Friday 2 January 2004

Christmas/New Year in Japan

For some context - over the Christmas/New Year period I had a pretty lengthy holiday. Most people with a long holiday and money burning a hole in their pockets decide to go travelling. Most...[A]

Friday 26/12/2003-------------------Christmas in Japan

The level of commercialism of Christmas is pretty bad all around the world but it is a different level here. Level up indeed. All the shops do all the Christmassy things as you would expect for a Mass Commercialism Day anywhere else but there is no, even slight, counterbalance of reason or spirituality. It is the most blatant of blatant reasons to shop. They do not even have a day off or anything! The thing is though, the Japanese, generally, do know how to make it look good. I have seen quite a few trees and they are immaculately lit. Any decorations I have seen on the streets have been visually much more interesting than the standard fare and look very impressive at night. They are just so much more...elegant than I am used to.
On Christmas Day itself, I went down to Ebisu (an area in South West of Tokyo) to meet up with a friend from the UK for a bit of Christmas food action. The place was called "Good Honest Grub" and it was a little expensive. The food was alright but nothing special - definitely for the price.

Anyway, Christmas itself is not a special day as such. I have been told that it is more of a couply thing but I did not notice that to be honest. Though I am blind and, unfortunately, had no personal way of checking that out. The decorations stay out for a long time though - well beyond the 12 days of rubbish Christmas Song lore.
The family importance of Christmas in the UK is really replaced by...


Thursday 01/01/2003---------New dawn as the sun rises

Such a different atmosphere compared to the random loutishness, hard drinking and pressure to have a "great" time (that you cannot remember!) evident in the UK. Most people spend time with their family and Tokyoites seem to return to their hometown to see their parents and parents-in-laws. New Year's Eve is not really that important - it is all about New Year's Day.

I was going to do nothing for the whole New Year festivities as I don't really "do" New Year to any real degree. I hate forced occasions and beyond the forced jollity of Christmas comes the contrived, "must have a good time", competitive New Year's stuff. And, after last year, I had no desire to watch people get slowly even more boring. At least last year they would not be boring from the start but the start point would probably be lower this time! So I declined an offer to go to some random collection of nightspots in favour of staying at home. Well done me. The pressure of opinion?

As it happened, somebody made me a very kind offer (thank you Naomi for that) to go to a temple in Omiya to see what happens there. What the Japanese do is....queue!
As I have mentioned in the past, the trains in Tokyo are excellent when they run but they do finish running a little early for my liking. On New Year's Eve, however, they actually run past 12! I think the lines basically run a fairly skeletal service but it is significantly better than no service at all of course.
As it happened, we met a little before midnight and went down to Omiya. Apparently it is the biggest temple/shrine/whatever/thing in Saitama so there was some reason for going. And lots of people had that idea too it would appear.

Anyway, outside the shrine there were tons of stalls selling all kinds of food, masks, toys and....videogames. A little bizarre but there was a lot of buying going on and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Once we had got through the stalls and stuff (refraining from the food even though I was hungry - when am I not?) we got to a huge mass of people waiting to enter the shrine. It was all pretty civilised and we got through after about 45 mins of waiting, by which time it WAS 2004 but noone really seemed to know or care. I looked at my watch (or phone as it is more commonly known) at 0020 I think. There were quite a few police around keeping it all in order but they could have taken the day off.

Once past the unarmed guards (except for megaphones anyway) you get to the shrine itself and then make the prayer. Is it a prayer? I don't really know as the Japanese people in general seem quite lacking in religion but have a spirituality in what they do seeping through their actions. At the shrine itself, you throw a coin into a collecting trough thing (in my case over the heads of a crowd - dangerous with my eyesight) then clap a couple of times and put your head down and make a wish (or prayer). Ten seconds. Job done. Let's get out of here....
On the way out, you go past a whole load more stalls and one of them (or some) sell these fortune things on paper. You get them and you can read your apparent fortune for the coming year. Then, if you don't like it, you can tie it to the trees on the shrine grounds "for the wind to take it away" and so you will get better luck. Or something. I saw lots of these pieces of paper so either there was a lot of bad luck or the wind was a bit weak. Maybe they were just too damn good at tying.
The trains back involved a lot of waiting as they were significantly less frequent than normal so we sat on the cold station platforms for about an hour altogether and I got home at about 4 or 5. About when the trains start running again in fact.
It was a different type of New Year to normal and it was enjoyable too so I was pretty glad I accepted the offer. I doubt I shall see another one like it so can't complain really. Well I can but I won't.
photos here


---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---

A. Having a couple of weeks off is an ideal opportunity to travel and I did so the next few years. Actually, a few days after this post, I did travel to China to visit Shanghai and Beijing and feel very cold. The following year, I went back to the UK as a surprise visit to my parents which was great fun and a true surprise thanks to my sister's skills. The year after that I went to Bangladesh including a stopover in Hong Kong. These were the only bits of international travel I did in three years although I did take the opportunity to travel around Japan when I could.