Culture & Society
Endangered Traditions
Is Japanese Culture Going Extinct?
“Where do you want me to put these?” I asked my elderly aunt as I brought a set of old boxes from her loft down to her living room. They contained the ornamental items you see in my photo above. They looked new, but they were all purchased over 20 years ago soon after the birth of my cousin’s daughter.
My aunt had taken excellent care of the doll set that a decreasing number of Japanese people display every 3rd of March in their homes to celebrate Hina Matsuri (ひな祭り) — lit. princess festival, called girls’ day or doll’s day in English.
“Obachan, isn’t Sara too old for this? She’s going to be 20 soon, isn’t she?” I politely asked my aunt in Japanese with genuine curiosity.
“It doesn’t matter how old she is. It’s tradition. It all symbolizes the coming of spring, so it’s an auspicious day,” Obachan replied, noticeably scorning my ignorance.
“But many of my friends with daughters don’t display their Hina Matsuri dolls anymore,” I coughed, meekly trying to justify myself.
“They also say the doll display jinxes their chances of getting married once they’ve come of age.”
My aunt sighed forlornly as she carefully took the ornaments out from their individual boxes, “Maa neh. So it seems.”
So it seems.
The verdict is in. Japanese people are becoming less and less invested in continuing their cultural traditions.
Hina Matsuri is one example, and another is even what may be the most important of all on the Japanese calendar: Sho-gatsu (正月) — New Year’s but with increasingly fewer evidence of festivities. Don’t just take my word for it. If you’re in Japan, pry your eyes from your phone screen and look around. Could you really tell any difference from a normal day? Even Christmas decorations attract more attention after the 25th.
So what do Japanese people typically do during their New Year’s celebrations? In the past — and we may need to look as far back as two generations ago — families would clean up and de-clutter their homes together, prepare meals together, visit shrines together, and engage in other activities that characterize the uniqueness of their regional communities.
Whatever people did, despite the ravages of war, people probably spent much more time — together. And to be fair, there really wasn’t much else common folk could do. Anyway, that’s my impression from eavesdropping on conversations between my parents and their friends and relatives.
Do Japanese expats abandon traditions?
You wouldn’t be scorned by my aunt for thinking that emigrants no longer prepare the traditional dishes, collectively called osechi お節料理, lit. seasonal cuisine. (Fellow Medium contributor Yuko Tamura has written about why people splurge on osechi, and Diane Neill Tincher gives an overview of what’s in osechi plus fun facts about New Year gods and more. Both stories may stir your appetite!)
Contrary to that presumption, I still vividly remember my seven-year-old self helping my mom in the last few days before New Year’s with her annual osechi — all 15 or so distinct dishes. She single-handedly prepared them from scratch using mostly local ingredients and a few smuggled items from Japan. My mom didn’t know how to spell contraband.
I had no hand in cooking but just in carrying the myriad of containers down to our frigid Montreal basement and garage that literally served as a giant fridge. We placed them on the trunk and even the roof of our Buick station wagon.
Our Japanese New Year did not involve firecrackers and dragon dances as with the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations I experienced, but the food was perhaps just as plentiful — once upon a time.
And how about in today’s Japan now that I’m back?
The regional atmosphere during the first few days of the new year feels so sterile and empty that it sucks energy and joy out of me. It feels like an anticlimax to Christmas, which is not a public holiday in Japan. But that doesn’t stop me from going out to the local Shinto shrines to pray for world peace and a lottery jackpot at the cost of a few hard-earned nickels.
Where do people go and what do people do afterward? Some might go out to a “family restaurant”, go walk in a park, then return home to watch TV while swiping on their phones. If that sounds like a normal weekend, you’d be right.
I miss the fun and excitement I felt in Taiwan during the Lunar New Year holidays.
As a seven-year-old kid nearly half a century ago, I visited my paternal grandmother in Tsuyama, a modest city in the northern half of Okayama prefecture, during the summer break.
I remember getting off a highway bus with my mom at the Tsuyama bus terminal where Obaachan, my grandma, was waiting. She took my hand and stole me away from my mom as we scurried toward the town center.
As my grandma and I walked through a shopping arcade, elderly shopkeepers came out to greet her. Then, they’d glance my way and ask about me, and she’d proudly reply that her grandson was visiting her all the way from Canada for the summer holidays. Ears would perk up upon hearing that, and more grand-ladies would flock around us asking amusing questions like, “Does your grandson live in the Rockies? Does he swim in Lake Louise? Does he bathe in maple syrup? Does he like white girls? Can he sing Love Letter from Canada?
“That’s so ancient!” laughed my grandma at the last query.
The other grand-ladies chimed in, asking if I would still be here in mid August for the Obon festival marking the visitation of our ancestral spirits. There were going to be lots of different food stalls, games for kids, a group round dance with traditional music, pretty girls in yukata — casual summer kimono — and a grand fireworks display to conclude the festival.
And grand it was! I’ve seen countless fireworks since then, but we always remember our first time.
I was only 7, but that didn’t prevent me from making friends (who were girls). They were more curious about my accented Japanese than my ability to speak English. They also appeared to enjoy teaching me how to scoop up goldfish in a paper net and shared their senko-hanabi (線香花火 or sparklers) with me. I also joined them in round dance while the other boys snickered at me. Being an ex-Japanese kid had its perks.
To be able to recall this event must mean that the summer of ‘75 had made a huge impact on me. And for an Asian immigrant in North America who never had schooling in his motherland, it was undoubtedly the first time I thought deeply about my cultural identity. I questioned it in a good way. I feel my summer of ‘75 started my quest for my cultural roots.
My connection to Canada was solid and permanent. But Japan had become only a memory, one that increasingly belonged only to my mom. The cultural traditions were passed on only through her. So, they felt more like my mom’s, not those of Japan. And that is how customs may be prone to slipping away in later generations among immigrants.
That outcome, however, is not unique to children of Japanese immigrants; it’s happened with my Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, and Greek friends. And I think that cultural assimilation is just a given in countries like Canada and the US.
What is there to do if traditions fade into history in the native homeland?
Final Thoughts
Japanese traditions seem to be slipping away or giving way — not necessarily to Western or other foreign culture — but perhaps to disinterest or changing priorities.
The interactions that used to stitch communities together during seasonal festivities may still exist in some areas of Japan, but to this author, they have visibly decreased just over three decades.
I am holding back on judgment because nostalgia is personal and should not be the basis for continuing any tradition. The world is full of change. History is about change. Life is characterized by ebbs and flows. The sense of community is only relevant if fellowship is a priority for survival.
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