have to think of new ways to eat these things...

2008 JLPT and Kanken

I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) last weekend. I took level 1, which is the highest, and already knew I was going to fail it. That sucker is tough! You need 70% to pass, and you don't officially find out until sometime in the middle of February. But thanks to the Chinese (already posting answers online...), and somehow having a record of my answers (most of them anyway....) I have made an educational guess that my score is about 35%. Hmmm... I'll be taking it again in July...

As for the Kanken (standardized kanji test), I took both levels 6 and 5 on Halloween and passed them both! 173/200 for level 6, and 179/200 for level 5. Now I'm studying for level 4 in February. It's looking like it's going to suck like no other though. This Japknees stuff is killer!

Natto Stink Nose

Okay, so maybe you've read one of my old posts entitled Old Man Stink Breath. Natto Stink Nose is in the same league as that. I'm not sure exactly where it comes from, but your nose will just smell rank! Maybe it's because of all the decomposing boogers and rank snot in there. Does anybody know the exact cause? If you do, please let me know. (That goes for old man stink breath as well.) It's sooo much easier not having to think about which orifice it's safe to breathe from and in which direction you are breathing.

Holy Crap!

Well, it would seem that I haven't posted on this for over 2 years now.... Not that anybody's really reading it, but that's some major procrastination. I'll try to post more regularly from now on. Especially since I don't write in my journal. It's not due to laziness, (entirely) but my free time is just spent doing other things.