A NEW YEAR IN ANOTHER WORLD
by James Foley
Ringing in 2006, Japanese-style
Every day the sun slowly sank below the horizon at 4:30 and extinguished even the smallest flame of warmth from our bodies. New Year's Eve was no exception. It had been cold and dark for hours by the time we navigated the cramped, yet eerily quiet streets to our destination—the local shrine. The entire town seemed to be standing, waiting in twin single-file lines to step up to the altar and complete the annual ritual. Chatter was minimal. The loudest sound audible was the ringing of bells as each patron approached the altar, tossed money into the offering box, pulled a nearby rope to ring one of the bells, and made a wish. Afterward, visitors kept warm around a bonfire while enjoying a hot cup of thick, heady, amazake—a sweet, non-alcoholic rice drink traditionally drunk around the New Year.
This was New Year's Eve in Japan. No one was puking or screaming or kissing. No one wore goofy hats or sparkly accessories. No liquor or drugs were burning holes in our memories. Four friends and I were visiting Japan during winter break, and at the shrine on New Year's Eve we were the only foreigners in sight, uninitiated to this Japanese tradition.
Experiencing New Year's in Japan is completely different from America. In Japan, it's a holiday traditionally spent at home with family. They don't throw a big party, and there no giant countdown; making a trip to a shrine is the main event. There's also a New Year's cuisine called osechi that is only eaten during the holiday. Each osechi dish has a meaning, such as good health, longevity or fertility.
As the clock struck midnight, Japan collectively said goodbye to 2005. From the enormously popular shrines in the middle of a megalopolis like Tokyo or Osaka, to unknown ones in off-the-map towns like Fuchinobe, where we spent the evening, people gathered to celebrate. According to an article in www.about.com by Shizuko Mishima, a Japan travel writer, the bells ring in Buddhist temples 108 times at the beginning of the New
Year to expel the 108 attachments humans have to their eos.
Other than the bells, Japan is quiet on New Year's. Jim Piller, Lawrence Junior, who studies at Obirin University in Fuchinobe, says he likes the low-key aspect of New Year's in Japan. "It's not just some excuse to get wasted and not remember," he says. "It's more personal and spiritual. The whole way it's done in America is stupid."
An hour's train ride away, in greater Tokyo—one of the world's most populated cities—the scene was strangely similar. David Titterington, a 2005 KU graduate living and teaching English in Japan, says even the streets of Tokyo were "quiet and holy" on New Year's Eve. He says he spent the evening at a public bathhouse, completed the traditional ritual at a local shrine at midnight and then went home to sleep to the sound of temple bells.
Makiko Imamura, a graduate student from Sapporo, Japan, has lived in America for almost two years and has experienced New Year's in both the American and Japanese ways. She says one of the strangest differences in New Year's customs between the two cultures is the way you wish someone a happy New Year. In Japan, when you see someone for the first time in the New Year, you say in very polite, eloquent Japanese akemashite omedetou gozaimasu, which implies that a new year has begun and that's time to revitalize and shine brightly in a new life. Here in America, our only salutation is a blunt, informal "Happy New Year," or a sloppy drunken kiss.
For anybody not educated in Japanese culture and history, the anticlimactic Japanese New Year may come as a surprise. Kathy Piller, Lawrence senior, who traveled to Japan over break to visit her brother, Jim, says she expected New Year's to be similar to America. She says that it marks a new beginning better, and that it wasn't just another excuse to get wasted. "It's a ritual," she says, "but not necessarily religious, just personal."
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasul.
Lamps with Japanese calligraphy softly light the scene near a shrine in Fuchinobe, Japan. The Japanese new year's tradition involves solemnly visiting a local shrine and making an offering.
01.26.2006 JAYPLAY
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