Asuka Photos

These are the photos I took the night I went to the light up at Asuka in Nara.

Written 20 December 2009: Nara

I’m publishing this from NZ but am writing about my trip south from Toyama to Nara for part of what’s known in Japan as “silver week” a string of 2 or 3 public holidays in September that can become a decent long weekend if the weekend falls just before or during. As it happened this year Japan managed to get a 5 day weekend this year. I decided to use it to maximum effect and took a break to see my host family and decompress a bit.

I stayed at Grandma and Grandpa’s house again. A beautiful old style place in the Nara countryside, just gorgeous. I really love it there. It has a real “Japan” feel about it.

One of the holidays was Respect for the Aged Day, of course I knew that but didn’t really care. I think one should respect one’s elders at all times rather than needing a specific day to remember to do it. However, as per my usual manner on that day I got up and chatted to Grandma over breakfast while I waited for the others to arrive so that we could “respect the aged” by giving them their space. I hear that the simple act of me chatting with Ayako on Respect for the Aged Day made her day. My personal belief is that if you are staying with someone, using their toilet paper, you should at least talk to them!!! But she appreciated it, so all good. I also won by learning a small amount of Nara-ben (Nara dialect of Japanese) from Grandpa who seems to think I understand 100% of what he says. FYI I do not! But, I do my best, I guess from context and I pick out important key words. Generally I find that if I don’t at least try to figure out what they are saying I will never learn anything and I am all about learning from grandparents since I only had one and she only lasted 8 years of my life (God rest her soul).

That day was spent shopping. But the best part of my trip was on the first night of my 2 night stay. My host brother goes to high school in a really historic part of Nara and it happened to be having an illumination evening that night. The whole place was lit up with candles and lights. I got insight into ancient Japan!!! Heck I’m gonna go ahead and say it I went to ancient Japan. Asuka is the site of the former capital of ancient Japan. The oldest Japanese coin was found there. On the site of where the oldest coin was found they built a museum about the period which is immortalized (in a rather unreadable way) by the Manyo-shuu. The museum is largely devoted to the Manyo-shuu and the emperor has been there. I stood on the exact spot that he stood on and did what I always do, posed for a photo. I now have a record of me having stood where the emperor stood on the one night of the year that the Manyo Museum in Asuka is open to the public and free too. :D

We went to a famous temple or two along the way and visited the “Stone Stage”, actually a massive tomb, possibly for an ancient emperor.

I learned soooooo much about the history of Japan that night. No better way to learn about events and the importance of historical events than to go to the places where they actually happened. Just like there is no better way to learn a language than to immerse oneself in it and feel one’s way through.

I cannot stress enough how grateful I am to that family. They are always there for me. I know I can count on them if I ever need culture advice or just someone to keep me company in Osaka for the afternoon while I wait until an appropriate time to head off to the airport to catch a plane. Though, I do have to say that I have made the error of asking my host sister for advice on whether or not to buy an expensive item of clothing twice now, I really must learn that she will not stop me from buying it!

I do admit to being the proud owner of a Hello Kitty tartan scarf and a Hello Kitty hoodie. To quote the hoodie, “I love Hello Kitty and she loves me!”. There I said it, don’t dis me, Hello Kitty is the only name brand I can never resist. And that is a tangent for another day…

It’s Christmas in New Zealand for me. I hope everyone who reads this has an awesome Christmas wherever you happen to be.

伝統的なお正月（でんとうてきなおしょうがつ） A Traditional New Year Experience

Sooo, I’m planning on heading off the West in the summer and wanted to save my Nenkyuu whilst still making the most of the winter vacation.

In view of the fact that this was my plan, I made a phone call to a girl who was an exchange student for 6 weeks at my high school way back in 2001 (and don’t think I am using her I have in fact caught up with her several times in the last 7 years) back in September. I was supposed to stay with this girl for Oshoogatsu （お正月） 2001/2002 in fact but my teacher decided to send someone else, who was a complete surprise to my host family, but anyway time to bury that hatchet, I had a better time sailing along the Antarctic Peninsula anyway. I called my friend and said ‘I wanna come and see you in October, I gotta get outta Toyama for a spell.’ She said she was busy at work at the time but to definitely come for New Year and that in fact her mother had been expecting me since she heard I was going to be an ALT, so since May 2008. ‘I am at your family’s disposal miss, I shall arrive on the 30th at lunchtime!’

I spent the week before at school getting bored as a wooden plank, wishing I was overseas with those of you that went away early. But the wait was worth it!

I arrived at the train station in the Nara-ken inaka to be greeted by my host family. Papa, Mama, Kento and my friend, Lisa, took me to Obaachan and Ojiichan’s house where Lisa and I would live while I was there and we chatted away in a mixture of English and Japanese, which Obaachan understood every word of even if she can’t talk back in English.

I had what can only be described as an incredibly traditional new year. Oshogatsu at my host family’s house is really really important to them. They are a tea ceremony family and Mama uses gold leaf in every cup of tea she makes on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. They take this thing seriously.

On New Year’s Eve we drove into central Osaka for lunch and bought the New Year presents for the president of Papa’s company, as well as the Kyoto sensei of Kento’s school and various other important and influential people. “Yes, this is how things work around here,” explained Mama. So I gave her the 2 boxes of omiyage I’d brought with me as soon as we got home, she smacked me over the head and told me not to do that again because apparently I am family.

At 1145pm on New Year’s Eve we headed to the village temple where I was welcomed like a local by the priest, we each rang the bell once, twice, three times. Small village = hard to make it to 108 times if people only ring it once. The temple is only opened once a year (New Year) and the priest’s family had laid out sake, non-alcky drinks, cup noodles and snacks for everyone in the village, all were welcome to eat and drink for free.





Next stop the shrine, which is manned by local men who take turns each year (Papa thinks he’s on next year and is hoping it’s not cold!) to sit and distribute more sake, tea and mikan, as well as kombu, surume (squid) and ya (矢arrow). We lit a candle each, then prayed then drank our choice of beverage while chatting around the bon-fire. I asked about the arrow and one of the old guys manning the shrine who was a little drunk said to me ‘Happy Ya!’, I got the joke the next day when I realised that ‘ya’ and ‘year’ sound the same.





The Ya is lucky. If you hit your target with your arrow you have good aim and good luck. So, the locals consider it good luck and hope that it will bring them and their business good luck in the coming year. The kombu is for longevity. Everything eaten on New Year has a meaning related to luck, good fortune or long life. As Mama explained things to me, I began to realise the strength of feeling that Japanese have about New Year (or at least my very traditional host family). “This is bigger than Christmas back home,” I thought.

On New Year’s Day, we got up late and ate ozoni、お雑煮、 (soup made with white miso containing mochi which is slightly different in every prefecture) as well as a traditional osechi　（御節利用理 of kombu, preserved meat, sashimi freshly prepared by the 81 year old Obaachan in the morning and various other salty things that used to be eaten for 3 days running. But even in my super traditional family they don’t do that now. As I was eating, Otoshidamaお年玉 (new year’s money in a pretty envelope) was pushed into my hand, I told them off about it. My host family told me off for telling them off and that it was just a little bit to experience being a real Japanese kid at new year. We stayed home drinking tea and relaxing the rest of the day until Ojichan (uncle), Obachan and Lisa’s cousins came when we ate some more and watched a show about differences between prefectures at New Year in Japan.
In Toyama, there’s a special picture of the god of scholars, Tenjinsama　(天神様,　てんじんさま) who’s name is Sugawara no michizane　(菅原道真,　すがわらのみちざね) that gets put in the Tokonoma（床の間） of every family in which the first born has been a son and if Grandfather, Father and son are all the first born 3 go up and wouldn’t you know it in 2007 Toyama did the best in Japanese Tests of any other prefecture and a student from Shikino Junior High in Takaoka placed 3rd in the National Kuni-go (Japanese) speech contest in 2008. There must be something in the tokonoma.



On the second we drove to Kyoto-fu to see Mama’s mother. Rather uneventful, more family time. But really special! She was in her 80’s, too. Japanese people live for a long time!!!!

Now here comes the rant! On the third, because I love Lush and we don’t have Lush in Toyama, we went to the biggest mall in Kansai, Aeon Aruru. Aruru is 3 storeys high, and twice the length (approximately) of Takaoka’s Aeon. It was packed with people spending their Otoshidama, which of course I was doing too but it bugged me. As the floor vibrated below my feet on the third floor I wondered if these people even knew that there’s a financial crisis going on. I was just at that mall for the one shop, and unintentionally others, but these people were there for the big sales and they had come from all over Kansai, from Wakayama even, I couldn’t believe it. Finding a parking spot was hard even at 11:00am.
Lisa told me that this is the sad side of Japan, people stop visiting their extended family and just spend spend spend. They want the shops open longer and don’t even spend New Year’s Day with the grandparents. They don’t care about the tradition and are only out for themselves. I couldn’t believe that I was in one building containing almost a whole city worth of shopping. Mama said she’s annoyed because people in the outside world are beginning to think that Japanese culture is a consumer culture and that’s not what they’re about at all. She said even Japanese are forgetting what Japan is about. It was important for me to see the scale of it at Aruru to understand what she had been talking about in the previous 3 days.

If you’re in Japan for New Year 2009/2010, try to experience Oshoogatsu traditional style. It’s really special and is the ‘real’ Japan in my view. Maybe I am lucky to have stumbled into a traditional family, but I’m sure you can find it here in Toyama. You don’t need to go to the ancient capital of Japan to find the history and the culture, it’s right here on our doorstep, the kombu I ate at my host family’s house was from Himi and I was eating it in Nara!

Oshogatsu is a really special time to the Japanese and I really appreciate what I experienced and what I learned while on vacation. Afterall, that’s what I came here for, to share a bit of me and to learn a LOT about Japan.