My hometown

Last weekend, I went back to my home town, Hyogo prefecture. It is located at next to Osaka prefecture. Hyogo prefecture seems urban place, because there is a Kobe city. However my home town is totally different from Kobe city. There are a several houses, small number of people, surrounded by mountains and many rice fields. My home town is rural, and there are full of lands, so almost all family has two houses. One is for grandparents; the other is for young couples such as their son’s family.

My home town has much snow in winter, so almost all houses have garage which has a roof.

And also in front of my house, there is a narrow road and as you can see, the road is really rough. So people change their normal car tire to snow tire before winter. A car cannot meet another car on the road. However, a car seldom passes the road. So children ski in the road.

In addition, almost all family has their own rice field. So people make snowman, yukidaruma （雪だるま）in Japanese, or Kamakura　there. My home town’s scenery is so wonderful especially winter. My home is like a row of houses and streets in old Japan and way of living is also quite old fashion, for example, there is no conbini, karaoke, and shopping mall, so I can feel relax and I can play in the natural environment, whenever I came back home. It is really fascinating.

My hometown

One of Japanese culture

Last weekend, I walked around Hirakata thinking about what represents Japanese culture. Then I found an interesting one. It is chochin （提灯）. It is traditional Japanese flashlights. People used chochin in festival or ritual as a decorarion or a sign before Edo period. After Edo period, it is said that people used chochin as a flashlight. However, now people use chochin in festival only, so, people seldom use chochin in daily lives.

However, actually I found chochin around Hirakata city.

Look at pictures, please. You can see letters in chochin.

The term oshokujitei (お食事亭) is witten in left one. It means a restrant.
The term izakaya (居酒屋) is written in right one. It means Japanse bar.
So, as you notice that still know, in some ares, chochin is used as sign.
When I found it, Iwas happy because culture continues changing, however, in some area, Japanese culture is still inherited. I think Japanese should inherite Japanese culture importantly.

Coming of age day

In Japan, 20 years old is very special.
People calls 20 years old people hatachi in Japanese.
Hatachi is one of turning points in the life because 20 years old people are regarded as adult in the society. They can get voting rights, drinking alcohols and smoking. It indicates that they have to have responsibility for their behavior.

At the same time, on third Monday in January, it is called coming of age day, and it is holiday. It is also called成人の日(Seijin-no-hi) in Japanese. ‘成’(sei) literally means developed or completed or sufficient. ‘人’ (jin) literally means people or person. ‘日’(hi) literally means a day. And coming of age day, people who became 20 in previous year and will become 20 until April in the year have a ceremony by city or small town. It is one of Japanese tradition.
In that day, almost all men just wear recruit suits and a few men wear hakama (袴). It does not cost so much, because most men do not buy new suits for that day and they do not decorate their hair and makeup. However, women’s schedules are so hard in that day. They have to get up early in the morning to put on makeup gorgeously, and then go to beauty salon to have their hair up and decorate, and finally they wear furisode. After that, they go to the ceremony. Despite the ceremony is only about three hours, women pay much money and spend uncomfortable day. However, furisode is exclusively beautiful, and most women wear furisode only twice in their lives. One is coming of age day, the other is marriage. Therefore, it is very precious time for women to wear traditional Japanese clothes. And most women take pictures another day of before that ceremony. Usually those pictures have been used for marriage meetings. They are called miai-shashin (見合い写真).

Coming of age day ceremony has another exciting event, class reunion. It is called dosokai (同窓会) in Japanese. Dosokai (同窓会) is meeting of people who studied from same teachers or in the same class. After the ceremony, junior or high school friends gather and talking and eating and drinking together. Most people go to college or technical college, so they merely meet and hang out. Therefore class reunion is absolutely good opportunity to look back on their school life or to talk about their future plan.