Today is Thanksgiving. Therefore, tonight's conversation with some students in Kanayama started on the premise of the holiday season. In fact, yesterday was the Japanese Labor Thanksgiving Day. I asked the women, what exactly does this mean? Is it like the American Labor Day where we give thanks for all the hard work people do? Or in Japan does it mean say to your boss "thank you please give me more work"? They said they don't know, they both had to work, so its not a real holiday anyway. OK. On to holiday number two.
So we talk about how Christmas is celebrated in Japan. The women inform me that it is primarily a time for boyfriends and girlfriends to get together, fill up the hotels in town (one of the women is a hotel reservationist, she says the phone lines have already started heating up), and exchange small gifts.
We got to talking about what Christmas means in the States. So I put forth that it has connotations of warmth, kindness and charity. Hmm.. what's charity? Like, charity drives. You know, giving stuff to people without thinking theyz gonna hand you somethin back. Like giving blankets to the homeless, or food drives. I put myself out on a limb and asked if they knew of anything in Japan like a charity drive (cuz as far as I've seen there isn't). One woman said she once saw a person giving out free food by the train station. I told her about Food Not Bombs in America, and Soup Kitchens. But she said she doesn't know about anything like those organizations. She did say she has heard that the government has set up a single shelter in the city of Nagoya (population 2million plus, the 4th largest city in Japan).
Finally she remembered a story in the news about a homeless man who lived under a blue tarp in the park. Well, he died. And when the police went to take care his mess, they found that he had stashes of money in his tarp. He was really rich, she said. I asked if she believed the story. She said yes, because she heard it from a friend. The women both came to the conclusion that Japan's only homeless demographic is the old man. The most likely reason for his homelessness is that he is tired of his job, his family, his life (or the rat race, a new vocabulary word for tonight), and has decided to drop out of society.
I don't know if I can believe this, but it is true that I have only ever seen old men sleeping on the streets and never women or children. I have also never seen anyone panhandling, or asking for money on the street. I'm not sure if it is illegal, or why it doesn't happen.
And, with 10 more minutes of conversation time left, we discussed New Year's in Japan. Traditionally, a large bell at any number of temples is ran 108 times, which symbolize "108 desires." This didn't get much more clarified within the remaining minutes, but they did mention a traditional meal that the Japanese eat with family... its called osechi.... there are many different kinds of foods that each symbolize a different kind of good luck. For example, black beans are health, salmon roe is fertility, and kale is happiness. You can eat as much as you want of any of it, which should make for a great new year.