I should say that Doug came up with that title.
so, this is a post about religion. Given the nature of the topic, I am most likely going to offend *someone* by what I say or what I don’t say or what I did or what have you. As everyone knows, politics and religion are topics best avoided in polite conversation unless you know everyone at the table agrees with you! Or you have such a relationship that can handle an interesting discussion every once and a while.
So that is my disclaimer. if this topic offends you then STOP READING right now, for your own good.
Onto the meat.
so yesterday in Japan Shichigosan holiday in Japan. This is a festival that celebrates Coming of Age for 3, 5 and 7 year olds. Last year I realised that my girls would fall perfectly on such dates for this year and thought it would be fun to do the traditional “stuff” that goes along with it. I will only have small children once right? Here is a link on Wiki to a brief description : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shichigosan
Kiera’s yochien offered to do a blessing instead at her school (it happens to be a Christian school), as they discourage their students from going to shrines for this occasion. I thought that would be a perfect compromise for our family, Kiera could still dress up in the traditional Kimono, but we wouldn’t be visiting a shrine to be blessed or what have you. I am not very familiar with the tenants, or lack thereof of Shintoism, but I am pretty sure it doesn’t line up with my frankly, pretty traditional Christian beliefs.
Anyway, we went to church that morning and the night before had stumbled upon a woman who is actually one of the few foreign women to be certified in how to properly wear a Kimono. yes, there are classes you must take and certification to be able to offer such a service. for 7 year olds, its the first year they wear a kimono with OBI ( a very elaborate bow on the back of the dress) and its quite complicated to even tie it. Sheila (the woman who is a certified dresser as well as designer of fabrics for kimono) had us drop by her house on Saturday evening to chose one for Kiera and discuss our plan of action. we were allowed to just rent the kimono, but after considering all my options, of just how complicated it was to do it, I decided to hire Sheila for the job. She loaned us a beautiful antique red kimono, from the 1930’s. It has a crane, which signifies long life. it was pretty cool. She was dressed as a 3 year old, because girls are technically 3 and 7, and boys are 5. but we broke the rules a bit.
we had borrowed another kimono from our friend, which was a dark navy and we could tell not as expensive or well made, but since it was Kiera’s “big day”, it wasn’t a big deal.
So after the service at church Sheila dressed Kiera, we had neglected to bring her Japanese sandals, so she wore her western shoes until we got home. We took the train in an effort to beat Doug home who was driving. that didn’t work. we got to the ceremony with no minutes to spare, and found only Kiera and Kalista dressed in the traditional attire. apparently this stressed Kiera out to find none of her classmates and the only one in Kimono was herself.
The “ceremony” was only 40 minutes and all conducted in Japanese of course, which left me out in the cold, though the director was nice enough to translate for me as the minister spoke. He talked about how God sees a sparrow fall to the ground and cares even for the least of these, and how much more important children are to Him. I have always appreciated Christianity’s teaching on children, though I do think that it took a while for Christianity to embrace the idea that children are their own people (a book recommendation on this is “When Children Became People”). I am not sure if the celebration of Shintoism has more to do with “you survived until 3! lets party!” or what. boys have been known to be more vulnerable to disease, etc, so maybe that is why the age is 5 instead. entirely speculation on my part.
As you can see from the photos, the session at the end did not end well as Kiera was internally freaking out from all of the attention she was getting standing in front of a large crowd.
For their gift, the children received a bulb for a plant that should bloom around Easter, now if only i have somewhere to plant it! I will try and figure something out.
After the service was over, Doug mentioned to the principal that we would like to take some photos at a shrine, seeing as the girls were in their “get up” and it seemed like a cool thing to do. The principal whispered conspiratorially the known address of the closest shrine to our location. We found it with some help from GPS and from a convenience store worker who pointed us in the right direction.
In Japan its common to say that one is Shinto and Buddhist and these are not seen to be at odds with one another. Since our experience yesterday I have done further reading and it seems as though Shintoism is for “life” experiences, such as coming of age things and Buddhism is used for after death things, such as burials and ancestor worship. here is a link to read about Shintoism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto
We arrived at the Shrine only to find it open, which was highly unusual as Doug nor his brother nor his brothers wife who have lived in Japan for a long time, had ever seen it actually opened. I suppose that is in no small part due to that fact that they are missionary kids and for some reason going to a shrine on a celebratory holiday was probably not HIGH on the list of things to do while growing up in Japan. We went inside, shoes removed of course, to find a couple of older Japanese women, as well as a younger one (who we are only GUESSING is a priestess, though we cannot confirm), as she performed the ritual.
Yes, my children were accidentally blessed by a Shinto priestess. ( I am hearing the collective gasp of horror from some of my readers, and the scoffing of such gasps from some other readers, which is why I included a disclaimer at the beginning of the post).
When I got in the door with Kalista I was immediately accosted as the re-did Kalista’s kimono. I had to do that one myself, which was not very hard, but I had to “shrink” it to fit her height and I PUT IT ON THE WRONG WAY. how, you ask? well, I put it on the way you put it on a DEAD person. seriously.
what a dumb gijin I am.
After Kalista had been PROPERLY dressed, we all sat down for the ceremony. I of course, had no idea what was being said, but I quickly began to piece together that they were in fact doing a blessing for Kiera and Kalista. Doug said the words were something like “a long life, full of health, a year of good fortune” etc etc. He said it sounded extremely similar to the prayer said at the Japanese church we had been to an hour earlier. and then she pulled out this broom type thingy and did this thing over their heads.
it was pretty short, and we started filing out and as we did so, they handed Kiera and Kalista a notebook. and I saw this nice little envelope sitting there, which even in my dumb gijin state, I knew was ear marked for $$$. I said to Doug, “they want money right?” and they did, they wanted 5000 yen to be precise, that was the “suggested donation” or not to suggested. Doug used the dumb gijin card, which was ACTUALLY TRUE in this case. The Japanese tend to think we are kind of dumb about things, which works in our favour about a lot of things, and is most useful when we don’t do things exactly they way they are to be done. Like wrapping little girls dead style kimonos for example. but in this case, we truly DIDN’T know that there would be a charge, or that there would even be a ceremony. we just went to TAKE PICTURES.
So I left Doug to deal with the irritated lady while I started to walk back to the car. He came out shortly after and told me he was let off THIS TIME, but we are suppose to bring her back for her 7th bday and pay FULL PRICE at that time. phew. close call.
After that we headed over to the Buddhist temple and took some pictures in the lovely gardens where a lady started to give us dirty looks for who knows what reason. we truly don’t know, we were never approached but left shortly there after.
So that is the story. In one day our children managed to be blessed in two Christian churches in the morning, a shinto shrine in the afternoon and a stroll through a Buddhist temple…..
tea anyone?
