Only a Blockhead

New Year Part 2: New Year's Day

When we finished ringing the temple bell, it was almost midnight. We jumped on bicycles and headed for nearby Samukawa. Bypassed by the main rail line, it has lost its importance as a town over the last 150 years, but Samukawa Shrine has kept its hold on the affections of the local population who flock to it at New Year from nearby larger towns.

It is a little past midnight and the shrine precincts are already crowded with people. Rather than join the throngs inching forward toward the main building to throw coins as a New Year offering and prayer, we go no further than the main gate where we admire the magnificent lantern decoration that features the animal of the year according to the 12-year cycle of the Chinese Zodiac. Here we buy a fortune for 100 yen. Mine is lucky, M's is very lucky. Each includes detailed predictions for health, business, love and other matters during the following year. The narrow paths of the shrine grounds are lined with food stalls offering noodles, pancakes, sweet corn, beer, sweet amazake. Generators whirr and under bright lights, vendors bark a welcome to the passing crowds. We buy buttered potatoes and cups of hot sake. After enjoying these on a quiet side street, we ride away again through the cold night.

Halfway home, we stop on a country road and climb a flight of steps. In the middle of a silent wood stands a small shrine building. It is deserted, but on this night only, the doors have been opened and the inside is illuminated. We approach, throw our coins into the offertory box, shake the thick rope that hangs down, ringing the bells to summon the gods, clap our hands and pray for the New Year. Then we return to the bicycles and ride home to bed.

        New Year, midnight:

        Moonlight shines on the forest shrine

        painting the roof with snow

--Julian

New Year Part 1

An account of New Year’s Eve from 2009

On New Year's Eve, after the last shopping and cleaning and preparations for the holiday have been made, we can relax. For evening dinner, we make the traditional bowl of soba noodles, and join most people in watching Kohaku, a festive and high-spirited annual music show on government-sponsored NHK TV. The evening-long spectacle is designed to appeal to all age groups, and the singers old and young perform elaborately staged hits of the previous year or new versions of old favorites.

In the last half hour of the year, as the Kohaku draws to an end, the bell of the small temple at the bottom of the road begins to sound. We wrap up and walk down to find a small group of neighbors taking it in turns to pull back the wooden pole suspended from the roof of the bell tower, letting the end swing and strike the side of the bell. One by one, we climb the half-dozen steps of the tower. Put hands together and bow. Pull back the poll and let it smack against the bell, releasing a deep boom that echoes across the countryside. Put hands together and bow again. This is done 108 times—a member of the temple family is keeping track on a palm-sized counter, encouraging people to take their turns, and rewarding each ringer with a small box of cookies. Every year it seems there aren’t quite enough people, and we are asked to circle back and ring the bell a second time.

Midnight nears, and people keep arriving, gathering round an oil drum with a fire inside that spits sparks high into the black night. There is a pan of warm amazake, a sweet, thick drink made from fermented pulp left over after making sake, and it is ladled into paper cups for everyone who wants some.

--Julian

New Year

Reposting to celebrate 10 years of this blog. This from 2010:

New Year’s morning:

Fields and gardens white with frost;

Blue sky and bright sunshine

 

New Year fills

the mailbox full of cards

from folks I didn't send one to

 

New Year: New beginning

but try telling that to the warming earth.

 

--Julian

Year ending

Cold. Water froze inside the house last night. Shady outdoor puddles never thawed all day, but the sky is clear and it's warm in the sun.

        Heavy frost: The refrigerator is keeping the orange juice warm.

Preparations for the New Year are underway. Some people finish work today and begin traveling to hometowns. They spent the last morning at work cleaning the office or storefront. Neighbors clip trees and sweep the road. Cars sparkle in driveways.

Here in Kanto, snow-covered Fuji stands above this busy activity, looking as it has done every year end for the past several hundred years.

--Julian

Six more days

Past posts to celebrate 10 years of Only a Blockhead

The sky is blue and the sun’s shining. I’m having lunch outside when a “tanuki” raccoon dog, the size of a large cat, long bodied, mangy, trots down the drive and disappears.

For the last week, the local farmers and householders have been hoeing, clipping, and generally tidying up. As the year draws to a close, the tempo increases. And the countryside is wreathed in fragrant wood smoke as neighbors who have pruned trees burn the cuttings before New Year.

 

    Furious pruning!

    Glorious bonfires!

    Six more days to New Year

 

--Julian

Solstice

Today, as we head toward [see previous post] the temporal "exit" of the year, the solstice coincides with a crescent moon, and the cold has rendered persimmons and maple leaves a memory. Otherwise the post below could stand for this or any year.  

As usual, the end-of-the-year weather is invigorating here in coastal Kanto: Blue sky and warm sun during the day and frost at night. The full moon rose at dusk for the winter solstice, the day when kabocha pumpkin is eaten and yellow yuzu citrus are floated in the bath. But the lunar eclipse the next night was hidden by cloud.

I'm busy writing New Year cards: the deadline for posting them this year is December 25 if they’re to be delivered on New Year’s morning. After that, there’s almost a week left for the massive chore of spring cleaning the house to be ready for the New Year.

Outside, the last persimmons hang orange on bare branches; the last maple leaves cling red to the tree.

--Julian 

The only constant

I probably should have seen it coming. Two New Years ago, the local cleaning store stopped giving a calendar to its customers. This week it closed its doors, victim of cut-price laundry factories and improved home washing and drying technology. I’d been going there for 30 years.

On the other hand, an independent bakery and patisserie recently opened in one end of what had been a video rental store (victim of the Tsutaya that opened down the hill; the other end is now a medical massage business). La Chenille makes what I can only describe as extreme croissant, baked with such skill that all other croissants, even from reputable chain bakeries, now taste to me like so much dry bread. I treat myself to a couple with coffee on Sunday mornings, and they are something I look forward to all week with an ardor that verges upon embarrassing.

The neighborhood gradually changes. It always has. The passing of the Yoshida’s Cleaning Store, with its efficient, friendly and personal service, brought unexpected tears to my eyes. Just down the road, an enterprising baker brings his art to our lives. Overall, in spite of sadness, I can’t be nostalgic for the good old days.

--Julian

La Chenille is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily except Wednesday. The croissants come out of the oven between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m.

The first sunrise

As tourist sites explain, "Years are traditionally viewed as completely separate, with each new year providing a fresh start." "January 1 is a very auspicious day, best started by viewing the new year's first sunrise (hatsu-hinode)." "Crowds gather on mountaintops or beaches with good views of the sunrise to pray for health and family wellbeing in the new year."

In the chill of the morning, from Shonan Chigasaki beach, with Enoshima island to the left, the first sunrise.

--David

January 1, 2017

Wishing a very happy New Year to all Blockheads and their readers, in this our 10th anniversary year.

--Julian

Happy New Year

--Julian