A Mother's Mirror

A Mother's Mirror - A Japanese story that I thought I would share.

A long time ago there was a young samurai and his wife who lived in a small town. They had a daughter. Every year the father had to leave for Tokyo to do some samurai errands, while the young wife stayed at home with her daughter and waited for his return. He never failed to bring back presents for the two of them. Cakes and sweets for the two of them and pretty dolls for the daughter. The most treasured souvenir was a hand mirror for his wife. She was intrigued by the mirror because she had never seen such an object before. This was long ago when mirrors were only common for royalty and so common folk were sometimes surprised to see a face staring back at them.

This was true for the wife, she saw a face in it but did not recognize it as her own. It was a young, beautiful face smiling at her so she went to her husband and asked who was in the mirror. He proudly smiled and replied that it was she in the mirror, it was her own face. From that moment on she kept it safe from harm in a drawer for several years, taking it out every so often but always handled it carefully. She loved it so because it was a present from her husband.

After a few blissful years of happiness, the wife suddenly became very ill. Knowing that she would die soon, she called her daughter to her bedside and gave the mirror to the young girl.

"My lovely daughter, you know that I am ill. I need you to listen very carefully now. I won't be alive much longer but please don't grieve for my death. Look into this mirror and you will always see me."

After the mothers death, the daughter always would stare into the mirror, everyday, and was always happy to see her mothers face inside. She did not know that it was her own face she was looking at, when she looked into the mirror she had truly believed that it was her mother looking back at her because the daughter looked exactly like her mother, only much younger. Many times she would speak to the mirror, telling it her secrets and daily stresses until finally her father asked her why she was speaking into the mirror every day.

"Every time I look into this mirror, I see mother looking back at me. She looks young, healthy and beautiful and it helps encourage me to work hard everyday even though she never speaks a word." The father, who knew the truth of how the mirror worked, said nothing and let tears spill down his face.

You win this time, Slide

Every month I go to teach English at a nursery school. I've been there for about six months now (Which sounds like a lot but really I've only been six times). I think that most of the kids enjoy me being there and also enjoy attempting to explain to me how to play games with them. Some games I understand, like Tag, where I'm a demon and they all have to run away from me. Of course there are "safe spots" and as long as they are there then I can't touch them. And being kids they obviously make the game rules in their favour so there are several of these "safe spots" all over the place. Sometimes they just touch things and go "Oh, this is a safe spot now". And another thing that they do is never stray a foot away from these spots so it's pretty much impossible for me to pass the demon-tag-it thing to another, but hey, they're kids and as long as they're having fun then I don't mind.

Today I finally got one of the boys who is more outgoing than the rest of them (Also is easily riled up and seems to be always looking for a way to make him seem like the leader or the best) and just like the last time I fell on my butt and hurt myself, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. Obviously I think that things behind me should magically move out of the way when I walk backwards or something. Anyway I tripped and fell on the edge of the slide. And now I have a grapefruit sized bruise to show for it on my butt. I'm happy that I didn't land on my tailbone or anything, just on the flabby flab that is my butt, one of the largest areas of fat on my body. I could have, though since nearish to my tailbone is all sore, so I'm grateful it didn't happen or I'd be in a lot more pain than I am now.

Sitting down is somewhat painful though, but I hear that if I rub a vinegar soaked cotton ball all over the bruise that it will fade and heal faster. Let's see how that works.

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Something I wanted to share

I read this on a Facebook status and found it amusing. Enjoy!‎

A Cup of Tea
"One day my mother was out, and my dad was in charge of me.

I was maybe 2 1/2 years old. Someone had given me a little 'tea set' as a gift, and it was one
of my favorite toys.

Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I brought him a little cup of 'tea',
which was just water. After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my mom came home.
My dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of tea, because it was 'just the cutest thing!' Mom waited, and sure enough, here I came down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy; and she watched him drink it up.

Then she said, (as only a mother would know), "'Did it ever occur to you that the only place
she can reach to get water, is the toilet?"

Chris Chenoweth, Daily Inspiration

Ise Shrine

Before I go into detail about what happened at the shrine, I'm going to talk about the shrine and what the purpose of it is and such, so this either will be a very long post or split into two. Probably the latter since I imagine this will take a lot of writing.

Ise Grand Shrine is a Shinto shrine dedicated to goddess Amaterasu Oomikami, located in the city of Ise in Mie prefecture. Ise Jingū is in fact a shrine complex composed of a large number of Shinto shrines centered on two main shrines, Naikū and Gekū.

The Inner Shrine, Naikū (also officially known as "Kotai Jingū"), is located in the town of Uji-tachi, south of central Ise City, and is dedicated to the worship of Amaterasu Oomikami. The Outer Shrine, Gekū (also officially known as "Toyouke Daijingu"), is located about six kilometers from Naikū and dedicated to Toyouke no Oomikami, the deity of agriculture and industry.

Amaterasu is one of the major deities in Japanese mythology. She is the goddess of the sun and the universe. Her full name means the Grand August deity who shines in heaven. Supposedly the current royal family of Japan are direct descendants of her. She rules the sun and the heavens with her brother, Tsukuyomi who is the ruler of the moon and the night. She was born from the left eye of Izanagi while he was purifying himself after returning from the underworld in an attempt to save his wife (And it's possible that she is also his sister but I am not clear on that), Izanami, when she died in childbirth.

In the beginning she had shared the skies with her brother (Who is also her husband... hmm...) but was turned away from him when he killed the goddess of food, calling him an evil deity she separated from him causing night and day to split.

Amaterasu also has another brother, the god of storms Susanoo, who would often visit her. He was a very rough god and would often trample her prized flower gardens, filling the rice fields with mud and in general not being very nice. However because he was her brother she endured his visits until one time when he went too far and killed several villagers and animals. She was so angry at his behaviour that she disappeared into a cave, and because of this the sun disappeared, plunging the world into an endless night.

As you may know, in stories, night time is the time for ghosts and goblins and this is no different. When she let the world plunge into darkness, the beasties decided to come out and wreak havoc on everyone and everything. All of the other gods and goddesses began to get worried about their sister and what was happening to the people that they discussed how they could trick her out of the cave.

They talked for many days until the god of wisdom, Omoikane, decided that they should have a party. A big rowdy celebration that will rouse her curiosity and make her peek outside. (Let it be known that in this story there is a door on the cave) One of the gods stood behind the door so that if she opened it a crack, he could take advantage of it and fully open the door. A mirror was hung just in front of the door.

Many gods began to dance and laugh and generally have a good time. The goddess of beauty stood up on a barrel and began doing a silly sexy dance before falling down into fits of laughter. The sun goddess heard their laughter and asked through the door why they happened to be laughing when surely the world must be covered in darkness. The goddess of beauty replied that they had must grander gods than she, which caused the sun goddess to peak out and see a beautiful bright mighty goddess figure. Her curiosity got the better of her as she wanted to know who it was so she opened the door a crack more. That was when the god of might, who had been standing behind the door, pulled it open and got her out of the cave. As soon as she exited there was a big cheer from all of the other gods and goddesses.

For his punishment, the god of storms was exiled from the sacred place and sentenced to live in western Japan.

(Hey~ I live in western Japan. >:[ Thanks a lot for the crummy weather)

So that's a general sum up of the sun goddess, where she came from as well as a story. Onto things about the shrine.

According the the chronicles of Japan, it was about 2000 years ago when the daughter of an emperor set out to find a permanent place for Amaterasu's worship. Up until that point her place of worship had been moved around Japan. The daughter has wandered around Japan for twenty years before she heard a voice say "(Ise) is a secluded and pleasant land. In this land I wish to dwell." And so it was that the shrine was built. It is a very sacred shrine and the general population will never be allowed to venture inside the shrine. Instead we are only allowed to walk and pray and worship at places around the shrine. There is a tall wooden gate blocking all access to the shrine.

Allegedly the sacred mirror that was in the story is inside the building. However as no one but the imperial family is allowed inside, this is only speculation. This shrine has been the most famous shrine in all of Japan for several hundreds of years. A long time ago, Japanese couples would always wish to visit the shrine, some would live lives of poverty, collecting money and forgoing food, clothes and everything else to save up for a trip to Ise shrine.

Actually there are a total of 125 shrines inside Ise shrine. There are the two main ones that I listed above as well as several others for deities and gods of different beliefs. Naikū, by the way, is the place of worship for the sun goddess as well as two others and Gekū is the place of worship for the moon god as well as three others.

Proud Moment

So the four family girls had decided to go out together. It started off with me telling my mother in law that I had recently bought a movie with Tom Cruise in it (She really, really loves Tom Cruise) and the topic went to his newest Mission Impossible movie. I had said that I had never seen any of them and so she decided that we should all go together because it's cheap on Thursdays (Actually she was mistaken, it's "Ladies Night" on Wednesdays when the ticket price is dropped to 1000 Yen if you happen to be a girl). While getting ready to go, there was a little bit of talk about wanting to go sing karaoke instead of seeing a movie (request voiced by the young girl, my niece, understandably because the movie would be in English and she wouldn't be able to understand or read the subtitles fast enough to catch what they are talking about). Either way would have been fine with me (I really wasn't expecting an amazing movie experience - just a general feeling from the MI movies that made me think that way) but I knew that out of the four of us, one really wanted to see Tom Cruise up on the big screen so I leaned towards seeing the movie instead of singing.

On the way there, this conversation happened. I will put it up in Japanese first so you can see the misunderstanding and then I'll put the translation below.

Sister in law: ゆいかちゃん、なにたべたいの？(Yuika chan, nani tabetai no?)

Yuika: すし。(Sushi.)

Mother in law: むし？(Mushi?)

Sister in law: むしたべたい？(Mushi tabetai?)

Me: おすし。(O-Sushi)

Sister in law: Yuika, what would you like to eat for dinner?

Yuika: Sushi.

Mother in law: Bugs?

Sister in law: She wants to eat bugs?

Me: She said sushi.

So if you haven't already figured out, the word sushi (Which I hope I don't have to explain) is very similar to the word mushi (which means bugs). And the fact that I could understand the conversation, help and even explain when the native speakers misheard the word... yeah, -proud moment- :D

Plus it's kind of an amusing conversation.

Happy New Year

It's been a little bit busy for a while what with the end of the year holidays and prep for the upcoming year. Now in comparison to what some people call busy and my version of busy (At least at this point in time) you might not think that all I've done is considered a busy end of the year. Parties and social gatherings are always fun. I especially enjoy potlucks. I was invited to a potluck hosted by a member from the website Couch Surfing and it's really cheap too when compared to a few other potluck parties I've seen around. However I couldn't find anyone to go with me so I decided to forget about it. Another potluck will be happening in February hosted by a English student of mine. It made me realize just how much that class enjoys going out and doing things together. It's a great form of social bonding. Maybe I will give my other class a little nudge in that direction and see how things go there.

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.