Dec

Mochi: A Cultural Encounter

by Janine Boylan on December 31, 2012

Japanese New Year's mochi decoration, showing a cultural encounter

Japanese plastic mochi © Janine Boylan

Japanese Traditions for the New Year

When I was living in Japan, I made every effort to have as many cultural encounters as possible. I picnicked with friends under the cherry blossoms in the spring. I participated in a formal tea ceremony. I attended events at the local museum. I even threw pots with a local potter.

So, around December, when these bright, shiny plastic packages started appearing in grocery stores, I knew it was time for another cultural encounter!

I was ready and eager. I stared at the package. A cat with raised paw! I had seen many of these already. The raised paw is meant to be beckoning wealth. These cats are considered good luck charms.

But what was that flattened, faceless snowman with the crazy bow tie? And what does one do with it? I searched the package for clues, but, since I couldn’t read the writing, I found nothing that helped.

A few days later, I was walking by the train station. Several men in traditional robes were chanting. One man had a giant wooden hammer and was pounding something white and sticky in a huge wooden bowl. Understandably, a small crowd had formed.

However, no one but me looked concerned. In fact, the entire crowd was quite amused when the man turned and placed the hammer in my hands. He gestured to me to hit the sticky glob in time with the chanting. I obeyed.

I had no idea what was going on. After a few half-hearted whacks, I returned the hammer, smiled, and gave a small bow. Then I shuffled away as quickly as I could. I did note just before I left, however, that the glob looked suspiciously like the mysterious faceless snowman (just with no bow tie).

After that, I saw more and more faceless snowmen appear around town. I noticed that, in addition to the shimmering bow ties, many snowmen boasted small oranges like perky caps. Thankfully, there were no more real men with big wooden hammers.

Japanese New Year mochi, showing a cultural encounter

traditional Japanese mochi for the New Year © Thinkstock

Since, at the time, I didn’t have a computer to look up “faceless sticky snowman with orange on top,” I had to search and find someone who could explain the mystery to me.

I learned that it is a Japanese New Year tradition to make a sticky treat called mochi from rice. Often there are ceremonies, like in front of the train station, where the public can participate in the pounding. The rice gets walloped until it submits into a stretchy, thick, white blob. Then it is covered in rice flour and formed into two disks, a smaller one on top of a larger one.

The disks represent the old year and the new year. The orange on top, called daidai, represents the continuation of family from generation to generation. Oh, I see. I had had my cultural encounter without knowing it was happening!

People can either get fresh mochi, or they can purchase plastic-encased mochi like the ones I originally saw in the store. Then they place these New Year’s offerings in their home until around January 11. By then the mochi is dry and cracked. Families break it apart (never cutting–that would be bad luck!) and cook and eat it.

Japanese New Year mochi, ready to be broken and cooked © Thinkstock

Since my first cultural encounter with mochi, I have learned to love the sticky rice treat. And my mochi-making career still has hope.

Just last year, I found myself in San Francisco at Japantown Peace Plaza pounding mochi again. This time I was chanting and pounding with confidence.

But I’m not sure I’m ready to compete with the skilled mochi-pounding children featured in this video. It was filmed in San Francisco’s Japantown at Kristi Yamaguchi’s Children’s Day Festival when they gave a mid-year performance of this Japanese cultural tradition.

If the video does not display, watch it here.

As the New Year approaches, people around the world, like me, who love Japanese cultural traditions, are proudly displaying faceless snowmen with glittery bow ties and orange caps.

Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございます

Comment on this post below.

Janine Boylan 1 Comment

Cultural Encounters/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Japan

Dec

Ten Christmas Traditions Stuffed in Stockings ‘n Shoes

by Janine Boylan on December 24, 2012

Christmas stocking showing Christmas traditions in different cultures

American Christmas stocking
© Janine Boylan

How Different Cultures Fill ‘Em Up

Every Christmas morning, plump velvet stockings line our hearth. And Christmas tradition dictates that each stocking has a tangerine and a brand new penny in it.

Getting the Hang of Stockings and Shoes

According to legend, the Christmas stocking originated when three impoverished girls hung their freshly-washed socks by the fire to dry. Walking by their home that evening, Saint Nicholas saw the stockings, and, feeling pity for the girls, secretly filled each sock with a generous bag of gold. The gold changed the lives of the girls forever.

Shoe stuffed with gifts representing Christmas traditions of different cultures

Traditional gifts in a modern shoe
© Thinkstock

Today, oranges or tangerines symbolize the bags of gold. I never thought too much about this until the first Christmas with my husband. Finding his tangerine, he said, “What’s this for?”

A basic Oh, I see moment—not everyone has the same traditions around stockings! In fact, in many different cultures, the shoe is the item of choice for stuffing.

Though the concept of giving is common across cultures, timing and traditions differ, bringing a true gift, the gift of cultural diversity, to our world.

Traditions Across Different Cultures

Just take a look at how variations of holiday stocking and shoe traditions abound worldwide:

United Kingdom Stockings are hung on the mantle or from beds in order to catch the coins that Father Christmas drops down the chimney. If there are no stockings, the money will be lost.
Ecuador Some children tuck Christmas lists into their shoes. The lists are replaced by Papa Noel with new shoes and presents.
France French children neatly arrange their shoes in front of the fireplace on Christmas Eve. Père Noël comes during the night and fills the shoes with candy and toys. In anticipation, wooden renditions of Père Noël often grace the doors of homes in Southern France.
Wooden Père Noël in a Provence village
© Sheron Long
Slovak Republic St. Nicholas leaves candy and fruit in children’s shoes. Unruly children find coal.
Hungary Children set boots in the window. Mekulash, the Hungarian Santa, fills well-behaved children’s boots with fruit, nuts, and chocolate. Misbehaving children receive a stick or switch. Apparently few children are perfect: many children find their boots have both candy and a switch.
Iceland During the Christmas season, children leave their shoes on the windowsill. Thirteen mythical elves called Jolasveinar visit one at a time over thirteen days to leave gifts in the shoes of the good children. Bad children receive potatoes!
A European window ready for Christmas boots
© Thinkstock
China Although Christmas is not widely celebrated in China, some children hang muslin stockings for Dun Che Lao Ren, Old Man Christmas, to fill.
Italy Broom-riding La Befana visits Italian children and delivers toys, fruit, and candy. Disobedient children find coal-filled shoes instead.
La Befana fills children’s shoes in Italy
© Thinkstock
Netherlands Children fill their wooden shoes with hay and carrots for St. Nicholas’s horse. He exchanges their offerings with toys and candy.
Spain Children leave their shoes near the door, fireplace, or balcony for the Wise Men on Three Kings Day. Children may leave hay for the camels as well. In the morning, the children’s shoes are stuffed with toys and candy.

And What About That “Naughty or Nice” Idea?

Not only does the custom of shoes or stockings vary in different cultures, but also whether or not the stuffings reflect that concept of “naughty or nice”—coal and switches on the naughty side; toys and candy on the nice.

If you participate in Christmas customs, do you follow the tradition of “naughty or nice”? Take our reader poll and let us know what you’re expecting this year.

Silly Santas, showing Christmas traditions in different cultures

Santas bearing trees
© Sheron Long

[polldaddy poll=6786830]

If poll does not display, take it here.

VIA Museum of Science and Industry

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Janine Boylan Comments

Cultural Diversity/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Worldwide Sites

Dec

Creative Inspiration in a Paris Bookstore

by Meredith Mullins on December 6, 2012

Creative inspiration from Shakespeare and Company, a Paris bookstore

Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in Paris
© Meredith Mullins

Paying Tribute to Shakespeare and Company and George Whitman

“Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.”

As you climb the sunken wooden stairs to the second floor of Shakespeare and Company bookstore, close enough to feel the vibrations of the Notre Dame belltower just across the Seine, you are confronted with a carefully lettered moment of philosophy . . . and a reminder of how owner George Whitman lived his life.

There are plenty of stories about the wild-haired and eccentric George and about the legacy of creative inspiration at Shakespeare and Company—the most famous English-language bookstore in Paris (and perhaps the world).

Whitman’s Inspiration

Most people would agree that George lived life exactly how he wanted. He created his bookstore in 1951, and it soon became a literary haven and creative inspiration for some of the best expat and visiting writers of the time (including Lawrence Durrell, Samuel Beckett, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, James Baldwin).

He supported writers and readers with access to English-language books and good conversation, hosted readings and book launches, and gave writers a kick in the pants when they needed it.

Creative inspiration from inscription above Shakespeare and Company door

Shakespeare and Company 2nd Floor
© Meredith Mullins

He lent books, cared little about money, had a tyrannical temper, but most of all was a socialist at heart, with a generous spirit at his core. He called Shakespeare and Company “a socialist Utopia disguised as a bookstore.”

He had a beautiful daughter when he was 68 (who now runs the shop, with charisma and charm), and he enjoyed the company of friends and admirers (young and old) until he died. He cut his hair by setting fire to it (easier and faster, he said). Every Sunday, he hosted conversation and tea in his top floor apartment and often held impromptu gatherings on the terrace outside the shop.

Even at his 97th birthday party, he sat in a throne-like easy chair amidst his friends and admirers and read the paper (his favorite pastime), oblivious to the hoopla around him.

George Whitman's 97th Birthday Party at Shakespeare and Company, a Paris bookstore offering creative inspiration

Inside the Legendary Bookstore

The hard benches in the antiquarian room and other cubbyholes throughout the maze of books became beds for more than 50,000 aspiring writers and rambling adventurers over the years, although this “open house” came with rules.

You had to write something before being allowed in.

You had to read a book a day.

And you had to work a few hours in the shop.

Mostly, you had to think—keep your mind alive and curious.

Creative inspiration from Shakespeare and Company steps saying Live for Humanity

The labyrinthian store winds its way around many messages that lead to Oh, I see moments:

The time-layered steps to the back rooms deliver the subtle inspiration “Live for Humanity,” if you happen to be looking down as you step up.

The wishing well—a place for coins tossed with hopes and dreams— says “Give what you can, take what you need.”

Outside the store, George told his story on a chalkboard that says, “Some people call me the Don Quixote of the Latin Quarter because my head is so far up in the clouds that I can imagine all of us are angels in paradise.”

Whitman’s Legacy

George’s birthday is next week (December 12). He would have been 99 this year. He passed away last year, two days after his 98th birthday.

“I may disappear leaving no forwarding address, but for all you know I may still be walking among you on my vagabond journey around the world.”

Creative inspiration from Sylvia and George Whitman at Shakespeare and Company

George left more than a personal legacy of individuality and dedication to an ideal. He left an inspiration for living life with generosity and meaning. He believed we have certain inalienable rights: friends, paper pages, the smell of library (and liberty), and the incredible journeys that thoughtful conversation and good writing can take us on.

Long live bookstores that give life to the written word, inspire thoughtful conversation, and embrace the creative spirit.

Long live the idea that strangers may be angels in disguise.

Long live the legacy of George Whitman.

Happy Birthday, George! Thank you for so many OIC moments. May you walk among us for a long time to come.

One of my favorite YouTube videos of all time is George “cutting his hair” with a candle, accompanied by his own poetry (“the good, the beautiful, the true” . . . and, of course, the smell of burning hair).

Read the George Whitman obituary in the NY Times from December 2011.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Meredith Mullins Comments

France (Paris)/Literary World

World Views:

Topics

Category Archives: Map Points