Confessions of a Grade School Role Model

クリスマス・ケーキ

Christmas cake is Japan's most popular Christmas tradition. The small, elaborately decorated cakes are ordered in advance from bakeries, grocery stores, or even convenience stores. Usually they are topped with candles and fruit and/or tiny detailed Christmas-themed decorations -- Santas, snowy cabins, reindeer, and the like.

The cake pictured above was purchased for the Christmas party of an adult English conversation class I teach privately. My students lit the candles, turned off the lights, sang "Silent Night," and bade me to blow out the candles and make a wish. It seems Japan has picked up on the idea of Christmas as a birthday anniversary, without any association or mention as to whose.

"Christmas cake" is also a term sometimes used to describe Japanese women who have not married by their mid-twenties, with the implied association that, like the cakes, no one wants them after the 25th.

Takayama Autumn Festival

There are 11 floats used in the Takayama Autumn Festival, and 12 similar ones in the spring. These festivals have been held yearly in Takayama since about 1690. The oldest of the floats dates from at least the early 17th century, and most of the others were built in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Each float has historically been constructed, repaired, and preserved by neighborhood groups since that time, each as an expression of the wealth and solidarity of that group. Long ago, floats were taken apart at the end of the festival, and pieces stored in each household of the group, but after a large fire destroyed most of the town, a large separate storehouse was built for each individual float, in which they are kept today. The oldest floats are kept in a museum, and exact replicas are used in the festival parades. The floats above are on display at Yatai Kaikan, a museum dedicated to the floats.

The float pictured above is the "Hotei Tai," age unknown, which serves as the stage of a marionette play in which child dolls perform acrobatics and balance atop the shoulders of one of the Seven Lucky Gods. The play is performed entirely by the human manipulation of marionette strings, and is quite impressive. It is performed several times during the festival weekend, and each show draws enormous crowds. The photo above was taken with a zoom; I waited around for the second performance so I could actually see it.

This is a detail of the float "Kinpo Tai," which dates from at least 1718. At its top are marionettes of a man and woman in courtly dress.

A main attraction of the festival procession is the children performing the "Lion Dance." The townspeople in ceremonial costumes, called "kamishimo," act as guards to the gods who have left their home shrines on the days of the festival, and the "lions" bring good luck to local homes and businesses. Pairs of children in lion costume stop in the doorways of local businesses to perform short individual dances along the procession route. The children above stand in the doorway of a French bakery.

Takayama Autumn Festival

During the bi-annual Takayama festivals, streets are decorated with these paper lanterns/parasols, which provide the only illumination at night.

Men, women, and children in traditional costumes representing their class, occupation, or neighborhood hold a procession through town. Shoes are generally either wooden geta, like those above, or sandals of woven straw. This man is carrying an oiled paper parasol.

Hobamiso is the regional dish of the Takayama area. Each person is given their own small clay charcoal grill, on top of which mushrooms, green onions, and rich miso paste are cooked on a magnolia leaf. The cooked mixture is eaten with rice. My set included a dish of tofu, mountain vegetables, and konyaku (a dense gray gelatinous cube made of a kind of potato starch).

Today was Setsubun, the bean-throwing festival. Setsubun is supposed to mark the last day of winter, but its timing is based on an old Chinese lunar calendar rather than realistic weather conditions. At temples across the country, people gather to wear plastic "oni", devil, masks and throw dried soybeans to scare off evil, yelling "Fuku wa uchi, oni wa soto!" ("Fortune in, devils out!"). Good fortune can be further assured by eating the number of soybeans equivalent to one's age. Cheap plastic oni masks and small packages of soybeans are sold at supermarkets and convenience stores.

We celebrated Setsubun at kindergarten today too. For weeks, the kids have been making their own oni masks out of paper and yarn. The Japanese devil has a mess of curly rainbow-colors clown hair, pointy teeth, and either one or two horns. He tends to dress like a caveman, and seems fond of eating live whole animals and children.

At 10:30 a.m., the children were gathered in their respective classrooms and issued their oni masks and an empty origami paper envelope. The teachers put a scant handful of dried soybeans into each cup, and the children donned their masks and crouched anxiously behind a table waiting for the devil. Some sat towards the front, boldly and full of excited smiles, others shook timidly in the corners and clutched their bean envelopes in terror. I knelt confused on the floor with a child in each arm, two on my lap, and one at my neck, and peered out at the playground clueless.

Drumbeats. The children's eyes burned and spun. A pink-haired devil appeared at the door, wearing the bus driver's shoes. 27 four-year olds screamed simultaneously.

Paper and pompoms-covered cardboard boxes and a willful suspension of disbelief had turned our small fleet of schoolbus drivers into a gang of child-hungry, bean-leery devils. A few unsuspecting kids at the front were pushed from behind towards the devils, and the bean-shower first trickled, then was unleashed. Soybeans rained on all sides from a height of three feet. The cardboard devils veered and retreated and lurched, fallen ammo was desperately scrambled-at and relaunched, cornered children wailed and were saved, and finally the pelted oni ran off in the direction of the five-year olds' class.

Congratulations were made, tears were wiped, the floor was swept, and the battle-weary children were gathered together for the victory speech. The teacher made it clear that, while we had won this battle, the only way to really assure our freedom from oni-harrassment was to listen to the teacher, be nice to each other, sing all our songs energetically, and eat all our food at lunch. Never have the lunch plates been so clean as they were today.

Image from Dark City Productions.

In Japan, only men get chocolate on Valentine's Day. Women get their candy a month later, on White Day. Now that post-season Christmas decorations and New Year's foods have been sold off for a pittance or boxed up for next year, stores have begun stocking Valentine's Day wares. My neighborhood mall started stocking theirs today.

Valentine's Day candy in Japan is elaborate in ways I'd never seen. Last year, I spent literal hours admiring the offerings at the local department store, half a floor's worth of space set aside for the occasion. Boxes of chocolates were displayed more like art than mere bits of candy, with artistically arranged display tables and beneficial lighting, and painstakingly-made up women wrapping purchases exquisitely and without humor. If one didn't look closely into the glass display cases, one might expect to have wandered into a chichi 5th Avenue shop that sold parfum, and not perfume.

Valentine chocolates come in squares and circles of course, but also shaped like turtles, grizzly bears, pigs, and creatures of the sea. My favorite was a kit containing a shallow box, a tiny rake, and some edible dusty substance through which one had to excavate for chocolate "dinosaur bones" or "troglodytes." Chocolate may be hollow, solid, or filled with nuts, liqueur, champagne, even beer. A miniature chocolate drumset held an airplane-bottle serving of whiskey, and a small chocolate "golf bag" held another. I've seen more than a few art exhibits far less interesting than that particular candy aisle.

Traditionally a holiday for men, children have now started raking in the chocolate spoils too. A smaller row of candy on the end featured a few treats for kids -- chocolate Hello Kittys and Sanrio Shinkansens. Today I saw plastic candy-filled containers shaped like another popular character I am only recently familiar with, Unchikun. Once I saw Unchikun though, he had my full attention.

In Japanese, "unchi" means, well, "poop." It's a kids' word, and also, apparently, a popular kids' character. "-Kun" is an affectionate term often attached to children's names, especially boys', like the respectful "-san" for adults. So, "Unchikun" is pretty much "Mr. Poo." South Park fan, anyone? A modern if ageless sort of fella, Unchikun even has his own website.

For Valentine's Day, Unchikun lovers can choose from a hollow plastic model of the character in blue, pink, or yellow, and fill it to their satisfaction with Unchi-themed chocolates, lollipops, and other treats. I'm not sure how giving a potential Valentine's sweetheart a candy-filled smiling poo might come across in America, but in Japan, Unchikun seems to mean "Please be mine."

Want even more Unchikun? Go here.

I forget I'm in Japan a lot, and then little things pop up to remind me. Like this New Year's Eve at the Shinto shrine when the head monk began his address with, "It is now the year Heisei 16."

New Year's Eve in Japan is perhaps like Christmas Eve in America if you come from a religious family. Accustomed to the pandemonium of an American New Year's celebration, my first New Year's Eve in Japan was a shock. Two years ago, a friend and I followed an incalculable crowd up a Kyoto hill to Kiyomizudera Temple just before midnight, more out of curiosity about the kimono-clad hordes gathering at such a late hour than out of any knowledge about the proceedings. It felt to us a bit like stumbling onto a secret society's ritual in some remote forest, with the great energy of so many people engaged in purposeful actions we didn't understand, except that it was happening right out in the open in the sixth largest city in Japan.

Making our way through crowds so thick they blocked out the view of the steep path ahead, and cold air foggy with the steam of snack booths selling hot refreshments for the occasion and the breath of innumerable celebrants, we arrived finally as close to the hilltop temple as the crowds permitted. An enormous bell rang continuously; I later learned it is rung 108 times to dispel each of the 108 possible human sins described in Buddhism. The hordes organized themselves into small groups as they neared the front of the temple, and each group in turn approached to offer a prayer. Midnight approached, and my friend and I waited with fervent curiosity. Would there be cheers? Whoops? Fireworks? Would all these sober people suddenly bust champagne and noisemakers out of their kimonos? Would there be a party?

The bell's final gong reverberated and slowly died, and midnight was imminent. All around us, people glanced expectantly at their watches, and we glanced expectantly at them.

Midnight... brought... clapping. Not the excited, raucous kind, but the sort usually associated with golf. Just four or five calm meetings of the tips of fingers, palms kept carefully parted to avoid the noise, and a few people yawned modestly and started for home. And not really knowing where the party was, and expecting that there actually was none, we headed back to our hotel too.

A Japanese friend invited me to his house for Christmas Eve dinner. I got snow tires put on my car, and drove out to his town, about an hour away. He greeted me at the door with a small Christmas tree-shaped plant in one arm, and a smoked turkey leg in the other. Gesturing at the turkey leg, still in its plastic wrapper, he said, "This is what we're supposed to eat, isn't it?" and I giggled. He told me he felt "mortified" because, he had ordered a Christmas cake, per tradition, but the bakery had closed before he could pick it up after work. He was only mildly relieved when I told him that, Christmas cake not being a tradition I'm accustomed to, I wouldn't miss it if he didn't. We picked up a couple of slices of strawberry cheesecake from the convenience store anyway, and some champagne. We spent the evening eating turkey with chopsticks and sushi from his family's restaurant, dunking the convenience store cake's strawberries in cheap champagne, listening to "James Brown's Funky Christmas" CD, and trying to keep the dog from eating the tiny paper chain I was making for the "tree." Actually a very lovely Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you, too.

Christmas Eve. I was just about to settle into a long day of feeling sorry for myself, when a deliveryman brought me a box full of home-baked cookies sent by a friend in Texas. I always try to remember to get through hard times by distracting myself analyzing for any lessons being offered. It could make me feel a bit distant, but it usually helps. I've been trying to grasp what lesson I could possibly learn from being stranded from all friends and family on Christmas. I'm certain there is one if I reach far enough, maybe involving appreciation or self-reliance or some such thing I am in no mood to think about quite yet, but in the meantime, I've found this: you never can tell how great an effect some small gesture may have on someone, or how completely it might change their day. Thank you for the cookies, Sarah. Merry Christmas, everyone.

There is a pile of Christmas presents growing on my kitchen table that I can't afford to send. I'm partly reluctant to send them anyway, because looking at them cheers me up. All these real objects will soon be in the fond hands of friends and family I can see only in memory, and as soon as all the bright packages are gone, Christmas will be too. Japan has in its department stores wreaths and trees and ornaments and all manner of things shaped like Santa Claus and reindeer and snowmen. It even has some of its own Christmas traditions -- department stores, bakeries, and convenience stores alike stock elaborately-decorated Christmas cakes, some with candles. I could easily fill my apartment top to bottom with all of these things, but I still wouldn't have any people, and really then, there is no point. Foreign friends are all going home or travelling, and Japanese friends will be going to work as usual. I've bought myself lots of presents this year too, but I'm not sure that I'm yet desperate enough to wrap them.

I just returned from the fireworks show at Gifu's Nagara River. Most things in Japan are described as "one of the three somethingest somethings in Japan," and Gifu is supposed to have one of the three best fireworks festivals, but it truly was incredible. Roughly 30,000 fireworks were set off in a non-stop two and a half hour show, each segment sponsored by a different local company, fireworks that would have made Gandalf the Grey jealous. The usual sea anenome-shaped fireworks were there in abundance, but there were also red hearts, yellow '70s smiley faces, rainbow-colored rings, palm trees, sunflowers, the planet Saturn, and a color green I have never seen before, and which may haunt me for the rest of my life. Tens of thousands of spectators simultaneously trying to photograph the spectacle with their cell phones looked in the distance like fireflies in the night, and they tied up phone service throughout the entire city. The requisite festival food booths serving takoyaki, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, and chocolate bananas, and all apparently yakuza-owned, were out in the hundreds to remind me that food always tastes better when it is served skewered on a stick. Musical accompaniment included a particularly dramatic "Pomp and Circumstance" and a very disco version of the "Sesame Street" theme song. "Auld Lang Syne" signalled the end of the show, which is also used in Japan to tell shoppers that the store is closing and it is time to go home, and always makes me think that New Year's Eve parties in America must become very confusing to Japanese visitors right around midnight. Fireworks are a huge part of Japanese summer, you can even pick them up at the convenience store along with a 4-pack of beer and some sushi, but I have never seen any that equalled what I saw tonight. A spectacular evening.