obon

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song by misora hibari

the last big festival of the summer in japan is jizo-bon, obon for children. jizo are stone buddha statues that are said to protect children. they’re mostly very old, with the faces partly worn away. you can see them all over japan, often just sitting by the side of the road, in little altars. it’s said that in kyoto alone there are more than five thousand jizo statues. you don’t need to go to temples to see them, you see them everywhere. they’re part of our daily life.

during jizo-bon, jizo statues are washed and decorated with red bibs and red hats. we serve meals to thank them for protecting children. jizo-bon is traditionally held for two days (aug 23- 24). everyone gathers in a community hall to prepare for it. i would get to wear my yukata (summer kimono). kids receive a lantern with their name on and also halloween-style snack packs. there are games and entertainment and “bon-odori” dancing.

bon-odori is a group dance. everyone does the same dance, moving in a circle around a float where taiko (japanese drum) is played. we don’t take any formal lessons but everybody knows the dance — you learn by watching the person in front of you. i like this type of group dancing. everybody moves the same way and goes around and around and around.

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the singer, misora hibari was the most famous and most important singer in japan. she started performing as a singer at the age of 7. she became very popular around the end of the war, when japan was still in the middle of reconstruction. her pure voice gave hope to many japanese. she was the queen of enka. she became very ill when she was 50. despite the overwhelming pain, she returned to the stage (tokyo dome) two years later and sang 39 songs. it was aired live on tv. i ran home from school to watch her. she was very strong. her voice was beautiful. her strong love to sing permeated through the screen. she never showed any sign of pain on her face. she assured the audience there was no need to worry. but it was obvious that she was still very ill. at the same time, she was so alive. she died the next year.

my mom has a misora hibari collection, which includes all her songs on 3 CDs. i borrowed them one time and kept them for so long that my mom had to call and ask me to return them :D i love misora hibari’s style very much, especially her oldest songs. my mom happily wonders why i like enka so much, since many young people don’t listen to enka. well, i don’t know. i just like enka. so does paul.

(click the images to view close up — slideshow)

obon has begun! obon is a buddhist festival held august 13-15, when our ancestors come back to visit us from the afterlife. obon is said to have begun in 606AD as a practice in the imperial court. it is only during the edo period that it spread through the rest of japanese society. during obon, everyone travels back to their family’s home to welcome their ancestors and to return their kindnesses. the night of the thirteenth, we light lanterns in front of the family altar or the gate to the house so that our ancestors won’t have trouble finding us.

we set up an additional table in front of the altar to offer food. the food offering varies from region to region. usually we offer seasonal flowers, vegetables, fruits and the ancestors’ favorite foods. but every family’s offering must include an eggplant and a cucumber. we make them into little animals, by inserting little wooden sticks for legs. the eggplant becomes a cow, and the cucumber becomes a horse. the idea is that our ancestors will ride the horse on their way to come see us and the cow when they go back home. so they come to see us as fast as they can and leave as slow as they can.

i was looking for italian eggplants that are similar in size to japanese ones (thin and short), but i couldn’t find any. so i bought chinese eggplants instead. so my cow is very fit and has 8 legs. petit cucumbers were available at superstore. so my horse looks damn cute.

of course, now we’re living in the 21st century. which means we are living in the future. i don’t think our cutting-edge ancestors will be happy just riding horses and cows. so i made a UFO out of a red onion to accomodate our future ancestors from space.

obon is a time for families to get together and have fun. we thank our ancestors for giving us our lives and the world today. we serve the same meals we eat as if we all eat together.

when i was little, i remember my grandma being very happy because my grandpa would come see us and hang out for a while. he died in his sixties (before my older brother was born), and my grandma never remarried. she would say, “i’m happy because he’s here with us.” she would talk to the buddhist tablet as if it were him about how well our family was doing and ask him to protect us. she was happy, so i was happy. i couldn’t see him but i knew he was there with us.

now my grandma has passed away. i’m happy that she will come see me and paul. i hope she can find us in canada. my obon dana (shelf) is missing a lot of buddhist items, but i don’t think she’d mind as long as we are all together.