Christmas came and went with no real celebration on this end of things. It's a shame, really, since I get a lot of enjoyment out of eating food together with family (Although granted lately I've been a little lax in family communication). There were the occasional Christmas lights that I saw while passing through some rural areas and when my husband and I went to the large shopping mall we heard some tinny Christmas music. But apart from those things there wasn't really anything else to put me in the Christmas mood, unlike how in Canada you will hear radios streaming the same Christmas tunes over and over for the whole month, you will see decorations and lights and parades, you will see millions of advertisements for donations and giving and feasting, there will be a Santa in every mall, shopping strip and library, and there will be snow. I didn't miss the snow. It can stay in Canada for all I care.
We did get some money from my husband's father to go out for a Christmas dinner to anywhere we wanted. My husband chose the place, and to be honest ... it was... okay. Not great, but not bad. It was average food at fancy restaurant prices.
After Christmas came New Years, which is a much bigger holiday in Japan than Christmas will ever be. It's the longest holiday that workers will get in the entire year (My husband got seven days off) and it's a family celebration, bringing in the new year together. Often there will be house cleaning and food making, some decorations hung up and temple visiting. It was fun, although I preferred last years celebrations to this years. We were very disconnected and I don't like it. My husband and I ate together, his brother ate alone and his parents and niece ate together. Where is the family togetherness?
Around that time we heard news that my husband's uncle was very sick in the hospital. I never met the guy, I didn't even know that he existed (I thought his parents were only children) until that point. Turns out that he had family not thirty minutes away. Unfortunately a few days later he passed away. Japanese funerals are very different from Canadian funerals. Of course everyone wears black and there's a coffin but the first thing that happened at the one I had been to was a monk had come to pray over the body. And behind the coffin was a grand wooden monument with dragons and fruit baskets and lights. After about ten minutes of continuous monk sutra chanting we got up one by one to take some incense and spread it over some slow burning charcoal. After everyone finished (And there weren't that many people there. Less than ten) we sat listening to the monk chant for ten or fifteen minutes more. Then it was time to eat. We were guided into another room where there were several platters of food and then they wheeled the coffin inside. So we ate with the body, which I found unnerving. My husbands brother was also involved in the funeral, wearing one of my husbands suits as he has none of his own. However he participated as little as possible. Sitting far away from everyone and only talking when asked a question. During the meal my husband's father disappeared. We all thought he went to the bathroom until twenty minutes passed and he still had not returned. It was odd but instead of thinking about that everyone went over to the body and began talking about him, lifting off the lid as there were pictures and other assortment of things with him that were to be burned with his body. Everyone had a strangely good time, laughing and talking and laughing some more. I couldn't, though. I'm not fond of looking at dead bodies while people tell jokes in a language that I can't yet understand. I was always taught that a funeral was a quiet, sombre sort of deal so I stood apart from everyone. Myself and my husband's brother although we didn't talk to each other. After they finished talking and chatting it was time to go home (We would come back the next day to do almost the same) and we went in search of my husband's father, but he and the car were nowhere to be found. Turns out that he just up and left us. So the seven of us had to squish in one car (We had taken two cars to the funeral hall) to get back home.
The next day there was more chanting and incense moving and then we were taken to the crematorium. Inside we had more chanting, more incense and then finally we saw the coffin disappear into the ... whatever the proper term for the place that they burn the body is. We all waited in a room for it to finish and here's the part where I thought it was a bit strange. They only burnt the body down to the bones and then the family will collect the important bones and put them in a special jar. The rest is taken to who knows where. I thought that in Canada we burnt the body until it was completely ash and then we took all the ash and put it into a special big urn. But here it seems that they only take the important parts. One of those parts was the Adam's Apple, which apparently looks like a man kneeling and praying. I did not take part in the passing around of the human bones so I cannot confirm or deny this.
Last week we went to a famous shrine called Ise shrine. I'll post more about it soon.
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