Christmas in Japan is not a big deal. At least, not in terms of tradition, family or culture. It mostly exists in the Japanese imagination as a lot of beautiful colors and lights, people dressed as Santa, and a generally festive way to decorate during the winter. To give you an idea of just how unimportant Christmas is:
1) If Christmas had been on a week day, I would have had to work on Christmas.
2) The middle school teachers' End-of-Year Drinking Party was scheduled on Christmas.
The big holiday around here is New Year's. It is customary to clean one's house for the New Year. Not a spot of dirt from the old year should be allowed to follow you into the next. To ensure this is the case, parents and in-laws come to visit the house, some of them with the intent to inspect the cleaning job. This can lead to some interesting relationships between in-laws, as I learned during the break.
School let out on December 24th. My vacation days are from Dec. 29th to Jan. 3rd. My original hope, several months ago, was to travel out of the country, go somewhere warm and exotic, see more of this part of the world. But the girl I had asked to travel with turned out to be a lousy travel partner, and plans fell through toward the end. Not wanting to travel abroad alone while having to spend more money for booking things later, I turned to a friend who would be traveling around Kyushu. Would it be alright for me to join her? Sure, she said. So this is what we have done so far:
So Krista and Kyle are both first-year JETs like me. They went to college together, but Kyle works further north, just below Hokkaido in Aomori. Krista is about 2ish hours south of me. They spent Christmas with Kyle's in-laws in Fukuoka, then passed through Nishihara to get me on their way to Takachiho, where we spent the next 3 days.
Takachiho is a small town in the mountains, whose main claims to fame are it's gorge, it's temple, and the Amano Iwato Shrine. While we were there, we stayed with Victoria, an English teacher who is an ex-JET from the UK, living in Takachiho with her Japanese husband and three beautiful children, aged 8, 11, and 14, none of whom could really speak English. The middle child was tall for his age and rather willing to offer up perhaps the only 3 phrases he knew in English: "Shut up!" "Don't touch me!" and "Fuck you, honestly!" He was a little punk, and we were all vastly amused.
Victoria was an amazing hostess. She quite literally opened her house up to us, so we got to spend some time with her family, and even cooked dinner for them one night. We watched Japanese dramas on her kitchen TV, and saw the video recording or her Halloween spent as Lady Gaga. We taught the family how to play ERS and Sahara, the 8 year old daughter, even started learning how to shuffle cards. We raked leaves and rang the Buddhist temple bell at 6 pm sharp. Oh, did I forget to mention? Victoria is a Buddhist priest, has been for 10 years. Her husband is as well, since he is the oldest son in a family that has run this particular temple for the past 400 years.
The layout of Victoria's place: The temple, bell platform, and main house make a sort of courtyard. Further down the driveway, there was a combination garage-shed, and after that an event hall, that housed old furniture, a ping pong table, a small kitchen and shower and bathroom, and a small guest bedroom. And LOTS of bedding. I was amazed - she had out 3 futons (as the Japanese think of them - they were floor mattresses, not sofas) for us, and 2-3 blankets a piece plus a heavy blanket cover and pillows and pillow cases. It was freezing in the building, but there was a kerosene heater, which served us quite well (until we ran out of kerosene the second night, but we got more the next day). We were free to come and go as we please, drive our car into town, check out the gorge, hike a trail in the cold cold air, take photos. We visited the onsen (Japanese spa) every day we were there to warm ourselves, and it also proved to be the most convenient way for all of us to shower. And everyday Victoria would regale us with nightmare stories about her relationship with her in-laws, two of which lived in the downstairs portion of the house, dubbed by Victoria as Enemy Territory. Turns out tons of family comes to visit for New Year's, but this is the loneliest time for Victoria, who finds that she has no place in the family at this time, and so spends it alone upstairs, while the rest of the family celebrates down below. In the meantime, she hosts Couch Surfers, or spends the New Year with the ALT who lives nearby. Everyone spends this time a little differently, I suppose.
These last two days were spent in Nishihara and Aso, so at my house. The next two days (including New Year's!) will be spent in Fukuoka, shopping, eating, and drinking. So far it's been rather an enjoyable vacation, with some unexpected adventures. It's snowed on and off since my travels began, and hopefully the snow won't prevent our traveling tomorrow. We'll see. The next update will be around the corner. There's still so much to tell!
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