New Years

New Years was very special.

I went to my Japanese friend's, Ayaka (who studied abroad at Ursinus for the whole year), house and spent New Years holiday with her and her family. Japanese New Years are similar to an American Christmas- it is a family holiday, while the Japanese Christmas is akin to the American New Years- it is a friend/couple's holiday, so I was super excited and honored to spend New Years with her!

There is a show that is played every New Years, and basically it is a group of comedians and they are put through situations that are very silly.... and if they laugh, they get hit on the butt with a foam stick. The name is ダウンタウンのガキの使いやあらへんで!! in Japanese (Downtown's 'This is no task for kids!!' in English, Downtown is a comedian group's name and they are the hosts of the show) I really don't know HOW this started, but it was very funny. This year the theme was that this group of comedians were training to become secret agents. We watched this show until 11:20pm and then we head out to the Shrine.      

[This video is from a few years ago, but you get the idea- Everyone in this video, except for the extras just sitting at the desks, is a comedian trying to get the participants to laugh]

We went to a local shrine (one of 2 in her town) and on the way Ayaka told me of her town's New Years festival, basically it is translated as "naked festival"! But, that is not true what really happens is a group of young men wear traditional underwear, (fundoshi) which comes up to their waist, and run around the town carrying a portable shrine on their shoulders! I am not 100% sure why they do this, but I admire their strength! Akita is pretty chilly at night, not to mention they are practically naked, so I am sure a lot of them are home sick with the cold now.
 However we ended up going to another shrine where Ayaka's mom was working as a shrine maiden, and there we bought good luck charms for the new year. We also asked for blessing from the Gods and then visited the nearby smaller shrines, lighting candles as offering. I also tried some special New Years sake, it was very salty, but a new experience.

The first of January is another family day, and Ayaka's family (with me in tow) went to her Grandparent's house for dinner after we lazed around the house and Ayaka took me on a walking tour of her town. It was super yummy and although her aunt, uncle, and cousins were a little surprised to see a white person in the house, they were all nice. I could not understand the grandparents very much because they spoke in the Akita dialect that I just could not understand, luckily Ayaka helped translate it into normal Japanese for me. The entire family was super sweet, the grandparents were just so cute! I wanted to hug them, but I shook the grandfathers hand and bowed many times to the grandmother and thanked them both many many times.

Today I came back to my empty dorm, and it is a little lonely, but I am happy to have a couple hours where I am not translating and thinking in Japanese all the time!