A Curious Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. A time for families to come together. A time to gorge on turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, biscuits and an array of other delicious foods. A time to share stories, laugh and reminise. A day even the woeful Detroit Lions can capture the hearts of obese America.

Meanwhile, in Ikata-cho, I just finished a wonderful meal: pesto pasta with spinach, mushrooms and sausage. And no, I am not being sarcastic- it was very tasty. Sure I miss premade Safeway Thanksgiving meals...I had it every year without fail. Well, ALMOST every year...one year, when my mother was in India (like she is right now) my father bore the responsibility of Thanksgiving dinner. That epic year we had a huge platter of shrimp cocktail for lunch and dinner. Nothing more, nothing less. "But it's THANKSGIVING! Where was your damn turkey?" you may ask. Yeah it probably would have been nice to have some turkey and my mom with me on that holiday but it didn't matter. I don't remember alot of my thanksgivings (maybe b/c they don't differentiate too much from others) but this "Shrimp" Thanksgiving goes down as one of my favorites. It's a story I can tell again and again, a memory that'll last the rest of my life. I suppose in that moment I realized my family isn't too traditional. My mother was raised in a conservative protestant household while my father grew up in a conservative Japanese village. Customs are by the book: you eat on a clean, white table cloth with silverware arranged perfectly then say grace. Since then, my mother has converted to Buddhism and she currently lives in India. My dad rejected tradition by leaving for America, pursuing a life as a wonderful artist and married a white woman. And so, the shrimp dinner symbolizes the uniqueness of my household...our tendencies of doing things that are atypical. Therefore, in some strange way, my journey to Japan and my current thanksgiving situation makes ALOT more sense. I wish I was with my parents on old 419 Joost eating Safeway brand thanksgiving dinner...I wanna watch Aaron Rodgers to tear up the Detroit secondary...I want to be with my friends and go corousing into the late nights. But that's not the type of family I have, I guess. I'm glad, a break from the mundane and repetitive give rise to a treasure trove of new unforgettable memories. After all, isn't that the most precious thing we have...memories?

And so, if you've survived the convoluted mess of thoughts I have thrown up, perhaps you're willing to go a little further. About 3 weeks ago, upon a visit with Kucho Elementary school, my JTE or English teacher told me to beware of "Inoko". Every year on November 14th and 26th the children in my area practice this age old custom. Children go from house to house to smash large chunks of rocks...and after performing this feat, they ask roughly 1,000 yen or 10 dollars from each household. Imagine Halloween on crack. Instead of having 20 trick-or-treaters coming by taking your precious assortments of snickers, jollyranchers and three muskateer bars which you spent a whole $9.99 on from target (after your coupon you clipped out of your sunday newspaper, mind you), imagine 20 of those kids leaving your house with a 20 Alexander Hamiltons. That's 40 Abe Lincolns. That's 20,000 Abe Lincoln pennies. Damn straight that's alot of pennies. Mind you, these are to complete strangers. You can imagine the level of fear my teacher imbedded in my heart. So I asked everyone I knew for answers. NO ONE knew why the children do this but they all gave me similar advise. Get out of town, turn off all your lights and pretend to not be home OR ELSE the boogie man will get you. Hiding from elementary school kids? You betcha.

Today or all days, Thanksgiving day, the children of Ikata-cho roamed the streets for unsuspecting victims. As I drove home I spotted a gang of kids with a huge bamboo stick. Obviously they meant business. I knew I didn't have alot of time. Once I got home, I locked all the doors, closed all my shades and turned on only essential lighting. Not even the bathroom light could be spared when I needed to relieve myself. Kitchen lights? They were off. "But I'm so hungry" Too bad, eat some cookies and shut up. And so I waited, with a sharpened sense of hearing and a mind racing. Eventually I heard children laughing and chanting outside. I darted straight into my bedroom, turned off all the lights and put a pillow over my head. I'm not home if I can't hear them, right? Soon my door bell rang and laid silently on my bed, afraid to move. There was more noise and anxiousness in their voices. I didn't budge. And so, after bunkering down in my hole for a solid 10 minutes I crept out...prepared to make hot water, in the dark, cut up vegetables, in the dark, so I could make my Thanksgiving dinner.

What are customs these days? Are they guidelines for people to follow so they can spend time with those you love on one special day? Why do you need a holiday to tell you that? Are they about outdated and mysterious rituals involving rock smashing? Has the commercialization of holidays taken some of the magic out of our Thanksgiving and Christmas...making them mundane and unexciting? Perhaps that's why customs are so crucial for the human experience, it gives us a sense of stability in a otherwise unstable world. It gives us a shared identity, a sense of community, a sense of belonging. Holidays in other countries make the difference all too painfully obvious...Thankgiving was funny but Christmas will probably hurt. I suppose it comes with the territory...I wouldn't change it for the world. The unorthodox stories are the ones I will treasure for the rest of life. But still, turkey and football, the comforts of home, they appeal to the hobbit in me. And here I lay, in my Ikata hobbit hole in the dark.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families!