Meisa's First Happy Birthday

Life in Japan: #004 - Obon Festival

Obon (お盆) is a summer Buddhist custom that honors the family ancestors. It is believed that the spirits of the ancestors return to visit the living relatives in mid July (August in some places). One of the customs of Obon is the Bon-Odori, or Obon Dancing, where people gather and dance to songs and drums to welcome the spirits. This bon-odori was held in Ikebukuro district of Tokyo while my family was in town. It was an interesting one because it had a modern pop-culture twist to the traditional Bon-Odori.

Life in Japan #003: Tanabata

Tanabata (七夕, "Evening of the Seventh", or Star Festival) is a summer festival that is held in Japan on July 7th, and it celebrates the meeting of two deities, Orihime and Hikoboshi, represented by the stars Altair and Vega. A shortened version of the folklore is that Princess Orihime, the daughter of the God of the heavens and an extremely hard-working seamstress, and Hikoboshi, a cow herder who lived across the heavenly river (Milky Way), fell madly in love with each other to the point where they stopped working. The God of the heavens got angry and forbid them from seeing each other, but finally allowed them to be together once a year on the 7th day of the 7th month. Seeing each other was difficult because of the Milky Way river that was between them, but if the weather was good a flock of birds (magpies, for you bird lovers) came down to serve as a bridge so they can cross the river. If it rained, however, the lovers had to wait another year to see each other. 

A tanabata tradition is to write a wish on a colorful strip of paper and hang them on a branch of bamboo in the hope that the wish will come true. As a child I remember writing wishes at Japanese preschool or maybe even in early grade school so it's been well over 20 years since I thought about this festival. So you can imagine my surprised delight when a package of a few dozen wishes were delivered to me in Japan from Monterey Bay. Extra super special points because the well-wishes were from the students that I painfully had to separate from in order to move across the world to dedicate myself to the type of work I dreamt of doing for over a decade.  

While the tanabata love story is nice, my take on tanabata is about the importance of hard work. Adjusting to life and work in Japan has been a huge challenge, but I'm encouraged because I know that what I'm currently going through is 100% necessary for me to grow professionally and personally. Reading the wishes from you all back home gave me the boost I needed. Thank you guys. We might be separated but I'm looking forward to when I can cross the Pacific Ocean to see you all again. Until then, you are all my driving force to keep moving forward; I hope I am for you as well. #RISEAboveIt