Japan has now ended the state of emergency for every prefecture this week as the recorded coronavirus infection numbers are kept low. I found myself checking Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus world tally to see the ups and downs on a regularly basis but when I take a step back, I realise that these aren’t just numbers 📉. These numbers: hundreds and thousands and millions, represent people. Over 350,000 people around the world have died since the start of the year due to coronavirus.
The effect of coronavirus isn’t just these figures reported by John Hopkins University and media sources. This pandemic have indirectly affected many more.
One of the participants of a popular Japanese reality TV Show📺, “Terrace House” took her own life last weekend. Many people have pointed at cyber bullying for the cause but I think things seemed much worse for her when she couldn’t fight on the ring as a professional wrestler or live with people who loved and supported her. She’s just one of many affected by coronavirus who may not be recognised or counted in the tally such as the one from Johns Hopkins University.
I didn’t know her but her passing, another recent passing, as well as a couple of death anniversaries of people I know who have died of old age have made me think about death these days. 💐💐
Japanese life with death
In a previous blog post, I mentioned about Obon which is a few days or a week holiday during summer where many people return to their hometown to pay respect to their ancestors.🕯
Not only that, Japan have other ways of incorporating a ritual to remember those who have passed away.
命日(meinichi, the date that a person passed away) is a death anniversary. There is also 月命日 (tsukimeinichi) which is the day to remember the person who passed away on the day they passed away (so if a person passed away on the 2nd, every 2nd day of the month is that person’s tsukimeinichi, except for the actual death anniversary).
What Japanese do during meinichi is probably quite similar to some western culture where friends and family gather on the day to reflect about the person who passed away. Often the person’s favourite flowers and food (avoiding meat or fish) are involved as well. In Japan, people often visit the person’s grave to give offering, clean their grave (taking away weeds and pouring water over the tombstone) and light some incense or candles.
Not everyone lives near the person’s grave. They aren’t too common with modern living but there is 仏壇 (Butsudan, a mini memorial at home) as a place to pray. I remember thinking (or being taught?) that it’s a gateway to heaven and our ancestors in your home.
My grandparent’s sitting room had a big butsudan and I remember every time we received a souvenir or gift (like fruit bowls), my grandma will offer it first to butsudan for our ancestors first before we tucked in. This is a modern version of butsudan:
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Not a meinichi, but I recently visited my family grave to wish my great grandmother happy birthday (it would have been her 120th!). I brought her favorite fruit (kiwi fruit 🥝) and shrimp crackers 🦐 as offerings when I spent a little time with her. I am very lucky that my mother’s side’s grave is very close to where I live that I can cycle and visit them pretty regularly.
I don’t know what it is about visiting my family grave, but it calms me. Even when I’m angry or annoyed at something (which unfortunately I am often), it evaporates. Kneeling in front of my grandfather, grandmother, great grandmother and all those who have passed before them, my current issues that gripped my mind and emotion loosen and reminds me that it doesn’t really matter that much in a grand scheme of things.
Sometimes I am quite upset that I didn’t know get to know them enough. I wanted more time with them, I want them to know me now and I want to know what they would’ve said if we can have a conversation now. My time with some of my relatives were cut short as my family moved away to Australia nearly two decades ago.
Alas, it’s like wanting the smoke from my incense to come back and linger a little longer. Instead of yearning for something I cannot have, I try to shift towards focusing on the family I have now and foster the relationship whether it comes easily to me or not.
I remember where I read somewhere how the west and the east think about life quite differently. When you ask a western person to draw life, they generally draw in a linear line starting from birth 👶🏻 and ending with death⚰️.
Instead, the eastern way of thinking is more like a season from spring through to winter which turns into spring again in a cycle ♾.
With a culture of including dear ones who have passed away through visiting them during Obon every summer, thinking about the person who passed away on their monthly tsukimeinichi or putting hands together for a daily prayer 🙏 in front of butsudan, I think Japanese culture is one that lives with death. Facing it on a regularly basis familiarise oneself with the eventual death that makes life sweeter, to remind us that our everyday ordinary life is both fleeting and precious.
Native Expat 