The Ceremony

Here one can see us reading our vows at the front of the shrine, facing the Kami-samma (God) said to be represented here. The entire ceremony lasted 20 minutes or so, and we started a little early because everyone gathered precisely on time (there is no point in telling Japanese people an early starting time in case they are late - they never are).

Before the ceremony we gave a brief speech each, me to outline the process for the day and the Delightful Miss E to tell everyone why we had chosen to marry at the Jozan Inari Shrine (although by the time people were inside it should have been obvious from the calm, peaceful beauty of the shrine and its grounds exactly why we were here). The ceremony then followed, and consisted of the following stages:

1) A purification ritual, in which the priest waved a staff over us and about the key points of the room;

2) A long prayer, which the priest chanted on the raised dais in front of us in a deep voice and unusual rhythm. The delightful Miss E, more cultured in these matters than me, informs me that the dramatic tone of this speech was very similar to that of Noh plays. I believe this prayer was intended to invoke the good will of the shrine's deity.

3) Another brief purification ritual, in which the priest rang golden bells over our heads

4) The ceremony of san san ku do, in which both Miss E and myself had to sip ceremonial sake. This was conducted 3 times, and at each stage each of us had to sip the sake 3 times. The first sip had to be just a taste; the second had to drain almost all the remaining sake; and the 3rd sip was to finish the drink. The cup was then passed to the priest, refilled, and passed to the other supplicant. By this process I drank 3 times, then Miss E; then a larger cup was filled, and Miss E drank 3 times, followed by me; then an even larger cup was filled, and I drank 3 times followed by Miss E.

5) Our vows, which we had to read in front of the altar. The vows, loosely translated, go as follows: "In front of the gods on this good day we are thankfully able to marry; henceforth we promise to be good and kind to one another through all of our lives, and through bitter and happy times." Reading this in Japanese takes some practice.

6) An offering, in which the priest gave us both a ceremonial pine branch which we had to place on an altar at the front of the shrine. We then bowed two times, clapped two times, bowed once and returned to our seat.

7) A final kanpai, in which all the guests toasted our future with sake.

This ceremony shows the nature of Japanese traditional religion at its best: simple, agrarian, investing great meaning into the small and everyday objects and gestures of a long and traditional history. We finished the ceremony feeling we had done something important and completed a promise to uphold something dear; and that we had done so through symbols which better represented our own feelings than do the pomp of modern secular or religious ceremonies in most parts of the world. I think, too, that our guests left the wedding with a feeling that something special had been done, even if the only outward signs of it were these small and humble gestures.

The clothing

The Delightful Miss E and I decided that we would have a Shinto wedding in a Shinto shrine, which means that we would also need to wear Japanese style clothing. Miss E chose not to wear the full traditional bridal kimono because the wig looks rather silly and would look entirely too much like fancy dress on a Westerner; however, she was able to wear a normal kimono, and to go with it I wore the men's kimono which one occasionally sees in modern formal ceremonies in Japan. We also selected a purple kimono emblazoned with butterflies for Miss Violet, and a charming red and black flower-scattered kimono for the amusingly disgruntled Annaleah (not her real name, of course), seen here looking happy despite having arrived on an overnight train a mere 2 hours before the wedding.

These clothes are remarkably corset-like about the waist, requiring two women at full strength to tug the various cords tight and to ensure that everything was strictly in place. I must say I don't have quite the same poise in these clothes as, say, Koizumi Junichiro (Japan's last prime minister); but I did feel a little moment of samurai splendour when I first emerged from the training area in this get up. And how better can one look for one's own wedding than wearing a dress, thongs and sandals?

Our Japanese wedding

On the 28th December the Delightful Miss E and I married at the Jozan Inari Jinja in Matsue, a small and humble single-room shrine at the top of a long flight of stone stairs just behind the Castle grounds. The shrine is surrounded by the gardens of the Castle district, and ringed with old, decaying stone foxes. The moment Emma and I saw it we wanted to try and hold our wedding here, and to do it in Japanese style (Shinzen). Being away from home we timed the wedding to coincide with the holiday of three of our friends (Aislinn, Paul and Emily) and invited those of our local friends who could come. Because the shrine is Shinto, this ceremony was conducted in Shinto style, a style so simple and unprepossessing that we were able to get through the whole thing with limited mistakes inside of just 20 minutes, and with 1 rehearsal.

Friends gathered for this wedding were: the incredibly handsome Mr. Hiroki and his pretty and charming girlfriend Miss K, who attended in a Kimono; the redoubtale Miss Kana, fresh back from a 3 month stint farming in Mexico; her friend Miss Hiroko, inseparable from Miss Kana except when she is in Mexico; the superlative Detective M, Miss E's erudite friend from Hiroshima; and our 3 Australian friends. Other friends of Miss E's were unable to attend due to work commitments, but the superbly crazy Crazy Aya was able to come and congratulate us the very next day. Some of my readers may remember the sterling lasses Miss Kana and Miss Hiroko from my birthday celebrations, and of course everyone will by now be familiar with the stunningly splendid Mr. Hiroki, my Tottori Regent.

In my next post I shall describe the ceremony in more detail, and include some more photos.

Having conducted the ceremony successfully, we retired to the Ohashikan Ryokan, where we had a lunch reception for our friends before they all departed for their respective towns. The ryokan is a traditional style of Japanese hotel, and the food was classic Japanese cooking with lots of wine. The option to visit the Ryokan's onsen afterwards was declined on account of our not being able to dress ourselves in the complex kimono we were wearing.

The day was filled with presents, good cheer and all the best wishes which good friends can give to two young people very much in love. Now comes the happy task of basking in our post-wedding calm and reading the many wedding presents our distant friends sent us. The well wishes of distant friends are held particularly dear on this day, when two people draw closer together through a simple ceremony of commitment, and knowing our friends and family were thinking of us from afar made the day all the more special for both of us. Some of the following posts, with little details of the wedding and more pictures, may help my readers to understand why. The full range of photos is available at the Illustrations for the chronicle, and also more photos may be viewed at the Delightful Miss E's blog.

Changes to the Illustrated Chronicle

I know all my readers visit this 'blog's associated Illustrations almost every day, desperately hoping to see something new, and are desperately sick of the tedious layout of photobucket. Well, as another concession to the importance of style over substance I have moved all my photos to picasa: they can now be found here. Picasa has the advantage of looking like flickr, without the disadvantage of having to pay money for more than three folders. The web is about having crappy opinions for free, and no-one reading them: damned if I'm going to pay some bunch of shysters to host my crappy opinions in technicolor!

Picasa is considerably easier to use than many other photo sites, so hopefully I will be updating more regularly. I shall endeavour to post here when updates occur. Good luck finding them in the mess of photos therein!

A very Kitty Christmas

This week past I enjoyed my first Christmas living in (as opposed to visiting) Japan, this time firmly ensconced in my little aparto in Matsue. The weather outside was gloriously sunny and not too cold, but we did not concern ourselves overmuch with such trivialities, having as we did all the necessary ingredients for a day inside under the kotatsu:

• christmas presents under a christmas tree
  
• chocolate (at least for everyone except the Delightful Miss E, who has an allergy to the stuff)
• Nabe
• Hello Kitty christmas decorations

So we sat about reading our christmas presents for most of the day, and in the late afternoon we had nabe for our christmas lunch. Nabe is a big pot on a portable gas stove, which is filled with a flavoured sauce and then set to boil. Various goodies are chucked in, cooked and then plucked out with chopsticks to be eaten. In the above pictures you can see the nabe on our kotatsu. The overhead shot is in the last stage of the nabe, after the noodles have been added to soak up the remains of the sauce. It wasn't quite as devastatingly overdone as the Anglerfish Nabe I ate some weeks ago, but it did leave us in a little pain, so we were more than happy to lie back and do nothing for the evening as well. For the day we had the indefatigable Miss Violet staying, here for our wedding, and so we were able to entertain ourselves most admirably (and I recieved a much-needed scarf and beany from her for my present).

The Japanese celebrate christmas vigourously (as I have observed before) but mostly as a kind of mid-winter valentine's day, with couples going out for dinner on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is in every other respect a completely normal day, and being in this case a Monday, everyone else in Matsue was at work as normal. Although the build-up to christmas feels like christmas (because of the decorations everywhere and the sense of climax of the year which the Japanese have in the lead-up to New Year, which is their biggest day), it was still mighty strange to be able to go outside and see the world running along as if nothing at all was meant to be happening. Terribly original! And pity the poor Nova teachers who have to work that day ...

The beast of Kawatsu 2

Here we see the second evil beast of Kawatsu, which Miss Violet and I stumbled upon while wandering home on Christmas Eve. It may not look like much in the picture, but this beast is a good metre from nose to tail (I kid thee not, gentle reader), and very old and shaggy - its nose whiskers were grey and it had a general shaggy, hard-done by kind of a look, the sort of look a decent rat can earn by lying in wait near the river and ambushing passing cars.

This beast, we discovered, is not actually a rat, but a Nutria, introduced to Japan in 1930 (which would have been when this one was young I have no doubt). The venerable beast even has its own web page, and is a pest both in reality and on the web. I know how a Nutria can get to be this big in kawatsu - by eating the praying mantises.

I have now seen every crazy animal this country has to offer except the monkeys and the bears. Stay tuned, my friends, for surely they will come to me here in the wilds of Matsue!