>>> Item number 16145 from WRITERS LOG9308C --- (126 records) ---- <<< Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 18:00:04 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: BACKGROUND: Japan in August Just a collection of bits and pieces which a writer might use to indicate August in Japan. O-bon (Festival of the Lantern) - This is the main festival during August, and is one of the main ones for the year. A three day festival whose date is somehow determined by lunar months (i.e., it moves around, but is always in August). The first day, the spirits of ancestors return, the second day is a joint party (there is some vague myth about lighting fires in front of the door of your house and jumping over it, but no one seems sure of the details), and the third day the spirits return to where-ever they spend the rest of their time. Many people take a summer vacation at this time, and customarily would return to their hometown (Furosato). Most companies allow employees five days vacation for this (many businesses are closed this week, and Japan is on vacation). Bon-odori - the folk dancing which many participate in during O-bon. This is likely to be one of the "images" in tourist guides, the dancing parades and circles are quite picturesque, and fun (although some of the professionals and dedicated dance for hours and hours.. that's not fun, that's exhaustion!). Lanterns - paper lanterns with candles inside (like the Southwestern luminari (sp?) - paper bags with candles) are put on gravestones in cemeteries, little boats floated down rivers, and many other places. Yukata - cotton "kimono". Like a very light bathrobe. Extremely well-suited to the hot, damp weather. Great for sitting after a hot bath, drinking cold saki and watching the evening sights, strolling to a summer festival (natsu matsuri), or just relaxing. Natsu Matsuri (Summer Festivals) - almost anywhere and everywhere, ranging from massive civic events to a few neighbors gathering in a street or yard. At the street fests, in particular, you are likely to see young people in yukata, blind-folded swinging a bokuto (wooden sword) to try to crack one of the local round watermelons set on the ground. Bystanders and friends eagerly wait to grab and eat a piece, once someone manages to crack it. A little like Mexican pinata's. [Incidentally, an interesting linguistic note - the word used here for politics is matsuri-goto, and originally referred to those who arranged festivals. It sure would be nice if we could convince politicians that their first priority is arranging festivals - might keep them out of trouble...] Cicada song - these big-bodied heralds of summer are everywhere, buzzing loudly, the drone rising here, settling there, fading to nothing, then crashing out like rolling thunder again. Children catch them with nets and hands, carrying around plastic (once bamboo) cages filled with singing pets. Lightning Bugs (Hotaru) - every older person will tell you that there just aren't as many (or as bright, or as wonderful) hotaru around now as when they were children, but sometimes, especially after a late evening country matsuri, you may still see them. While they look like the same ones I used to catch in America, they seem to light up for much longer periods than I remember. They draw long, swooping lines in the air over rice fields or country yards, reminding people here of some kind of magical brush pen sketching mystic kanji (Japanese characters) against the night. Typhoons, steamy sweat, and icy air conditioning - these go together for me, the uncertain weather brought on by erraticly zig-zagging typhoons set in the matrix of hot, damp weather. Rooms, restaurants and coffee shops, trains, and offices bring shivers with air conditioning turned too high in reaction. Ghosts, walking corpses, monsters - with the spirits walking the earth, comes a whole company of child-like wonder and fear. "Haunted house" shows spring up, and no T.V. show is complete without some hint of the supernatural. Japanese women (perhaps a few men, too) shiver, cover their eyes, and scream, enjoying the thrills of terror and horror. One of the fun arguments for foreigners to try at this time is whether American horror or Japanese horror is scarier - most seem to agree that American horror isn't nearly as scary as the tried-and-true haunts and goblins that they've grown up with, although American horror has more variety. (The most scary seems to be a corpse, in traditional burial clothes, moving and talking, with its companion floating flame/lights. Hair straggling, eyes white, often blood trickling - I'm not sure why this figure is so horrific, but it certainly can send grown men and women into hysterics at this time of year.) Zaru soba, reimen, hiyashi chuka, somen - cold noodles (often served with ice), with dashi (soup stock) and maybe some cold sliced condiments (ham, cucumber, egg, etc.) provide a cool, refreshingly light meal in the summer heat. While some people will say this is too little, and sort of a common person's snack, I consider it one of the delights of Japanese cooking. Don't be surprised at the smacking, sucking slurp as Japanese people enjoy their summer treat - it is good manners here to work your way down the noodles, instead of cutting or biting them. Hiroshima and Nagasaki - August also is the month of remembrance for these two cities. This year (1993) someone managed to turn up a whole set of films (military and civilian) that were taken immediately after the war and had never been seen. The memorials there, with many-colored ribbons and chains of origami cranes, alternate eerily with the black and white records of those early years, when the world was just beginning to realize that war had become too expensive a game to play without rules anymore. Hozuki - take a flame orange "fruit" - a thin-skinned thing I would have called a "Japanese Lantern" fruit, but the dictionary says is a ground cherry(?). Open the outer skin, and there is a little, leathery-skinned fruit around the seed in the middle. Peel that "pouch" carefully off the seed, without tearing it. Now (please don't ask me why, I can't explain it) put that little pouch in your mouth, and make squishy wet skweeks with it and your tongue.. blow it up, then squeak the air out.. for hours and hours of "old Japanese fun." Hozuki are a popular decoration during this season, and as far as I know used for nothing else besides decoration and this rather strange amusement of .. of mouth-squeaking? Well, at least they are pretty. All together, although it is hot and sweaty, August in Japan is one of those months when the "salary man" puts aside his drab drudging and remembers the rhythms and simple pleasures of the farming country that grew into modern Japan. I suppose in a way this is one of the months when Japan remembers it is Japan, with a style and life rooted in centuries of practice here. tink