Ringing in the New Year

For New Years, my beloved and I went to our neighborhood shrine. We could have hung out and celebrated with other foreigners, as our daughter chose to do, but we live here and wanted to do what the local people do. We walked down there at around 2330. When we got there, the line was already pretty long. There are four bell pulls at our shrine, so the line was four abreast. Conveniently the two people in our row spoke English and were able to explain what we needed to do when our turn came. People waited quietly and the midnight hour came without much fanfare. Then, the line began to move as people made their New Year’s wishes at the shrine. We arrived at the front of the line. First, you pitch your offering into the box. Then, you ring the bell, to get attention. You clap twice, bow, make your wish, bow and move on. I wished for the prosperity of the neighborhood; it is their shrine after all, and I believe my loved one did the same. After that we received a small portion of special sake for good luck served by shrine staff and local ladies. We had hot sweet sake, too; it was thick and very, very sweet. I didn’t much care for it. We went in search of mochi, which is also supposed to bring good luck, if you don’t choke on it. The really nice thing about the whole evening was that I didn’t feel out of place there. Very often in Japan, I feel very foreign and am treated that way. But, everyone was so friendly there at the shrine. It was as if it was totally normal that these foreigners were there, in this holy place, on this special day. Sometimes, when I walk by our shrine (and I do think of it as “our” shrine – it is in our neighborhood), I am tempted to stop in again, make an offering, ring the bell, clap, bow and make a request, but I don’t want to wear out my welcome.

If you are wondering how I reconcile this with my own religion, I look at it this way, when I pray, I pray to only one god, it doesn’t really matter where I am when I do it. And, that ground is sacred to these people, why can’t I pray for them on their special ground?

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers – Oscar Wilde