Holiday Reflections from Chiba, Japan

It is the day after Christmas. In Japan, feels like it could be any day in the holiday season. Christmas could have come to pass without me even knowing it. Granted, I was able to spend Christmas Eve with some of my best friends ever from the U.S., but the only thing that made it feel even the least bit like Christmas was the one foot tall tree at the base of the fridge. The phone call I just received from my home in America however, was enough to warm my heart for the remainder of this sake-filled, jubilant yet no one knows quite why time of the year. Just imagining the warm, enjoyable Christmas my Mother, siblings and Grandparents had as we talked and laughed together will be an infinitely cherished present until I return to my home in another 8 months.

In Japan, the roles of the major year-end holidays and starkly reversed in comparison with the United States. Christmas Eve is American New Years: an important couple’s night, lots of drinking and partying, and the ever-celebrated late-night kiss. Conversely, New Year’s Eve and Day in Japan are strictly family holidays consisting of lackluster time spent around a kotatsu,(greatest Japanese invention ever: electric heated table blanketed for ultimate winter comfort during meal and relaxation time) drinking sake, and eating myriad traditional okashi, snacks and other goods. Also, on oshogatsu, New Year’s Day, an entire family will energetically cooperate in the annual osouji, lit. “A big clean!” This has most likely been practiced for centuries in Japan; in ridding the house of dirt, dust and other unwanted elements, ill feelings also are swept out to cleanse one’s mind and spirit for the New Year. I think it’s a stellar traditional and will most likely be cleaning my humble mansion, the way Japanese refer to a regular apartment, with all the zeal I can muster on that day.

Any student of Japanese or Asian studies will be quick to admit that Asia and the West are starkly different in many respects. The holiday season, while undoubtedly an important time of the year for both hemispheres, is another simple aspect in which the cultural and social differences prevalent here come to light. For Christians in the West, Christmas is the day to celebrate Christ’s birth. Spending that day with family and the exchange of presents is certainly the Christian’s way of expressing their love not only for Jesus Christ but also towards each other. Christmas is most likely considered the most important holiday of the year by Americans, Christian or supposed-Christian or what-have-you.

In contrast, the birth of a new year in Asia has superceded any other annual holidays to become the most important day of the calendar year. As in the West, religion plays an important role during the holiday season, and visits to Buddhist and Shinto shrines are also an important part of New Year festivities. Being in Japan, thousands of miles away from my family, and spending a quite atypical Christmas (despite being amongst great friends) has only further forced me to consider the East and West in contrast to each other. It seems like that’s what’s been drilled into my head ever since I began my study of Japan and Asia, and sometimes the differences, no matter how critical, are just not what you want to think about. It’s simple to look past them, to just enjoy life as an exchange student in a beautiful and poignant nation like Japan. However, ultimately as an American, to find my place in the world—which will be fully conscious of Asia—requires a constant reevaluation of culture and language and society in general. More often than not, such a reevaluation leads to a cascade into a deeper realm of human, forlorn, and therefore painful thought; it is not rare that I feel spite or even hatred towards any simple-minded individual who cannot grasp the vastness of the world and the eternal obligation of mankind that is knowledge and enlightenment. Yet, as I sit in my room in Chiba prefecture, not even an hour from the great city of Tokyo that rampantly pervaded my thoughts while in America, that old feeling of strife and disillusionment and hatred towards non-intellectuals seems to have dimmed to but a flicker. Maybe it is the general cheery air of the holidays, or the fact that I just spoke with the most important people in the world to me—my mother and my grandparents—on the telephone. The latter rings true. Despite the fact that my Grandpa is quite possibly the most intelligent man I know, I don’t believe his knowledge of Japanese culture extends far beyond that of most Americans. “Does that mean I hold spite against him?” my self at one point may have asked. Absolutely not. In accordance, is it fair to express an equal level of hatred towards the general public who is perhaps ignorant concerning the way of the intellectual and those striving for humanist existence? In the direct fashion of the true humanists: again absolutely not. Then why does a feeling of such repulsion and resentment remain in me to this day? I am found asking myself even now. I must accept my duty as one striving for humanist, peaceful existence and not hate my fellow man. That is what one should think. But now matter how often one ignores such trespasses against humanity itself, specifically ignorance concerning the intrinsic value of world culture, a lack and even utter refusal of the principles of international communication, and at the worst, racism in the form of slander, racist jokes, and stereotyping, such grievances will never cease to plague the world we live in. This is the struggle of the humanist, the intellectual, and those who have access to core consciousness.

The most remarkable thing striking me just now is how closely these ideals parallel those of Christianity. Having been brought up under a newer domination of Christianity, the Free Evangelical sect, such a realization was hidden from my eyes. All I knew was that I despised these so-called Christians, people who claimed these similar humanist ideals, yet the only thing they could seem to do about it was to come to church twice a week and throw money in the pot when it came around. In reality, these are selfish Christians, people who are there because they don’t really have any other ambition in life and certainly no conception of intellectuality. They are there so that they can feel like they are doings something, anything right. It’s a self-confidence boost, as simple as a slap on the back or a note from your teacher. “No no, you belong here. Take a deep breath, and just don’t worry. You’re gonna do fine.” Such phrases echoed through my own head during my years as a “Christian” at that Evangelical Free church. I knew I didn’t take any of what I was being literally forced to listen to by my parents with more than a single grain of salt, yet consistently I could be found reassuring myself in my thoughts of my own salvation. I knew nothing of my own agenda, yet I was positive that God had chosen me for “everlasting life,” as it is so pleasantly stated. That’s what it comes down to: good, honest people simply floating along in life, not doing anything special with their lives or even fully exercising the intellect that God has given them, constantly reassuring themselves that it’s all gonna be okay, as long as I have the church here to support me, other people like me who are all going to end up in heaven.

Here is where the humanist and intellectual ideals compound upon my upbringing as a typical Christian. I still feel to this day that Jesus Christ does exist, and that Christianity is the true religion. Yet for me, to float through life without even paying a minute of attention to the vast world of civilization and the myriad cultures, religions and ideas it supports would be tantamount to a negation of any significant existence as a human or one of “God’s creatures."

As Christians believe, God has bestowed gifts upon his people. The foremost of these is language, whether in written, spoken, or symbolic form. Language allows humans to express themselves, not only to each other but ideally to their god as well. Also, language has been utilized for centuries as a mode of expression for the intellectual, and even the Bible, the holy scriptures of the Christian religion, is a prime example of the pertinence of language. Invariably, reading is the method used to attain knowledge. Given this, knowledge, unquestionably another gift upon mankind, garners high relevance for the importance of reading as a conventional activity of human beings. It is a difficult thought to word accurately, but what I truly mean is that without reading and literature and language, life as we know it ceases to exist, therefore it should be treated more preciously, much more than it is in this internet and TV and mass media washed-out society. I impel the responsibility of reading and striving towards knowledge with the same passion and immediacy as Christ proclaimed, “We will make fishers of men.” They are equally important to any Christian living in Christ’s image and in thanksgiving and respect of the gifts God has bestowed upon mankind.