Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Golden Week


This is the week to stay away from Japan. It's called "Golden Week", It's almost two weeks long and three of their major holidays fall during this period.Very few Japanese people are working , everyone is outside playing baseball. Parks are lousy with six year olds pitching to their fathers. If Matsuzaka can do it...
The majority of Japanese people are not religious, so there are no real religious holidays that I am aware of. They are however, highly superstitious and every move they make has a superstition attatched to it. I recently went to a Temple where you had to breathe your problems into a piece of clay and then dash it on a rock to try to break it. Easier said than done; it's a good thing I had a hard time coming up with a problem.
One of this week's holdiays is "boys day", I think boys fly kites while their parents drink sake on that day. Another day is sumo- baby-cry day, you take your under one year old baby to a shrine where sumo wrestlers try to scare it, it's reaction tells the gods something who then try to protect it for the rest of it's life.

4 comments:

Charlie Drago said...

Okay fellas, even though they're squirming, remember to chew them real fast or they'll cling to the roofs of your mouths.

Kathleen said...

I am happy to know you remember what you read.

Ed Weis said...

Let's see.... you have no place to cook.... you don't know what kind of foodstuffs you are buying....except that you can differentiate some by what kind of tentacles they have !!!....and..you live near a village that smells like fish... and you want me to come visit you !! Your next career should be as a travel agent.

Your pictures are really neat though. I know that Japan can be a beautiful country. You mentioned that the women dress like ours did
in the 50's. From what I've read they are also just beginning to change some of the chauvinistic attitudes that have long prevailed,
much like the women here began changing things in the 50's.

Guests are arriving for Derby so I have to go.

Love , Ed

Anonymous said...

Hi, Kathleen! I love this blog! Great idea -

I'm just back from the Netherlands, and they have a week with three holidays in it too. April 30 is Queen's Day, and the whole country gets the day off, with orange the pre-eminent color. We went dancing the night before in the huge "square" of a medieval town. Then May 4 is Remembrance Day for those lost in WWII, and May 5 is Liberation Day, same war. So the school children get the whole week off, like we do at Easter. Sara