January and February usually tend to be a bit of a deadzone in regards to the rest of the year, especially after all the festive cheer. This was still true for me in Japan despite the lack of Christmas, particularly in the couple of weeks immediately following all my crazy Christmas travelling. Though despite this, I am on the other side of the world in Japan, so it`s pretty impossible for life to fall into the January blues for anything more than a few days.
On my first day back at school after travelling, I was immediately roped into walking something called the Melody Line Walk. This sounds all very pleasant and nothing more than a walk in the park.
However, names are deceiving. The Melody Line is in fact a 40km walk that all the 2nd year junior high students have to do every year as a coming of age rite. I had heard about this once before and shuddered in horror at the thought of the poor students who would be walking that distance. But when my teacher approached me about it (read: tricked me into doing it), after my initial stone cold fear, I gave it some thought and decided that I`ve never really challenged myself physically before, so now might be a good time to try. And so that`s how I found myself on a dark and cold January morning being packed off into a bus bound for Misaki, 40km away from Yawatahama, with the prospect of having to make the trek back. Misaki is a small town on a beautiful peninsula called the Ikata peninsula. This was actually my first time visiting Ikata, and I suppose you could say it was a very thorough first visit, as I walked along every damn inch of that peninsula.
There were various stop points along the way to make sure we were alive/give us some little pick-me-up sweets. Though despite all the little sweets, the last 12km or so were a killer. Everyone had stopped laughing and cheering and we were all trudging along in silence just willing ourselves to get to the end as quickly as possible. I was so impressed as the kids are only 13/14 years old and some of them were really tiny! But Japan does have this culture of "ganbaru" meaning to always try your best and never give up. It took me about 8 and a half hours of constant walking, but eventually I made it to the finish line. And what sweet relief it was too! Though the pain in my legs and feet that evening was indescribably awful, I was still so happy to have made it! And you know what, I think I might just do it again next year.
Other highlights of the past couple of months include a visit to easily the best onsen I have ever been to. The entrance may be a bit steeper than normal at 1000 yen, but it's completely worth it because the onsen itself was newly renovated and gorgeous. Not only that, but they give you pyjamas to lounge around in afterwards in the hot stone room, the fragrance room (complete with beds and blankets to sleep in) and the TV room (your own couch-bed and TV). This was followed by the best mochi I have ever tasted.
Another thing that I was roped into, although a bit more happily at that, was the town "marathon". The Japanese tend to use the word marathon a bit loosely, as what I ran in no way resembles a full 26 mile marathon. I was actually a bit hazy as to how far I would be running, but in the end it only seemed to be a couple of kilometres which was easily doable. The whole town and all my students were out for the occasion, although admittedly my students were running the harder "Ekiden", which is a long distance relay race. I actually ran the race with my shorinji kempo club, so you can imagine the students reactions when they saw me kitted out in my dogi. In fact, I think everyone in Yawatahama was rather bemused to see a white girl running around in public dressed in Japanese martial art gear.
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| This is my shorinji class lining up before the race |
Now I think I shall broach the topic of Valentines Day in Japan, which is a totally different affair from Valentines Day in the West. Strangely, it seems to be a bigger deal here than Christmas, as no one so much as batted an eyelid at the fact it was Christmas. At school that day (yes, I did have to work on Christmas), it was odd to hear the date December 25th being mentioned at the morning meeting without any mention of Christmas at all. And what was even more odd was when the staff started singing happy birthday to me ON CHRISTMAS. My birthday wasn't for another 10 days, but it was the last day of term, so they wouldn't see me until the beginning of the new term.
With Valentines Day, the main difference, for starters, is that only girls give gifts on Valentines Day. Secondly, in Japan only chocolate is given on Valentines Day due to clever marketing on the part of Japanese chocolate companies. Thirdly, girls and women are expected to give "giri-choco", also known as obligation chocolate to their male coworkers and friends. Though I should add that "honmei-choco" also exists which is usually more expensive or sometimes even handmade. This is the type of chocolate that you give to a boyfriend or husband, or even to someone to whom you are wanting to "confess your love to". To me, confessing your love for someone with chocolate seems like something you might do in high school when you are 13, but in Japan this is a legitimate way to express your feelings.
As someone who has never experienced Valentines Day in Japan before, all these chocolate-giving rules seemed like a maze of costly social etiquette to me. But still, I thought it might be fun to make up little bags of giri-choco to give to students and coworkers.
But I bet you're now thinking that Japanese girls have it tough because they spend all this money on giving chocolate and don't get anything back. Well, of course Japan has a solution, being the efficient place it is. Exactly one month later, on March 14th, the men have to give gifts back to the girls that gave them chocolate. Not only that, but they are supposed to try and roughly guess how much the girl spent on them and then spend triple that amount on paying back the girl. Yeah, ouch for the poor guys wallets. Perhaps only in Japan does it pay to be unpopular with the ladies.
This phenomenon is known as White Day. No, this isn't some kind of racist holiday. Originally it was a ploy by a marshmallow company to get men to buy marshmallows, but no one really wants a load of marshmallows all to themselves anyway, so the tradition has since expanded to anything white, though usually it is white chocolate. I can imagine that this is quite a stressful affair for men, as what if they happen to mistake some simple giri-choco for honmei-choco, and confess their love only to be laughed away?
Well, I suppose it isn't any of my concern, as in a months time I shall hopefully have a whole lot of white chocolate!
Until next time, where I shall regale tales of my recent trip to Takamatsu (the setting of Kafka on the Shore) and the famous art island of Naoshima!
