Anatomy of a Japanese New Year

We're not rocking out that's for sure.

Instead, our New Year was one of, excepting exceptionally bratty children and up-chuck, one of peace.

As if the wont of Beloved's family, we spent New Year's Eve eating the usual food, soba (buckwheat noodles). According to Japanese tradition, one must eat soba or udon, a thick white noodle, on New Year's Eve, the idea being you eat long foods to live longer. Funnily enough, Beloved's mother hated soba... until her daughter moved to Nagano (One of Nagano's specialties is soba) and now she's a fan. we also watched the yearly battle on NHK between the red and white teams.

This takes a bit of explanation, NHK, the main government sponsored broadcaster, does a yearly song battle between a woman's team (Red) and a men's team (White). White usually wins. Pretty much if you're ANYONE in Japan, you want to be on this show. The highest earners, the most popular talents, appear. It's as much of a tradition as Dick Clark's broadcast is in the US. It runs from 7:30 till 11:45.

The boys of course weren't allowed to stay up that late of course, but they did manage to stay up late enough to enjoy the all Disney review (Tokyo Disneyland's 40th is next year), which of course made them uber-happy children. The rest of the songs, meh. Well, except for AKB48. And Fashion Monster. But that was about it for the kids. They were in bed and hopefully dreaming of hawks, eggplants, and Mt. Fuji (All very good omens to dream of on New Year's Eve) by 9.

At 11:45 came the final countdown to the New Year, except that it wasn't one at all. Instead NHK did its usual broadcasts from temples around Japan slowly ringing in the New Year by ringing their bells 108 times (It's a Buddhist belief that there are 108 devils that attack humanity and that by ringing the bell 108 times, those devils are driven away) until 12 am when the broadcasters very seriously wished us a Happy New Year.

That's New Year's Eve in Japan, very calm and serious. Sure, there are those who were having some fun going to shrines at midnight for the first visit of the year, but Japan is not party central.

New Year's Day again is very serious. We woke early to see the first sun rise on 2013 and then had breakfast.

Breakfast it should be explained it a rather elaborate affair.

See, according to tradition, for at least New Year's Day, no work should be done so before New Year's Day, Beloved, her mother, and sisters spent the day in the kitchen making enough food to last us for the next few days. The breakfasts were then placed in very beautiful wooden boxes and set out to wait for us in the morning. Come that morning we had a plethora of various foods to eat, tea made from cherry blossoms, and sake. Pretty much all day long we snacked off of these foods (I don't actually remember lunch, we just more or less ate snacks, oranges, apples, chocolates, etc) and then sat down to dinner of, well, breakfast.

Just to have Makoto throw up.

It turned out however that this was more someone ate too many oranges and rough housed a bit too much with his uncles before dinner than being sick (Which is a blessing, last year we managed to have both boys get stomach flu, which meant Beloved spent New Year's Eve at a hospital).

But that is pretty much how our New Year's panned out. We have spent the last few days staying at home, hibernating under the kotatsu, eating snacks and good food (To the tune of me gaining 3 kg) and enjoying the company as they say.

This is a Japanese New Year. It's not filled with parties and the like, though there's shopping and races. There's shrine visits and food, but mostly it's the nation taking a breath, a breather before starting the year. Given that everyone in Japan heads back to their homes for this, we have returned to the beginning before staring again.

So let's start.

As they say in Japan, 明けましておめでとう

Mochi, Mochi, Mochi

While Christmas is an attempt by the American in me to inflict my culture on my sons, New Year's, Oshougatsu in Japanese, is just pure, unadulterated, Japanese.

Not, let me state, that I particularly have a problem with this given my New Year 'traditions' mainly involved eating smokes oysters on Ritz Crackers with cheese-in-a-can while sipping sparkling apple cider. Party central I so was not.

Japan however, as stated, New Year's is the major holiday in Japan. If Christmas is for partying over here, New Year's is what Christmas is in America, a time for family and traditions and boy does Beloved's family go for it all. Thus while the warm glow of Christmas is still touching and the Christmas cookies are still piled high, I load the family up for the 12-14 hour drive down to my in-laws' house in Yamaguchi Prefecture at 1 am on the 27th.

While at Beloved's parents house, the rest of her family, her two sisters, their husbands, and various cousins, aunts, uncles, and whatnot come in for a visit as well (Though the last few years have seen a sudden growth as Beloved's cousin now has four kids, we have two, and one of her sisters one). The main reason being... mochi.

Mochi, for those of you who don't know, are pounded rice cakes. They were made in the day for a way to keep rice over the New Year's holiday (Traditionally, no work should be done over New Year's, a prohibition that more or less stops at the kitchen door). Traditionally, mochi rice is steamed over a boiler that rests over an open fire in wood boxes. The steamed rice is then taken to a stone or wood mortar and beaten the hell out of with a large, heavy wooden mallet. Once pounded into submission, it's taken to a table, and rolled off into balls (If you're in my wife's family's area. Some areas roll the mochi out into a sheet and cut it into squares). These are served on or around New Year's in a variety of dishes, soups, grilled, with anko bean paste inside, etc.

Now, that's how it's traditionally done. Most Japanese, like many Americans regarding churning butter or making ice cream by hand, may have seen it done a few times, they may have even participated in it once or twice in a kind of-this-is-how-it-used-to-be-and-boy-ain't-we-happy-that-we-don't-do-it-anymore kind of way, but, again like how most Americans get their butter or ice cream from the store, so do most Japanese. If you're feeling fancy, you can order mochi from a shop. Those who really want to go all out will steam their rice in a rice cooker and then use their bread makers to beat the mochi. Almost no one goes to the trouble of doing the whole steam it over an open fire and then wield the hammer to make it for their own mochi and not in any large number.

Except my wife's family.

The first time I came to Japan was to spend New Year's with my (then) girlfriend's family and I was introduced to mochi making (Up till that time I thought mochi was for ice cream). That's when I found out that Beloved's family, especially her aunt, are some what of a traditionalist. Her aunt, by the way, was ecstatic. Pounding that mochi takes a lot of energy, the hammer is heavy and Beloved's family makes a ton of mochi. Usually the job of pounding that mochi is a guy's job. This is our manly feat of strength for the end of the year. Sadly, Beloved's family was lacking in the XY person bit. Those that were there were getting a bit long in the tooth so Beloved's aunt was forced to deal with, what she mockingly called, women's mochi (i.e. the pounding was done by women and thus without the force or power a man can bring). So it's easy to see why she was so happy when her niece brought home a guy, a rather large American guy, and one who didn't have family in Japan that he would be called away to or knew that mochi is now usually bought at the store.

I believe you can see where this is going. I have now hammered out the mochi for 7 years (We missed two due to Makoto and Hikaru's births). And, even better, Beloved's sisters also managed to get married, so now there's at least two or three men not only getting into pounding mochi, but speed pounding!

And it gets better, then Beloved had two sons, both of whom have a large, strong American for a father, and who will be trained in the ways of mochi making. Pretty much Beloved's aunt has declared that she can now die happy, resting in the idea that her family's legacy of mochi making on New Year's is secure and will continue long after she is gone. And she's right. This year saw Makoto enthusiastically joining in, wielding a child's hammer. The other kids, Hikaru included, did it once and then decided that there were far more interesting things to do, Makoto kept coming back to join in bringing the malleters to three, Daddy leading with the largest, smashing down his full weight with a loud "HA!" (A summer of ax use did wonders for easing things out), then my brother-in-law who followed with his medium hammer shouting "Sore!" (so-ray), and finally Makoto with his kids hammer thumping down and screaming "GoBusters!"

Beloved's aunt beamed.

Later, standing around the table rolling the mochi into balls (Something that a summer at a pizza parlor helped out with) she was just thrilled at the quality of the mochi produced this year. Makoto of course had to mention that he had mochi making at his school, but he didn't need to listen to the teachers because he already knew all about mochi making.

He better, he has a lifetime ahead of him in terms of beating the crap out of mochi every New Year's with a large heavy hammer!

A Very Japanese Christmas

'Tis the season... And to understand just what all the following posts talking about my trials and the cross that I bear come every December here in Japan, you gotta understand Japanese Christmas.

To start with, one has to understand that Japan is in now way shape or form a Christian nation. If anything, it's a very secular nation with most of the population reporting that they have no religious faith. That said, the Japanese are rather... well... As I previously noted, the joke is that if you asked the Japanese about religion, 78% would be Buddhist, 78% would be Shintoist, and 78% would claim no religion at all. Even the Japanese joke that they are Shinto for birth, Christian for marriage, and Buddhist at death, denoting the popular practices of going to a Shinto shrine with a new baby, having a 'romantic' Christian style wedding, and asking that a Buddhist temple attend the passing of a loved one.

And no, the Japanese see nothing wrong with this, you do what works around here.

So with that in mind, it makes sense why a non-Christian nation would somehow adopt Christmas. The problem is that, well, if there has ever been any Western custom that has been adopted by the Japanese and implanted with a Japanese heart, it's Christmas. The problem is that for an American who did grow up with Christmas, the result of this implant is a creature with a bad personality overlay. The feeling that, something is just not right. That the heart, the soul, is missing from this time of year and has been replaced with... Something. Something odd.

It's not Japan's fault of course. They already have a winter holiday that ends in exchanges of gifts and family gatherings. New Year's, or Oshougatsu in Japanese, is THE major holiday for the year. People return to their families. The year's beginning is marked as a solemn occasion instead of with parties. Or as I like to put it, things are flipped in Japan in terms of Christmas and New Year's. So when you take out the family, and you take out the gifts (kinda), and the religion, what are you left with?

Japanese Santa

Well, if you're a child, you're left with Santa. The big man is well loved in Japan, if there's an undercurrent about if Santa should be Japanese or not.

Makoto, used to his father playing Santa and seeing American Christmas movies was a bit confused when Santa visited his school and didn't talk to him in English. He was also very put out that he didn't know how to Ho ho ho properly.

But Japanese children are taught that Santa will come at night on Christmas Eve and leave a present by their futon or maybe in their sock (No stocking over here). Santa doesn't come down a chimney here of course, someone has to let him in. But he does come and it's a poor child who doesn't expect some kind of visit by Santa.

MERRY Christmas!

If you're a young adult, Christmas is... well... *ahem* Sex. Kinda. Well. not kinda. Before New Year's, many Japanese engage in what is known as 'Forget the Year' parties. So the end of the year is a party time, especially if you're old enough to drink. Adding to this is an imported idea that Christmas Eve dates are romantic (Damn Western media) and thus for young couples, Christmas is the time where they can get together, and I mean together. Christmas Eve is apparently the most popular date for a young Japanese woman to loose her virginity.

The general idea is that the guy will take his lady love out to a very expensive hotel to enjoy a 'traditional' Christmas dinner of roast chicken (It should be noted that foreigner, missing turkey, would be noted eating chicken as a substitute. In the 1970's, KFC took note and managed to convince the whole nation that fried or roast chicken is exactly what people around the world eat for Christmas and thus does the Colonel, dressed as Santa in front of every store, sells out of chicken buckets come Christmas Eve with lines reaching around the block) where he will present her with a suitably nice present. After Christmas cake (Someone apparently told Japan that Christmas is Jesus's birthday, thus it must be celebrated with something akin to a birthday cake, complete with candles) and French wine, the couple retires to a love hotel he he gets to unwrap her.

For just about everyone else, unless you're a parent and thus dealing with children, Christmas passes by almost without notice.

Almost.

Bears are Christmasy, right?

There are Christmas carols, many translated into Japanese. And Christmas lights, the Japanese who have a long standing tradition of seeing lights at night (During the fall and spring, trees are illuminated for people's enjoyment), have gone gaga over Christmas lights. It's easy to find parks with massive Christmas illuminations set up, though there's, again, the feeling that something isn't right. Encountering hearts as if for Valentine's Day, or bugs for example.

Yes, bugs. The park that I take the boys has Christmas lights set up to look like such Christmas subjects as dragonflies or beetles.

If you want to fully imagine what a Japanese Christmas feels like, just toss a Santa hat on something, anything, and that's it. From 2 foot tall trees to Doraemon nativity scenes, it just feels wrong. Fake. Transplanted.

BUT!

And I mean this, for many Japanese it's fun. For my sons, they like it. They may get more by way of me, but this will be the Christmas that they remember and that's not a bad thing. I plan to go more into tradition mixing, but I will note that while we do not have roast chicken, we do have Christmas cake, or rather I do bake a cake, if not a simple sponge one. We do listen to Christmas carols in Japanese. And we do go enjoy the Christmas lights shaped like bugs at the park. I'm not complaining about how Japanese celebrates Christmas or even that it does, but it does bring up a problem with the culture clash that comes when I try to bring in a deeper meaning to this holiday in the face of Santa, KFC, and bug lights.

But more on that a bit later.

Gobble Gobble Wibble Wobble Do a Noodle Dance! Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving has always been a really important holiday for me. My father's family lives in the San Francisco Bay Area (Why my father migrated to Nevada has always been somewhat of a mystery) and thus I didn't get to see them often. Our trips down were seasonal really, we'd come down for spring, summer, and fall holidays. Spring was Easter break, the 'long' trip. Summer was Summer vacation and Cousins' Week. Fall was Thanksgiving, our last chance to see our family before the winter snows made travel over Donner Pass too dangerous.

Before those who have never been over the Sierra Nevada in winter start giggling (Or those who drive it regularly winter or no), please remember that we're talking about a single mother in a small, front wheel drive compact car attempting to go over a pass that does get shut down often in the winter, or at least gets chain controls. Not to mention that getting stuck up there has happened before...

In any case, Thanksgiving was the last chance to see family until either March or April and while a quick trip, it was almost always fun. Mom would yank my sister and I out of school the Wednesday beforehand (And of course any chance to get out of school early...) load us up, and we'd be off to Bay Area in the annual race to beat the traffic. Certainly we had our share of adventures along the way, for example the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake managed to cause some issues, mainly the collapse of the Cypress Viaduct meant that our normal route to Grandma and Papa's house was gone, which ended up with Mom getting lost and winding up far, far from where we were supposed to go.

But usually we'd arrive and then the next day would be the big day, and boy was it. My family normally seats around 20+ for Thanksgiving and would serve turkey, stuffing, rolls, salad, mashed potatoes, peas, candied yams, corn, Quiche, olives, stuffed celery, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and mincemeat pie. Not to mention all the snacks that came before and after, the wine, sparkling apple cider, etc. The table would stretch from one end of whomever's house we were at (It rotated every year) to the other and groan with the weight of the food, plates, and cutlery. The kitchen would become a mini-war center overseen by various aunts, mothers, and of course Grandma in which foods that had been more or less cooked at various houses were heated up and served while dishes would be washed and the dishwasher loaded and run non-stop. In the mean time, various uncles and Papa would be watching TV (Usually a football game), enjoying a pre-dinner drink, and yelling at various cousins and kids to either settle down a bit or not eat too many snacks and spoil our dinners.

We various cousins and kids of course would be ignoring this and tearing trough the house and outdoors like loons and sneaking as many snacks as we possibly could.

The magic time would be right before dinner when the turkey finally came out and raids on the kitchen would start in order to claim that magic prize, turkey skin!

To this day, my aunts have never managed to serve a non-bald turkey. The skin is always stripped before we get close to carving.

And finally of course, dinner, with family and catching up with what happened since we last saw each other, high dinner theater of the inevitable political argument, and finally clean-up with a chance of a possible ice and whipped cream war started by my grandmother.

It was glorious.

The rest of the weekend would be spent digesting and the start of Christmas shopping on Saturday. Sunday, we'd get into the car and race home in the hopes of not getting trapped by snow while listening to Christmas music; or rather, my sister and I would pray for snow on Sunday so that the pass would shut down and we'd have another day off from school.

Now as a kid, I liked Thanksgiving, but it was Christmas and Halloween where my heart belongs (Kids are kids and free candy and presents top turkey), but as an adult when I started making my own trips down to the Bay Area Wednesday night after classes would be over with at university, I started to really appreciate being able to be with my family.

And then I moved to Japan.

If any time of the year gets me homesick, it's Thanksgiving. As noted, it was the last time that I would normally gather with my whole family for the year. I missed the foods, I missed the traditions, I missed my family. Japan does have family gathering type holidays, two of them in fact and we do gather, but they are in late summer and New Year's and we gather at Beloved's parents house. There's also a lack of turkey in Japan as well. So for 7 long years, I didn't really have Thanksgiving. Oh, sure, I'd try to make something special, maybe have some chicken on the day, and I would give thanks, but... it wasn't Thanksgiving.

This year though, well... This year we have a house of our own and I have two sons who have not learned about this part of their heritage (And given the Japanese calendar, are unlikely to ever make it back to the States in time for it). We also had Beloved's parents coming up for Makoto's 7-5-3 festival and Japan's Labor Thanksgiving Day was the Friday after Thanksgiving Day thus I had a day off to cook so... It was time to have my own Thanksgiving.

Turkey before the roasting

Which was scary enough, yes. My previous attempts at cooking a turkey (One of my aunt's gave me a turkey when I was in college as payment for helping her) was mixed at best. Oh sure, the bird came out great, the gravy... Well, all I remembered was that one mixed pan drippings in with flour. Our gravy was more turkey flavored paste. Thus I concluded that Thanksgiving dinner should be left to wise aunts, mothers, and grandmothers. But this year... I had no wise aunts, mothers, and grandmothers to fall back on as turkey and the trimmings are quite different from the Japanese dishes that Beloved and her mother are so good at. Even worse, the time difference meant that there would be no panicked phone calls back to the States in hopes of getting a wise aunt/mother/grandma on the phone to help with a disaster. And even worse-er, just about everything would have to done from scratch. You simply cannot buy a lot of the pre-made stuff.

But I was going to do it anyway. And I did. Spending Thursday night making the pie and all day Friday cooking I served turkey (Bought from Foreign Buyers Club) in a roaster that came from the US, oyster stuffing from a recipe that has been passed down through my family from my great-great-great-grandmother, cranberry sauce, and candied yams. The smells of the day brought me back home and the fact that my sons proceeded to devour the bird and the trimmings till both of their bellies were large and round proved that they are indeed my true born sons, blood of my blood and Americans in the bone.

I see you trying to get into it!

Actually, it was a bit of a problem as Hikaru kept coming into the kitchen and trying to get me to feed him turkey while it was cooling by pointing and saying "Turkey! Eat!" and when I wouldn't, he'd go and get Jiji, Mommy, or Baba in an effort to get them to give him turkey. He got quite annoyed when that didn't happened and attempted to conduct a raid on the table instead. Somewhere I could hear my female relatives laughing at me as I fought to defend my dinner from a toddler. But my in-laws also took to Thanksgiving dinner, and to turkey skin (I, too, had to serve a bald turkey). In fact, the best compliment I received was Beloved asking me to make this again next weekend, which I am so not going to do, but it was great that it was enjoyed that much.

It wasn't quite the same, but it was Thanksgiving with food, laughter, and family gathered together before the coming chill.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was glorious.

And it also was a taste, if a small one, of home; a chance to introduce my culture a bit to my sons and my in-laws. It was nice to see them taking to it so well too. My father-in-law even managed to get right into the swing of things with traditional American happily overstuffed on Thanksgiving dinner after-dinner nap. And I didn't even have to tell him about that one either!

7-5-3

Ok the communication tests are done, Thanksgiving dinner has been cooked and eaten, and the in-laws are back where they belong after a long weekend.

Back to the blog!

Going in reverse order, what I wanted to talk about today was Makoto's Shichigosan, or 7-5-3. In Japanese tradition, girls who are ages 3 and 7 and boys who are 5 get dressed up in kimono (Or nice western clothing) and head off to the shrine for a blessing. It's a bit in the way of asking for good health, luck, and fortune along with the kami's protection for the child. Of course, in modern Japan, there's less actual religious feeling behind it and far more "We do this because we are Japanese". It's also one of the few times that Japanese will wear kimono.

Yes, they are beautiful, but so are tuxes and ballgowns and most Americans don't wear them everyday either.

Shichigosan also makes the formal end of babyhood, going into childhood. Girls got to wear obi, the formal sashes on their kimono and boys... get to put on PANTS!

Seriously.

This ceremony is actually rather old, there's a mention of it in Tale of Genji, the worlds first novel, and for some reason it's translated in that book as "The First Putting on of Pants". This has been a non-stop source of amusement for my family. For me, it just sounds silly. For Beloved and Makoto, it's even better as pants do not refer to trousers in Japan, but underpants. And of course, every 5-year-old boy thinks that any mention of underwear is humorous.

Of course, the pants themselves are not what we back in the US are used to, but hakama, the traditional divided trousers used by men over their kimono.

Any case, the whole thing is a big deal, and of course Beloved's parents came up to see their grandson to under go this, bringing with them PANTS! The kimono that Makoto wore was one that he had since his birth, and indeed was taken to the same shrine as a baby in it to be presented to the kami. This time however, he got to wear the kimono and the pants. Hikaru in the meanwhile got to wear... a tie!

He was not impressed.

Still, while it took a while to get all the ties done up right and things jiggered into the right areas, and we had to endure a cold shrine, it was a nice ceremony and both boys came off looking good, Makoto in his kimono and Hikaru in his tie. Makoto came away from the shrine with a charm to protect him, an arrow to protect the house, a coloring book with Japanese myths in it, and the traditional bag of candy. Hikaru just came away confused, but since he'll be doing this in three years time, maybe he'll remember this day with his brother.

If I had just one regret about 7-5-3, it might be that everything for this came from Beloved and Beloved's family. Not, let me state, that this is a particularly bad thing, but it was one where Makoto's American side was more or less buried by his Japanese one. The only thing that was different from every other child at the shrine was that his last name was very much not Japanese. I guess I just wish that I could have had him had something from the US.

Still wasn't going to allow my mother to send over a tartan from my step-father's Scottish clan however. There's staying true to your roots and then there is horrible culture and fashion clashes.

It's Time for Me to Get Learned

I have a confession to make. I'm functionally illiterate.

8 years in Japan and I have what could be termed as a 1st grade reading level (Literally, I know all the first grade kanji, beyond that things go downhill).

Oh, sure, I have excuses. I wasn't supposed to stay in Japan. I've been busy with school, wife, kids, life and just don't have the hours needed per day to devote to learning the four difference scripts of Japanese (Yes, you read that right, the Japanese use four different systems... interchangeably). And of course the old standby, three of the scripts are easy, the fourth, kanji, the Chinese characters that were adopted in Japan for their main writing system is hell.

The list needed to be considered literate is over 2,000 separate character long. Normally Japanese are even literate until they get through junior high and even then, that list is just the start. It's not enough for understanding other more specialized kanji that one might use if he happens to normally be college educated. And it gets worse of course, not only are the kanji a mishmash of random lines, but they have multiple meanings and multiple readings depending on if they are read in Japanese or their original Chinese pronunciation that has been changed into Japanese.

It's enough to conclude that the best thing to do is forget the bloody kanji and just stick with English, problematic as that language is.

The thing is though... Japan is now my home. And yes, you can say all you want about immigrants needing to learn the language and I will be more than happy to come back with all sorts of facts for you, but honestly... where I have been, being able to hold a basic conversation about daily events is not enough. It's not enough that I am reliant on Beloved to this extent (And indeed it is not, in many ways, Beloved doesn't have two small children, she has three). It's not enough that very quickly both my sons will surpass my ability to read as they already have in speaking Japanese.

So, I swallowed my pride and for my birthday asked that I be given "Remembering the Kanji" which is a study guide that people either swear by or at. So far, I'm a swear by guy. The damn thing works. It breaks down the kanji into what the author calls primitives and then helps you assign keywords and a memory aid in terms of a story or image to help you recall and write. It also helped that I ended up finding a website with a community devoted to this model and when I can't come up with my own story or dislike the one in the book, I can borrow (Read steal) a host of others.

And yes, it is working in 11 days I've managed to memorize over 200 kanji. Not bad at all.

It helps to keep my eye on the prize, the idea of being able to read the printed material around me and using that to help improve my Japanese. To be able to converse with my in-laws without Beloved translating, and to be able to help my sons with their school work, beyond English.

The other thing that helps is, well, Beloved and the boys. Although probably not in ways that they really know about, or would like. Yes, they got me the books, but I admit that I have been making free use of them to make up stories. The kanji for 'Child' for example 子 becomes Makoto or Hikaru on Beloved's back. Another kanji that means "But of course" and is made up of the kanji for water and elder brother invokes me asking Hikaru "Did you need to pour water on your elder brother?!" "But of course, Daddy!".

Even one I just learned today, portent works with the story of "When big hairs grow on my wife's legs, it's a bad portent".

And if she ever reads this, it will be a self-fulfilling one. 

This is Halloween!

Japan has imported a few holidays. Mother's Day and Father's Day more or less survive with how they are celebrated elsewhere (Though as I have written, Father's Day seems to have become a sneaky way for moms to get an extra day off). Valentine's Day and Christmas have been changed quite a bit as various aspects of Japanese businesses have latched on to them for use to promote their products, chocolate for Valentine's Day and the hotel and fried chicken industry for Christmas (More on that in December), which leads to a bit of a struggle on my part because I want my sons to know the holidays for what they actually are and not think of KFC when Christmas rolls around.

But then there's Halloween, my favorite holiday.

And one that hasn't, quite, figured out what to do with itself.

It's not from lack of trying mind you, if anything the elements are already there. Japan loves a good scare. Japan abounds with monsters and ghosts a plenty, it has no issue with the idea of dressing up in costume, and it does have a sweet tooth, if not as sweet as Americans. It even has a holiday season akin to Halloween, O-Bon when the spirits of the dead return and bring with them ghosts and goblins. That could be Japan's problem actually, everything that Halloween is can be found in native Japanese holidays and customs at other times of year. But the idea of Halloween has been growing, pushed on not so much by a Japanese company looking to sell something, but due to hordes of Americans who have been teaching in Japan on the JET Programme and other related endeavors.

As part of the notion of internationalization and culture sharing, just about every AET, American or not, has had to conduct some kind of Halloween lesson or party over here. With varying degrees of enthusiasm no doubt, but they have been done and slowly, it's been growing. 8 years ago and you couldn't find anything Halloween related, now even the local grocery store stocks some themed candy. 8 years ago and I had to send to the US for my costume, this year I was flabbergasted at the display over at local store that included actual make-up kits and costumes that were not Christmas related (One of my fondest memories was helping at a Halloween event my first year in Japan just to see kids dressed up as Santa Claus). It's not the Halloween stores at home, or even Wal*Mart, but it's getting bigger.

That said, we still do not have the concept of trick-or-treating over here yet, at least not a general one ala the US. So what is a Halloween loving parent to do to help his sons get this most wonderful of holidays?

It's a start!

Simple, if the Mohammed won't wander over to the mountain, the mountain is going to continue as if it was still in the US, with some slight changes. Which means that I spent most of October getting the house ready for Halloween, building a mini (by that I mean 4 tombstones) graveyards and trying to find various Halloween decorations, much to the pleasure of the boys. It means hanging a Happy Halloween banner in the living room along with a paper jack-o-lantern (Causing Hikaru to spend most of October going around saying "Happy Halloween! Jack-o-lantern!" over and over again).

Scooping pumpkins

It means 45 minute trips to find orange pumpkins for carving instead of the small green ones for eating that Japan sells. It means getting costumes from America for the boys, renting some movies, and carving 5 different jack-o-lanterns (3 for the home, two for the various schools). And of course it means finding a way for my sons to experience the ultimate (For a kid) in Halloween, trick-or-treating.

Happy Halloween in Shiojiri

Unfortunately, that meant going to Happy Halloween in Shiojiri, probably the largest Halloween event in Japan, and one that grew out of a Halloween party put on by an AET some time ago. It's also somewhat of a madhouse. You have thousands of people crammed into a little area with various events, some of which are even related to Halloween, going on and in the middle of it, trick-or-treating. But, I have two sons, one dressed as a pirate, one dressed as a cute little skeleton, and myself... the overly large gaijin dressed in a very scary skull mask... surely... we could get through this.

I admit, they were very cute!

What became apparent very quickly was that we were causing a rather quixotic reaction in people, depending on who they saw first. If it was the boys, "KAWAIIIIIII" (Cute!) was the reaction. If it was me, "KOWAI!" (Scary!) so we went along trying to find our candy stations with shouts of "Kawaii" "Kowai" "Kawaii" "Kowai" "Kawaii" "Kowai" "Kawaii" "Kowai" "Kawaii" "Kowai" echoing around us. It actually got to be a bit of a problem as a number of people tried to make off with Hikaru (Being the overly cute one) and I had a bunch of people who assumed that I was so scary, I must be part of the staff and were following me around to see when I would be handing out candy, or doing something entertaining, myself.

Actually, the bad part was that I could do nothing. I have no qualms, even when not on the clock, of adding in a good scare, but Hikaru was jittery enough and I didn't want him freaking out at a scary Daddy so... All I could do was stand there and just look spooky.

Given that I caused a few kids to cry, that was apparently enough.

But we did have a good time and much candy was gotten. Even better from the boys' point-of-view, we went out for ramen afterwards, while still in costume and all without Mommy (Which means they got to rub it in when they got home that Mommy missed out on delicious ramen).

The loot

It might not quite be the same as home, and this Wednesday all we will do is light our jack-o-lanterns as I have class and trick-or-treating is done, but... I think it's a start. After all, Makoto is already planning for what he wants to be for next year and having demonstrated carving pumpkins to some friends, they want to start carving next year too. Slowly, ever so slowly, we're bringing in Halloween, properly.

Everybody scream!

Happy Halloween!

It's Festival Time, Again?!

First it was the Fall Festival at the local shrine, then it was the Culture Festival at the school that I teach at, and today... Well, today was Sports Festival at Makoto's pre-school.

In Japanese, this is known as undokai and is a serious event that happens throughout a Japanese life. It starts in pre-school, picks up steam in elementary, comes to age in junior high and high school, and can still be found in both college and adult life. This Japan Times article goes into great detail about undokai for elementary school, but we're talking Makoto.

Makoto, who has been practicing his song and dance for the last three weeks, often at the top of his lungs and in the bath.

Race time

But this was Makoto's day to shine. His class had a number of events to participate in: a school song, a race, a ninja obstacle course, giving gifts to younger children, and finally, the parent dance. The first two are pretty self explanatory, the only downer was that Makoto came in 3 of 3, and this was after worrying that he was going to toss a shoe like he had been doing in practice, but even though he came in last for his heat, he was all grins.

The last three however needs some explanation. Makoto's class's theme was ninja, for some reason and their costumes were supposedly ninja.

Apparently even the Japanese are starting to believe the lies of Naruto given that the kids had gold headbands on.

But the whole thing was cute, first the kids raced on their homemade can walkers, then they hopped between two tables, climbed over an inverted L pipe, and then attacked the crow...

Ninja the tengu!

Er... I think. I'm still not too sure as to what that was, but they all picked a fruit (A water balloon) from a 'tree' and then tossed it into the basket being held by a tengu, a crow goblin from Japanese mythology. I'm not exactly sure as to why they did this, or what ninja skill this was supposed to be, but Makoto was Makoto. The poor tengu had spilled his basket of balloons right before Makoto showed up so instead of tossing it into the basket, Makoto very politely went over and placed his balloon carefully into the basket.

This is my son in action. ^_^

The next activity involved Makoto's class giving gifts to the younger children in his school as well as every other young child, i.e. the younger brothers and sisters of the kids in the school. Yes, it was very cute, this dad has no problem stating that the awwww factor was high here, especially as the first time around there was a slight miscount and Makoto didn't get to give his gift, which led to him and his partner poking at it to try and determine just what went wrong.

FINALLY got it!

The best part was Hikaru however as he was supposed to get a gift too. And boy did he try, every time the whistle blew, he'd take off like a bat out of hell just to be caught by Beloved. When his time finally came... He proceeded to run... right to Makoto because he thought big brother was going to be giving him something.

Again folks, awww....

The final event was the all school parents dance. Beloved backed out of this one and I, clad in a suit minus the tie and jacket because I had to head back to school to finish my school's festival, joined the crowd to dance with my son. Of course, I didn't know the dance, couldn't understand the Japanese, and couldn't see the teachers demonstrating the dance, but it didn't matter. I got to dance with my son two times around with the song, smacking thumbs, bumping rears, and then high fives. Silly, yes, but the smiles were worth it.

Finally, undokai came to a close and the school principal, again keeping with the Olympic theme, awarded everyone the gold.

Bringing home the gold

Silly, perhaps, but for the kids who had been practicing for weeks, it was was all worth it. Next year will be Makoto's last so he'll be doing the longer, more physically challenging events to prepare him for undokai at elementary school.

Hopefully by then we can figure out a way to keep Hikaru from trying to sneak onto the field, steal food from other people, or kidnap someone else's daddy to take him on the slides.

It's Festival Time Again!

Not my town's festival, or anything to do with the boys, no, this is my school's festival.

My students' school year revolves around certain events, the biggest, by far, is the culture festival that takes place at the tail end of September, or the beginning of October, every year. It's two days of the kids showing off, well... showing off. The school is opened to the public (I.e. the parents and a few city worthies that got roped into showing up) and the up-coming 7th graders who get to wander in from their 6th grade classes to see what they'll be doing next year.

All joking aside, it is an amazing event. Each of my students participates in some aspect of the festival, many in multiple. They show off their artwork, they show off their clubs, their sports, their class projects and trips. They show off their school work, they preform various stage shows ranging from my group's rendition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, to the dance club's hip hop. They compete in an all school chorus contest that is judged by a professional voice trainer, they compete in an all school sports event (Mainly races, though they also enjoy jump rope), and best of all, they set up everything themselves.

While we teachers help, it's the kids who plan the events, set the stage, run the lights, the sound, and what not. They do the whole program, dividing up multiple jobs among the students so, again, everyone has something to do, but they also have a chance to shine and enjoy the festival.

It's also stressful as all heck with the day before dedicated to set-up so the school is filled with students running everywhere in a panic trying to get everything set up on time and where things are supposed to be. I admit, it's a little worrying to see them attempt to assemble an arch above the school gate (The Keystone Cops comes to mind).

But... it will be a fun time and once it's all finished and we teachers see our now exhausted students out the door to the arms of their families... We get to go out and drink that we survived another year.

In that at least, it does have something to do with the other festival.

It's Festival Time

"Wasshoi! Wasshoi!"

As mentioned, fall has come to Nagano. Since it's the weekend of the Equinox, that means it's time for the Autumn Festivals at our local Shinto shrines.

The reasoning is, somewhat, complex. On one hand, you have the rice harvest and a festival is held to say thanks for a good harvest (Many rural shrines also have one in the spring to ask for one), on the other, we need to give the local kami (God, but honestly spirit would be a better translation), his exercise before he heads off to the yearly meeting (In Japan, October is considered the Month Without Gods because they all head off to heaven in order to have a big family gathering). And finally, of course, who doesn't like an excuse to party?

For the last 6 years, this has meant my helping carry the mikoshi, a kind of portable shrine. Ours is rather plain, some of them in Japan are beautiful affairs of gold and lacquered wood, ours is a wooden platform with rice casks and a sake barrel, plus the kami. But, plain as it is, it's heavy and after 6 years, I've gotten the ritual down pat.

The group of us gather at a local community center where we change into our festival gear, white pants, a happi coat, a headband, white tabi (Think ninja footwear), and a haramaki, a belly band.

Except me of course, because finding pants and a belly band in my size has proven difficult, so I head out in bluejeans and a white t-shirt. Still get to wear the tabi and the happi though.

Yes, we carry that, and drink the sake in front

First off, the photo, because one cannot ever get a group together in Japan for a purpose without a photo. The photo also allows us to crack open the sake barrel. We carry the sake around to pass it out to anyone who sees us along with cotton candy for the kids. The other reason for it however is to make sure that those carrying the mikoshi are good and drunk while doing so.

There's three theories as to why this is. The first is religious, the kami is happy when we're happy (I believe I have remarked before, "You've gotta be drunk, it's Shinto!"), the second is just so all that sake doesn't go to waste. The third, and my personal opinion, is that by keeping us plastered, we're less likely to question just why we're carrying, and tossing, a heavy wood platform up the side of a steep hill at night in late September.

Which, yes, is exactly what we do. The mikoshi is supposed to go around the neighborhood, which is accomplished by picking it up (Usually we need about 20 or more men for this) and carrying it on our shoulders while changing "Wasshoi! Wasshoi!" (Either heave-ho or it comes, depending). From time to time, people will stop us to give us an envelope filled with money as a donation. It's then that we've got to get a blessing from the kami for the house which is accomplished by tossing it up into the air and then catching it.

It's also about this time that I'm glad I've been sipping the sake as inevitably, I am the tallest there and the first to catch it so for a second, I get the whole weight.

Rest and food break

From time to time we'd stop to rest and a few times to eat. Along the way families would offer their place as a rest area and a few of them would provide food and more alcohol.

One of them is a challenging sort of place as for some reason, the owner of the house makes these incredibly spicy dishes each year and does so in a way to make sure you're never quite too sure as to which dish it is, until you bite into it. Every year he gets a kick out of people suddenly screaming "SPICY!"

Except for me. Because while spicy, it ain't that bad... Which I really shouldn't have said because this year he took it as a challenge and liberally spooned something he called "topping" on it. I don't know what that stuff was, but it WAS spicy and my mouth burned for a good 10 minutes after eating it.

Thankfully, the sake barrel was near by.

Finally of course we have to get the mikoshi back to the shrine to take the kami home. This being Japan, the shrine is at the top of a very steep hill (For some reason, the Japanese don't consider a site properly holy unless it's high up). So, tired, drunk, and with minor indigestion from eating spicy foods, the lot of us now have to struggle up the hill... And then prove ourselves to be manly men. It's not enough to have hauled this through the town, it's not enough to drink large amounts of sake, it's not enough to face down the fiery foods... no, we've got to get the mikoshi up in front of the shrine and then run, at top speed, stopping only to toss the mikoshi, and with our leader standing on top of it.

Pretty much our last toss barely clears our heads. But... it is done. The mikoshi comes to rest, the kami returns to his shine, and the lot of us get blessed by the Shinto priest. Finally, we take the mikoshi back to where we started from to finish off the sake, eat, and drink some more.

Except that I didn't. as much as I would like to have drowned my pain (Because 4 hours of carrying a heavy wood pole across my shoulders meant they were now black and blue), but I couldn't because I knew that Sunday morning was Thomas time and my sons would wake us up early.

And more than that, it was the day of the boys' birthday party and I needed to get the cake baked.

But hey, at least we finished the sake.

Following the Leader

In Nagano the soba is in bloom, the dragonflies crowd the sky, the apples ripen on the trees, and the matsuri kick off. It's fall in other words.

And winter is coming.

Unlike Game of Thrones, my Iron Throne wouldn't be swords but axes and chainsaws. When we built the house, we made the decision, or rather I made the demand, that we would have a wood burning stove. Said stove would be from America, not a tiny little Japanese one, but a nice sized American one that would put out enough heat to make the winter comfortable.

And boy did it, last winter was the first time I spent the bulk of the cold season happy. The stove kept the house at about 72'ish most of the time (Which doesn't sound like much, except that one must understand that our previous house was lucky to get about 10 degrees C warmer than the outside air and it gets COLD in Nagano, and that was with the electric and kerosene heaters going full bore. At night we might be 2 to 3 degrees warmer than the below freezing temps outside) and we discovered, much to Beloved's pleasure, that laundry placed up on the second floor would be bone dry by the end of the day, no longer did we have to take a week to dry the laundry during the winter, no longer was I slapped in the face by wet clothing in the morning after taking a shower.

The only issue was... wood. Back in the States we did have a wood stove, but it wasn't used as the primary (Actually in our case, only) source of heat for the house so I didn't really get just how much wood a family could go through. It doesn't help that while I'm thinking cords of wood, Japan sells them in bundles. We thought a hundred bundles would be ok, until we learned that we would go through about 4 or 5 of them a day during the coldest part of winter, which lasted a month.

The cost was... annoying to say the very least, though I have to admit that it worked out far cheaper than paying for either the power or the kerosene. This summer however I had been on the hunt for cheaper wood, i.e. stuff that I would have to cut and split myself. And yeah, I got it alright. A friend of mine who owns an apple orchard gave me a few truckloads of apple and pear wood and then another friend got a neighbor of his who was getting rid of his garage to give me all of that wood. Finally, our neighbor, the farmer who always gives us stuff, cut down a pine tree in his yard and gave us that as well.

Yes, I KNOW you're not supposed to burn pine as the majority fuel, but it don't hurt as a starter.

For most of the summer as the days got too hot, the wood more or less lived under blue tarps that I had staked down to protect it from the rains. This holiday weekend though... well, it was time to get that wood cut, the dry stuff stacked for this winter and the wet, new wood, stacked for next winter.

For two days I've been entertaining myself with both my chainsaw and splitting ax, picking up some lovely blisters and some killer sore muscles in the process.

But of course, Daddy cannot possibly be outside playing the warm sunshine without having little boys to play along with him, right?

You do NOT play with these

Day one was just Makoto as Daddy was doing a lot of work with the chainsaw (Yeah, two-year-old and a chainsaw, what could possible go wrong with that combination?) so Hikaru spent most of the day screaming from inside as he saw big brother and Daddy outside 'playing' and he wasn't allowed to do so. Still, even though I got a lot of wood cut, I also had some fun with Makoto. Makoto started off trying to help me by stacking wood (He wasn't too bad) but very quickly we ran into the problem of the wood pile got to be over his head and he couldn't reach. So instead Makoto just got to play, which as I kept turning over stacks of wood meant that he got a nature show right in front of his eyes. He met slugs (slimy things are always a big hit with little boys), ants, frogs, termites, crickets (Jumping Jiminy, now I know why our backyard is so bloody noisy at night), and earthworms. Pretty much anything creepy and crawly that would delight a small boy was there right in front of him. He also got to meet some centipedes, which was a problem. Mukade are not to be trifled with. They aren't dangerous, but as anyone who lives in rural Japan knows, being bitten by one hurts. I have never been, thankfully, but Beloved's stories, plus stories of friends who have, lead me to state that the bites feel something between "Oh my merciful God in heaven!" and "Bleeping beep of a beep!", if not inventing new curses on the spot.

Given that I don't want Makoto to get started on more colorful language just yet, we had a quick lesson as to why he should leave the mukade alone.

I forgot however that if you make something sound dangerous, you make it irresistible to little boys. To distract Makoto from hunting mukade, I told him about earthworms and how they eat and poop out dirt (Yes, I know that's not technically true), which worked. Makoto spent the rest of the afternoon harassing earthworms and gleefully announcing that it had pooped dirt on his shoe.

It doesn't take much to entertain a young boy.

The second day was more ax work than saw work and with Beloved off napping, Makoto and Hikaru came out. This ended up with Makoto taking Hikaru around to see all the friends he made yesterday, Mr. Slugs, the crickets, and of course the earthworms. Both boys spent about an hour outside playing with the frogs (Hikaru: "Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog!"), and the earthworms. Actually it got to the point where I looked up from my splitting to find both boys hunkered down in the dirt, cheerfully waving bye to a pair or frantic earthworms they managed to dig up, both coated liberally with mud and dirt.

They were very happy young boys, and since I was still armed with an ax, I didn't have to face too much wrath of Mommy when they came in and showed Beloved just how dirty they got.

I meanwhile just picked up another log to split and stack, after all, winter is coming.

And two days worth of work later

Gift Giving Wars

A bit late on the bandwagon with this one, but the San Francisco Chronicle's mother's blog, The Mommy Files, had a rather cute story the other day. The short of it was a new set of parents with 14 week old twin boys (Boy are they gonna have a lot of fun) took a cross country flight from San Francisco to DC and in an attempt to pacify the passengers in case they failed to pacify their sons passed out bags of candy with cute little notes attached and an offer of earplugs.

Now I can sympathize with the parents, traveling with kids is difficult sometimes and I admit that my experience with public transportation, such as trains, buses, and planes, has brought home that many non-parents tend to view any child who is having a problem as some kind of crime against humanity.

As an aside, on my last trip home, I requested an aisle seat and was told that the only one left was next to a baby. The ticket agent cringed when she told me this, expecting do doubt that I would start ranting about having to be near a child, I just grinned and informed her I have two small boys... kid noises are NOT a problem.

I'm not too sure I agree with the need to hand out goodies, feeling that kids should have the same chances to go places as adults do, and at least you can understand why they are crying as opposed to the 'adults' who get smashed and loudly talk, but it's a nice gesture nonetheless. What was interesting for me though was how... Japanese it seemed, even though I have no idea if the parents are Japanese or not.

Japan is a land of gifts. You go somewhere, you bring back hordes of small gifts to hand out. You arrive somewhere, gifts. You need a favor, gifts. You cause a problem, gifts. You're born, enter school, graduate, get married, and/or die, you give and get gifts. It's summer or winter, gifts (Though this is dying out). Sometimes it seems as if the whole of the nation is currently working on a rather large bribery system.

Now it should be noted that we're, usually, not talking about large amounts of gifts. Coming back from my in-laws, I got my fellow teachers a box of orange cookies from my wife's hometown. That was acceptable, just as other teachers who went out and about brought in something small to snack on from wherever the winds took them. Our neighbors got something slightly larger, my private students something smaller, it all works out in the end.

Except when it doesn't.

Japan has some rather intricate rules regarding gifts that no one, not even the Japanese, seem to be fully aware of. When to give a gift and to whom usually is pretty simple. But sometimes... Well, sometimes gift giving wars happen. Gift giving wars happen when the party of the first part gives a gift to the party of the second part that the second part feels was way too much for the event in question. In other words, if the parents above had handed out small bottles of whiskey, many Japanese would feel that it would be far, far too much for such a small inconvenience. Then, well, then the balance has been disturbed and MUST be rectified. So the party of the second part returns with a gift of their own. But if the party of the first feels that THAT gift was way too much, well then the balance must be restored by giving another gift.

Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Fire, Whiskey, and Wine!

I think I've got a new oath to proclaim when annoyed. I have a few that I keep in stock to haul out whenever the situation calls for it, "Blood and Shale!" (Via the wombat), or "Skuld's Holy Hammer!" (An Ah! My Goddess reference if you're feeling lost) for example. sometimes I mix languages and go for "Nan da Hell?" just for variety and of course there's the good ol' fashion stand-bys of "Bleeping Bleep of a Bleep!" which is usually not said bleeped of course.

Well, it used to not be. Now I've got to watch the language given the two parrots that live with me and myself also having no wish to have to revive my Beloved after she faints from shock from hearing that tumble from her sons' innocent lips.

But I think I can now add in "Fire, Whiskey, and Wine!" as a new one, and for good reason.

Hazmat on the scene!

September 1st was Japan wide disaster drills, it being the 89th anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake that leveled Tokyo back in 1923. This year, our neck of the woods was chosen for being the drill site. Now when I saw drill site, I mean something a wee bit more impressive than it sounds. The elementary school was transformed into a disaster of epic proportions that involved the local fire departments, the local volunteer fire fighters (Which was why I was there), the police departments, paramedics  Hazmat, DMAT (Japan's Disaster Medical Assistant Team), Search and Rescue, the Japan Ground Self Defense Force, the gas, water, and electrical departments, local media (Both reporting the event and acting as media during a disaster to provide info), the city's mayor and council, and about a good 200 people acting as victims or volunteers to help out.

Fighting fires... or trees. Either or.

During the event, we were covering what would happen should a major earthquake strike the elementary school, then moved on to injured people, collapsed buildings, flooding, broken water and gas pipes, avalanches, a typhoon, more fires, and a spill of some kind, all within an hour and a half. I don't think we had a drill for an attack by Godzilla, but we might have and I just missed it. Of course, while the drills are going on and we have firetrucks, ambulances, Humvees, and helicopters going around and about, the city was using the fact that a number of people showed up to conduct some education so we also had various simulators for quakes, fires, etc. Chaotic doesn't even begin to describe it, but I guess even THAT helps with getting into the swing of things should something actually happen.

This never happened

So the fire part of my oath was a literal fire, or a few of them, that we were using to train on, in uniform, under the hot sun. After it was all said and done, we also got to set the elementary school back to what it's supposed to be and so we spent about an hour cleaning the grounds so that come Monday, the kids wouldn't know that a helicopter landed on their field.

Such hard work, my company commanded stated, requires us to have a party as a reward. Thus part two, whiskey. A true Japanese BBQ soon commenced, and by true, I mean all of us sitting around grills, cooking slices of beef and drinking whiskey and other hard drinks, and a lot of them. Fun? Yes. Even when it started to rain and we continued to still sit outside, drink whiskey, tell ribald jokes, and eat beef it was fun. But after a rather large amount of whiskey, the clock told me it was time to head home.

Why, you may ask?

Because my day wasn't over yet... The international club was having wine tasting that night that I was expected, as a wine lover, to attend. So I capped out the evening with two glasses of wine and a number of rich foods for the savor of it all. Needless to say, I arrived back at the house with Beloved and the boys having a hard time walking straight and more or less fell into my futon determined to sleep.

But at least I got to use my new oath straight away with "Fire, whiskey and wine! 6:30 is too early in the morning for you guys to wake up!"

Sadly, the boys felt that no, no it wasn't and in fact, it was time for Daddy to wake up and play with them, even if he was feeling slightly delicate that morning.

Give Me Steam!

Beloved constantly complains that the boys are American. She claims that in terms of being argumentative, infatuated with sweets, and their inability to stay silent for any appreciable length of time is a product of them being half American (No, I don't know what other Japanese mothers use as an excuse). However, I can point to one thing as proof positive that my sons are indeed Japanese and like every other Japanese boy who lives in Japan.

They are in love with trains.

Now THIS is an engine!

Now don't get me wrong, I too like trains. As a child, I went through the period of being fascinated by these machines and I would beg for repeated trips to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in order to see my favorite steam engines of the Virginia and Truckee RR, the Queen of the Shortlines. For the longest time my bedroom door was decorated with stickers from the Union Pacific and I made a number of plans to ride Amtrak around America, or at least to Sacramento (It never happened) just to be on the rails so I can't really throw rocks here, but the Japanese...

Lord do they take things to extreme.

And it's every Japanese boy. I have yet to met a Japanese male of any age who either currently is, or at one time was, a train fanatic. I mean, in a way, it's easy to see why, trains are everywhere in Japan. In terms of public transportation, Japan has a very highly developed, very efficient rail system of both public, semi-public, and private networks. While the bullet trains are probably the most well known outside Japan, the reality is that local trains are everywhere and transport millions of people everyday. It's hard NOT to be a little boy and be impressed with these machines and dream of one day being that alpha male, a train driver on a JR (Japan Rail) Shinkansen.

Who wouldn't want to use these?

To that end though, there's train everything. One can eat with bullet train chopsticks, wear train socks, walk to school carrying a train lunch kit, play with train toys (From model trains to stuffed ones), and it doesn't stop! Some Japanese men never outgrow their love affair with the rail, many Japanese men have their cells set to go off with the station calls (When Japanese trains come to a station, a musical melody is played), one can find salarymen in their standard gray suits sporting neckties with various trains, some men wake up to an alarm that reproduces station calls on the famous Yamanote line in Tokyo (Think those pictures one sees of people being shoved into the train).

And those are the relatively normal ones. It gets even worse with hordes of Japanese men who spend their weekends camped out next to various train tracks to capture a perfect image of one train or another running down the rails. There are those who collect train memorabilia, as in there is a thriving trade for various JR uniforms and even ticket stubs. Even worse are those who will pay quite a bit of money to train in the same simulators that JR drivers use to learn how to drive a train (Why, I have no idea. No one is going to let them actually drive a real one), and then there are the true Train Geeks who make it their life's mission to ride every mile of rail on every line in Japan, all 16,944 miles of them.

And let's not get started on the various theme rooms in love hotels that are mocked up to look like the insides of various trains with uniforms to match.

Some Americans might be train fans, but I have yet to meet any who take it to the extremes of the Japanese.

But getting back to the boys, both Makoto and Hikaru fell in love with trains fairly early. We do have one running through our city and it's a common sight for us as we go about living in the countryside (Mainly because the track parallels the main road). Add in Thomas the Tank Engine and we have two budding train otaku. They have the toys, the have the clothing, they even have an American train whistle (I must have been out of my mind when I bought it). But like all young boys (and some men), trains are ranked in terms of interest.

Sure, the local line is fun and interesting, but it doesn't hold a candle to the limited express train. Those are worth lots of comments, but compared to a bullet train? Yeah, right. But there is a kind of train that stands at the peak of all train'dom, a train whose name inspires something close to religious awe in little Japanese boys, a styile of train whose whistle still echos from the past, whom deep in their souls they know even though these have long since stopped running regularly.

I talking of course about steam engines. SL in Japanese. Those glorious, vast, machines that hiss, squeak, and chug through a boy's dreams even though the last steam engine retired in 1975. Still, as in America where there are steam-ups, there are a number of SLs that make runs at various places in Japan, some quite long. And these, my friends, are what both boys are currently in love with, big time.

The train of the future...

A few days back, Jiji, Beloved's father, took all of us to the prefectural museum where they were celebrating railroading in the prefecture. The boys of course loved it, they liked seeing the model trains, they enjoyed the simulator, Makoto got to ride on a mock-up of the maglev train currently under construction, but the best part was... the SL. There's an engine outside of the museum and the boys flocked to it screaming "SL! SL! SL!" at the top of their respective lungs. This started the wheels in Jiji's head a-turning as Yamaguchi, where he lives, has a SL line that runs at various times of the year, summer being one of them. When Makoto was small, we took a ride from one end of the line to the other (Makoto spent the whole time pointing at the engine screaming "Percy! Percy! Percy!"), this time we would drive to the terminal station to take pictures of the train.

Or so I thought. Jiji's plans grew as we went along and we ended up with the boys, Jiji, and myself ridding the train (Hikaru spent the whole time pointing at the engine and screaming "Hiro! Hiro! Hiro!") back a few stations while Beloved and her mother drove the car back to meet us.

Admittedly, it's fun being on a steam train. The cars attached are not the modern coaches of the current JR fleet, but the old cars that ran before and after WWII, with some improvements like A/C. and of course the boys adored it. The sights, the sounds, the smells. Every tunnel we entered was first announced by a long blast on the whistle, much to the giggling approval of the boys.

But indeed they are Japanese boys because right now both boys are decked out in identical t-shirts with the stream engine they road on printed on it along with identical baseball caps with SL patches. They've gotten steamed.

Heck, even Daddy went back a bit into his boyhood and got a t-shirt of his own. Of course, this means Hikaru is currently following me around pointing at my chest and screaming "Hiro! Hiro! Hiro!"