This past Christmas and New Year were my first ever in Japan, and they have a chance to be my last. I had my suspicions about how it would be, but I was never the type of kid to just listen when Mom said, “the cookie sheet is hot, I just took it out of the oven,” so I had to see for myself.
Very few Japanese get Christmas Day off of work, and if they do, it is not related to Christmas itself, it is part of their New Year holiday. I would say that almost all Japanese are aware of Christmas, but it is of very little cultural significance to them. Still, Santa Claus, candy canes, and reindeer are widely recognized and the general idea of a season of giving is understood.
Santa Claus on the outside of the Asahi Royal Hotel
I went a-wassailing on Christmas Eve and noticed an inordinate amount of couples looking their best strolling around town. The Asahi Royal Hotel cleverly lit its windows up in a rather creepy Santa shape, and a white Christmas tree stood in Kochi Central Park. Otherwise, there was not much special going on and I headed home early.
Christmas Day was just another Friday, but I wanted to make it special, so I biked out to the Awa Coastline, one of my favorite spots in Kochi. The main highway bends away from the coast and heads for inland hills, leaving a single ribbon of road hugging steep mountains that plunge into the ocean. Pine trees jut out of the side of the cliffs, and their fragrance mixed with the smell and sound of the sea offers a rare blend of Big Bear and Huntington Beach that is all at once delicious, relaxing, and inspiring.
Awa Coastline Road
Awa Coastline - Big Bear meets Huntington Beach
I pass through several canopy-like tunnels on the way to my customary rest stop. Flat, concrete roofs over the road are supported by evenly-spaced cement pillars on the ocean side of the road, creating a nifty zoetrope effect when I zip through them on my bicycle. I’m usually not a fan of manmade structures getting in the way of natural views, but the sound of the waves is amplified because it bounces off the cliff walls and the roofs of these tunnels, and the quick disappearing and reappearing of the scenery stimulates my mind as it attempts to fill in the blanks and get the whole picture.
A zoetrope tunnel on Awa Coastline Road
At the rest stop, I climbed over the guardrail on the ocean side and let my feet dangle over the precipice, fifty feet above the rocky shore. The sun shone in a cloudless sky as I ate (and chucked) bananas and ponkans, and it felt like a 75-degree California Christmas.
Once back in Kochi City, I edited a translation project and sent it on its way, and then finished filling out my New Year cards, Japan’s version of Christmas cards which are delivered on New Year’s Day. Businesses and families alike send them out to almost everyone they know, and cards bought through the post office have lottery numbers printed on them for the big drawing in late January. I won a sheet of stamps last year, but I have a feeling that the big cash prize is going to land on me in 2010.
After dropping off the cards at the post office just before the deadline, I raced over to the hospital to visit a buddy of mine who was laid up with a right leg fresh off of ACL surgery. This is an outpatient surgery in the United States; the doctor who did mine in 2003 said he can easily do four ACL surgeries in one day, and some variations of the surgery have the patients hobbling out of the hospital on their own. We’re in Japan, though, and surgeons and doctors here try to keep patients in the hospital as long as possible, so this poor fellow was trapped until New Year’s. I gave him some of my mom’s Christmas fudge and a rented copy of Rear Window.
Then, I was off to a restaurant opening on the main drag downtown. A dozen or so people, foreign and Japanese, showed up to help start the history of Kazuya Restaurant, and old Kazuya fixed us some turkeys, pizzas, and salads to help us celebrate Christmas.
Finally, I made my way home just in time to Skype my family as they were beginning Christmas morning on Pacific Time. They put a laptop computer in my usual spot, and I “sat” there in the living room like a computer-god and watched everyone exchange presents, laugh, and moon the camera. It was easily the best part of a very long day.
Not a whole lot happened between Christmas and New Year’s. Japan experiences a lull in business as everyone has their thoughts on the time off around New Year’s Day, but I did manage to get a sizeable translation project before everything shut down for the holiday.
New Year’s Day in Japan is similar to Christmas in the United States. People flock to their hometowns to spend time with their extended families, and many businesses shut down, and I’m told that even supermarkets and gas stations were closed through January 3rd up until just a few years ago.
I hit the sack early on New Year’s Eve in order to get up in time to see the first sunrise of the year, which bears the same amount of significance to Japanese as the stroke of midnight does to young Americans. A few women and I hiked up a mountain at 5:30 a.m. and brewed tea and complained about the cold until the sun came out.
Daily exercise music and instructions are still broadcast on the radio every day at 6:30 a.m., and on some of my early morning rides, I’ve seen old folks doing it and ridden past factories where all of the workers are stretching to the music together. Somebody had a radio on the top of Mt. Washio on New Year’s morning, and everyone joined in while I struggled to keep my sides from splitting.
When the sun finally peeked out and illuminated the sky first in red, then in yellow, we raised our arms and shouted, “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!” in hopes of ringing in a Happy New Year. I turned and looked at the crowd and was surprised that the mountaintop population had grown from 15 or so when we arrived to about 100.
We drove out to a public lodge perched atop one of the mountains on the dangerous but beautiful Yokonami Skyline and took our first hot spring bath of 2010. I was stunned that such a wonderful view and relative seclusion and peace were available for only five bucks. The “famous” backwater hot springs that charge ten and up for inferior facilities ought to be ashamed.
View of the Pacific from Kokumin Shukusha Tosa outdoor baths
The first temple visit followed, and while that’s a pretty significant item on the Japanese New Year Checklist, it was just like any other temple visit, but with a much larger crowd. I paid 50 yen to a machine for a New Year fortune and drew “Big Luck,” so you might want to place your bets on this dog for 2010.
No sooner did I arrive home than did my former school’s principal show up to take me out to his countryside house for a traditional Japanese New Year celebration. He, his wife, and their grown son commute from deep in the mountains to Kochi City every day for work, and their 24-year-old daughter flew the coop for the fast life and hip-hop culture in Osaka, but they were all present and accounted for on New Year’s Day. The principal’s parents also ate and drank with us throughout the afternoon.
We arrived at the house to find a low table jam-packed with countless different kinds of sushi, fruit platters, traditional New Year foods, beer, and sake. In the past, the women of the house cooked enough food for three days and almost all of the food was cold. Now, many families buy ready-made platters at the supermarket, and almost all of the food is still cold. I’ll say what many Japanese will readily admit - that New Year’s food leaves much to be desired.
Still, there were some interesting dishes. I ate kuromame, the first sweetened beans I have ever liked, ozoni, a soup with mochi and other stuff in it, and kazunoko, yellow fish eggs smashed together, molded into a long, narrow shape, and marinated. To turn down kazunoko is to poo-poo future fertility, so I closed my eyes and choked one down. Num-num, Happy New Year.
Kochi people love to drink, and the principal and his family are no different. We raised glass after glass of beer and sake, and even the principal’s 80-year-old mother joined in the festivities. I rinsed and repeated at another teacher’s house on January 2.
Japanese New Year is a time for families to gather and catch up on what’s going on in each other’s lives. It’s a lot of sitting and talking and drinking, and many people, young and old, find it rather boring. I wasn’t bored this year because everything was brand-new, but I know that I was intruding on those families a bit and that further Japanese New Years will not have much appeal if I don’t have a Japanese family of my own.
Looking back a few days later, of course I would have rather been in California with my family, but I had passed up on four previous opportunities to experience a Japanese New Year and decided to take the chance this time. I’m glad that I did and personally consider it a unique way to start 2010.
Hope it’s as Big Lucky for you as it’s going to be for me!
A New Year's sunset