Here in Japan we are well into the first day of 2012. We are starting this new year off in an extremely lazy manner, seeming as we didn't get back home last night (this morning?) until 2:30am.
And you might say "What? 2:30am you say? You wild and crazy party animals!" Well, while the "wild" and "crazy" parts are absolutely true, the "Party animals" part is an exaggeration.
New Years in Japan is a time fraught with tradition and symbolism. Special foods are prepared, each food symbolic of goodness for the upcoming new year. And Special places are traveled to, namely Buddhist temples on New Year's Eve, followed by trips to Shinto shrines on New Year's Day.
Last night we went to Choin-in Temple in the Gion neighborhood of Kyoto. The Choin-in temple is the head temple for the Jodo sect of Japanese Buddhism. The temple was first built in 1234. In 1633 many buildings in the temple complex burned down, and were subsequently rebuilt, and are still standing today.
The bell at Chion-in Temple is the largest in Japan, weighing 74 tons. On New Year's Eve 17 monks work in unison, chanting and pulling on ropes tied to a massive wooden striker to ring the bell 108 times-- 108 symbolizing the 108 human sins (in Buddhist belief), one ring of the bell for each of the sins.
Bob and I (and the kids) have attended previous New Year's Eve bell ringings in Japan before. When it was just Bob and I (pre twerps), we went to Osu Kannon Temple in our neighborhood in Nagoya, where mere hundreds of people crowded at the freezing midnight hour to watch the ringing of the bell. When we returned to Nagoya in 2005, we went to a much smaller bell ringing in Gakuden, where barely 100 people gathered to ring the bell at the small neighborhood temple. After attending the bell ringing in Gakuden, we stumbled upon a gathering of Gakuden locals who had built a massive bonfire. Although they were a bit surprised to have four foreigners stumble out of the trees into their midst, it only took them a few seconds to offer Bob and I sake, and to offer Patrick and Aya rice crackers.
Let me tell you now, our previous bell ringing experiences in Japan were NOTHING compared to going to a bell ringing in Kyoto.
Thousands...THOUSANDS of people filled the extensive temple grounds to overflowing. As the time crept closer to midnight, they formed a line four or five people wide that was at least 2 miles long, all waiting to climb the steps to the top of the mountain upon which sat the bell. Volunteer guards and city police officers, wearing vests festooned in blinking red lights very efficiently kept the lines in order and did their best to prevent the inevitable line jumping (especially tempting once we all saw just how massive the line was).
Sadly, there were just too many people to allow everyone to stand and watch the bell being rung the full 108 times. We were ushered to the base of the bell in a long, wide line. The bell was at least 10 feet tall, and sheltered in a wooden, open sided pagoda structure. Hanging from one massive beam was a polished log striker, suspended by thick ropes. On the sides of the striker there were hooks drilled in on each side, with more ropes attached to the hooks. At the end of each of the 17 ropes was a Buddhist monk. One monk standing to the side shouted out a chant. The 17 holding the ropes would echo him in answer, heave the striker back four or five times to gain momentum, and then let the striker hit the bell, resulting in a deep tone that resonated from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet.
After we got to watch 2 or 3 tollings of the bell, we were ushered back down the mountain to allow others to take our places.
Back at the base of the mountain, we came upon the ever-present food stalls--a fixture at any celebration. And while I did not see any stalls with my personal winter favorite (huge, hot buttered potatoes), there was a lovely assortment of foods: hot dogs on sticks, cotton candy, takoyaki, chicken karage, okonomiyaki, mitarashi dango, huge hamburgers, yakisoba, udon, ramen, oden, ice cream, a stall selling kebab and another selling Indian curry and samosas. Beer and various kinds of hot sake were in plentiful supply of course. But there at the temple people sipped these more to stay warm than to get tipsy.
We all selected some goodies: I got the Indian curry and samosas (which Bob generously offered to help me consume). Patrick opted for chicken karage. Aya, in a mystifying choice considering the freezing temperatures, wanted ice cream. And Bob got a cup of special hot sweet New Year sake, in which was mixed a spoon of fine grated ginger. We sat atop some huge stones, eating and watching as people surged past us. A wonderful mixture of people passed by--mostly Japanese, of course, but also plenty of foreigners--our ears detected German, French, English and Spanish, to name a just few of the languages that we could detect out of the cacophony.
And then we began the trek down the hill, towards the main street. The Gion district of Kyoto is most often associated with "geiko"(what most people would refer to as "Geisha"). There is the historic heart of this district, with preserved tea houses and traditional stores, and then the surrounding neighborhood, replete with I would guess hundreds of restaurants and bars, some smaller than our living room. We waited for about half an hour at the nearest bus stop for a bus to appear. However there were so many people surging across the streets that it soon became clear that no bus could possibly make it through that mass of humanity.
So we began walking towards the nearest subway station on our line, Shijo station. The good thing about this is that it gave us all an opportunity to join in with all the other happy New Years revelers and to get to know more of the city. The bad thing about this is that getting to Shijo Station from Choin-in Temple involved a 35 to 40 minute walk in weather that was quickly getting colder.
By the time we reached the subway station Patrick was complaining that his toes were completely numb and Aya had stopped talking to us altogether. We made it down to the trains and once inside the train car collapsed upon the heated seats, taking the opportunity to defrost a bit before the 20 minute walk home.
....And now it is New Year's Day. In a little while I'll be making Ozoni. This is a traditional Japanese New Year's soup. I usually make ozoni using miso soup as the base. In it I add carrots, potato and chicken. And then I grill a rice cake called "mochi" and pour the soup on top of it. The result is a lovely, filling soup, just what is needed on a cold New Year's night.
And so, with the last tolls of the bell still echoing in our ears and promises for chewy mochi to come, I wish you all a wonderful beginning to 2012.
Until next time....
No comments:
Post a Comment