Halloween

The act of re-connecting with ones ancestors seems to cross several cultures. Halloween originated in Ireland and Scotland with roots in Celtic tradition and spread to Canada and the United States. Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead and the Japanese have a Buddhist event in the summer called o-bon. Their event is a period of praying for the repose of the souls of one’s ancestors. During this festival ghost story-telling and kimo-dameshi (traditional bravery tests) where people walk through creepy places occur, and walks through haunted houses (obake yashiki) are popular.

Halloween has not been celebrated in Japan until very recently but it is becoming more popular especially in regards to costume play (cosplay) among youth. As the Japanese are amenable at taking things from outside cultures and filtering them through their culture the youth have really embraced it. However it is still not accepted by the population as a whole.

We saw a few items that reminded us it was Halloween time. A booth in the central train station was selling ‘pumpkin’ pies which were actually made with Kabocha squash. The dollar store had witches hats, plastic pumpkins for collecting treats and other tacky stuff and our grocery store carried little cakes with ghosts on them and had a small display of candy for treats. Lucas brought a book home from kindergarten about it that included how to make a ghost costume and to carve a pumpkin.

The kindergarten classes ended early all week due to parent-teacher interviews so on Wednesday Lucas’ class got together at the nearby campus grounds to have a mini party. I would have liked to have taken the opportunity to provide my comments on the commercialization of Halloween in our country to prevent it becoming soulless here but the politics between some of the mothers prevented my being in charge of the event. It was kept basic to achieve harmony which these people are known for.

All the mothers brought O-bento lunches and picnic blankets and we ate under the trees which had not yet turned. After lunch the kids put on witches hats of all colours, cute pink capes, ghost costumes and Eleanor wore her Venetian princess mask and Lucas put on his Pikachu hat. They all ran around while we got the treat bags organized. Then we pulled them together for photos and Eleanor gave them a lesson on how to say ‘trick or treat’ in English. Then I was in the honourable position of sitting on a bench with Eleanor and they had to say those words to us in order to get their little bag of sweet snacks.

Lucas and Eleanor were able to make those sweets last until the day of our Halloween celebration.

We started the day with a typhoon in the forecast so the daytime sky was dark and the wind was really blowing. We had chosen to have a party at our house because we have a lot of privacy in our property here. We have a lot of yard surrounded by a big hedge on a dead end street which provided the perfect spot for a bunch of children to play outside in the dark.  

According to its Celtic roots this night was a fire festival so we used a lot of orange and yellow material (which we borrowed) for our decorating. We stuffed orange gauze with paper to make Martha Stewart-like pumpkins and sat a bunch of them on green chiffon as a pumpkin patch. We strung white and orange ribbons in the trees everywhere for affect. We had collected glass jars over the two months which we turned into tea light lanterns which we set about on the path to our house. Because we did not have pumpkins to carve we cut faces into brown paper bags (held down with rocks) and used tea lights for illumination. We sat them on dirt in our garden in case they went up in flames. We bunched up yellow chiffon to make the spirits of our ancestors which hung from our carport. The way they moved in the wind was perfectly ghostlike.

The Celtic tradition calls this night Samhain and the belief is that on this night the veil between the worlds is thin so spirits can visit with us. It is a time to ask ancestors for guidance and to dress up to trick the walking spirits so they don’t know who is who.

The concept of ghosts and spirits seems to be universal and they are not always fearful. The famous Japanese Director Miyazaki made our favourite film ‘My Neighbour Totoro’. It is about friendly wood spirits that live in a giant Camphor tree who help two little girls that are dealing with a lot of emotions while their mother is ill. We have a Camphor tree in our backyard which the children believe holds a Totoro that keeps them safe here. Lucas brought a book home from school about how ghosts make nice music and can be your friends in the dark. It taught him that you can enjoy their company if you chose not to be afraid of them. It only made sense that we made spirits be our theme for the night.

Indoors we decorated the mantle with lots of candles and Eleanor and Lucas each had a wall that displayed all their art they made just for the occasion. The French doors were covered with orange crepe paper and were backlit with a sign above the door that read, ‘Madam Joejoe’s Fortune-telling parlour’.

Lucas and Eleanor and their friends from next door played for a while as dusk settled in and the bats began to appear. The weather had turned in our favour and it was warm (18 degrees) and calm. I lit all the lanterns and then we went inside to receive a Morse code from our friend Suki and her family who live ½ km across from us on the other side of the river. They sent us a ‘happy Halloween’, so we sent back, ‘to you too’. We knew they were on their way to our house.

There were nine children and the costumes included witches, devils, brave knights, a confused professor, an Indian brave, Pikachu from Pokemon and a cow.

Our feast consisted of pumpkin soup from a caldron, spaghetti and baguettes with a Caesar salad, toffee apples on branches and an apple tart with whip cream to top it off.

After dinner anyone who had a silver coin could go into the parlour to have their fortunes read. Madam Joejoe the gypsy sat in candlelight and called the spirits to help her read special acorns. Some of the kids, including Eleanor, loved it so much they went in twice for her advice.

In keeping with spirits and the dead the next activity took us on a walk up our dark, treed road to the base of the mountain to see an ancient tomb that is preserved there. It was from the Kofun era in the seventh century and would have been the burial mound of a local chief. The tomb was made of large rocks forming a deep rectangle. It was a bit spooky to see right into its depths with our flashlights so we didn’t linger.

There were no homes close by to do any ‘trick or treating’ so we came back to our property and the children were given the first clue to a treat hunt. In order for it to be fun and not frightening we had stuffed animals in trees and tucked into the roots of trees holding bowls of treats. The only thing they had to watch out for were the real spider webs holding rather large spiders that are everywhere. They worked together really well and eventually found lots of yummy treats which they went inside to eat. The big treat for Tim and I was that we had found such good friends to share our celebration on this festive night.

Riverside BBQ

It was the weekend before Halloween and it was so gorgeous out that we had an impromptu barbeque lunch in the mountain on the edge of the Nigawa River. Suki’s family organized it and brought all the food. She has three children, two of who are older than ten, and they brought friends.

The Nigawa river was cool and as deep as my knees. It flowed over sand and rocks some which were big enough to sit on. Eleanor climbed on one and basked in the sun pretending to be a mermaid.

The kids went off to find and collect little crabs in their container. Tim helped get the fire going in a pit made in a dried up stream bed and Suki and I set up necessary items on the plank bridge across the banks. It made a perfect serving table.

After wading upstream towards the waterfall while playing brave knights and princesses and getting good and wet, the children were hungry. Our neighbours arrived with their children and everyone was ready for lunch.

We had strips of steak marinated in Coke, molasses and sugar that we wrapped in Shiso leaf (like a giant mint but less sharp in flavour) to hold and eat. We also enjoyed chicken wings, mashed potato salad, pasta salad full of broccoli and a real pumpkin pie (purchased at Costco). Cold tea and beer quenched our thirst.

Then the kids went on an adventure down river and ended up playing capture the flag on the field down the way from the little rapids. They were having so much fun we could hear a lot of laughter above the murmurs of the river. It was so nice to have the older kids be in charge of the little ones so we adults could just relax and chat. It was really something to have such a comfortable outdoor lunch in the end of October. It felt like a cool summer day and we had smiles on our faces.