Untangling My Chopsticks (22 page)

Yasu had already warmed up the television earlier that night, as he regularly did throughout the week. Despite Tomiko's disapproval, Yasu usually watched television before, during, and after dinner. He particularly liked game shows, often featuring male hosts egging on giggling teenage girls as they engaged in beat-the-clock-type competitions. Usually domestic in nature, they included such games as folding a pile of rumpled shirts or vacuuming a rug scattered with rice.

Ten seconds before midnight, we joined the television audience as they counted down the year of the rabbit. BANG! The television screen filled with red and white streamers and we all bowed and wished each other “
Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu
(The year is changing and darkness is giving away to light to begin a New Year. Congratulations)!”

As Yasu popped open a giant Kirin—the champagne of Japanese beers—Tomiko placed bowls of special buckwheat noodle soup at everyone's place, since the noodles represent long life. They are also said to bring prosperity, because in the past silversmiths and goldsmiths used to pick up the scraps of metal in their workshops with soba noodle dough. A salty seafood vapor wafted up from my soup bowl, holding a wobbly poached egg in a nest of gray noodles. A pink wheat gluten flower and sprig of Japanese chervil lay submerged in the hot dashi broth, along with two round slices of
kamaboko,
the springy sweet fish paste eaten all over Japan.

Most fish paste is fabricated from the flesh of white fish (usually shark) that is pureed, thickened with starch, then steamed until cooked through, before it is sliced and added to soups and other dishes. It is usually colored white.

But not that night. Tomiko had bought a special Oshogatsu fish paste at Nishiki market so that when we looked into our
bowls we beheld an edible landscape of cresting azure waves against a rose horizon under an orange setting sun.

In honor of the New Year, Tomiko had also calligraphied everyone's name onto white paper wrappers of special Oshogatsu chopsticks. Made of willow wood, they tapered at both ends, like the cedar Rikyu-bashi used at a tea kaiseki. Under my name was a figure eight knot tied from threads of red, white, yellow, purple, black, silver, and gold. Above my name was a shiny gold kanji character that said “happy.” In that spirit I began slurping down the hot noodles, while a young Japanese pop star wailed in the background.

Twenty minutes later, Yasu and I climbed into Tomiko's Honda with her at the wheel. Her mother had decided to stay home, so the three of us throttled off to Honen-in Temple, a small building secluded in the woods near the Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion Temple).

Considered one of Kyoto's top tourist spots, Ginkaku-ji was built as a private villa for the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who moved into his residence upon its completion in 1483. Apparently more interested in aesthetics than politics, Yoshimasa devoted most of his time to admiring women, sniffing incense, and strolling through his lush garden.

To further enhance the view, the aesthete planned to cover his pavilion in silver leaf in honor of his grandfather, who had coated Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion Temple) in gold leaf. But the villa never received its fancy foil. In 1485 Yoshimasa became a Zen Buddhist monk and five years later upon his death the villa became a Buddhist temple.

It is a Japanese tradition, even if you are Shinto, to visit a Buddhist temple on New Year's Eve to hear the tolling of the gong or bell. Polytheism is common in Japan. Most Japanese en
gage in Shinto rituals and observe Buddhist practices. Siddhartha Gautama, more commonly known as Buddha, claimed that all of life is suffering and the cause of suffering is desire (or ego attachments). But Buddha had a solution for ceasing the suffering in people's lives: follow the Noble Eight-Fold path. The path consists of eight equally important goals, including right understanding; right thought; right speech; right action; right livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; and right meditation. And when a person finally embodied these praxes, he could reach nirvana (release from worldly engagement).

Since Buddhists believe that man has 84,000 desires, figuratively represented by the number 108, temple bells toll 108 times at midnight on New Year's Eve all over Japan. The theory is that if a Buddhist practitioner hears every toll, he can symbolically dispel all 108 desires from the past year.

The bell was ringing in the distance as we headed down the Philosopher's Path en route to the temple. This cherry tree–lined trail was named after the twentieth-century Kyoto University philosophy professor Kitaro Nishida (1870 –1945). Known for his comparisons of Western and Zen philosophies, Nishida would regularly stroll this one-and-a-half-mile route to contemplate life.

The night was unseasonably warm. Most women wore ornate kimonos or fancy Western clothes; the men had on dressy slacks and sweaters. Perhaps in deference to me, Yasu and Tomiko had also worn blue jeans and tennis shoes. I had dressed for a walk in the woods.

After fifteen minutes of strolling down a sandy path lit with stone lanterns, we crossed the bridge over the canal and found our way through the bamboo groves to Honen-in Temple, where in a sort of roofed wooden corral hung the bell. People were yanking a thick rope attached to a smooth wooden log, sending it crash
ing into the hollow green metal vessel to release a loud bong. Tomiko and Yasu went first, pulling on the rope and then bowing and clapping to Buddha. They then stood back to watch me do the same. I hesitated, wondering if an Episcopalian should be doing such a thing. The thought evaporated when a bonze in black and yellow robes beckoned me forward to ring the bell. In seconds, we were hurrying off to the Kamigamo Shrine, where Yasu and Tomiko had gotten married.

Built in 679 and dedicated to Raijin—the god of thun-der—the massive complex houses two glittering cones of silvery-white sand said to represent mountains upon which the god could rest. After passing under a huge orange gate, a symbolic form of Shinto purification, suddenly we heard a shout.

“Konbanwa!” It was Mr. Omura, dressed in an elegant black sweater and charcoal slacks. He trotted under the entrance gate to join us along the expansive gravel path. “Happy New Year,” he wheezed, accepting a lit match from Yasu. He inhaled, then turned away and blew out a stream of smoke. When I asked him if he had come with family, he laughed.

“Too many people to drag away from their noodles.” He ground out his cigarette in the gravel. “Hold on,” he said, then disappeared into the dark.

While we waited for him in the courtyard, several Japanese stepped up to a wooden box topped with wooden slats that looked like a giant hibachi. They tossed in coins, then tugged on a multicolored cotton rope, thick as a tree trunk, to sound a bell. After clapping twice to summon the resident
kami
(god) they bowed their heads in worship. Money and prayers at a Shinto shrine were originally offerings of thanks to the particular god (of sun, rain, thunder, etc.) in exchange for a blessing bestowed upon
the worshipper's crops. Nowadays, the god's blessing can be bestowed upon anything.

“Here,” said Mr. Omura, slightly out of breath as he handed me a paper charm. I thanked him, then looked at Tomiko and Yasu.

“You tie it to the tree and make a wish,” said Tomiko. I stepped over to a pine tree fluttering with hopes and attached my talisman. I closed my eyes and wished for something that would come true in August 1991, then tied the paper to a branch.

It was nearly 1:30 when we waved good-bye to Mr. Omura and headed back to the car. Just as we passed under the orange gate, Tomiko stopped and reached into her jean jacket pocket.

“This is for you,” she said, handing me a small red brocade bag. Inside was a tiny white ceramic rabbit with a purple cord looped around its neck.

“For good luck,” said Yasu, grinning. I thanked the couple in the politest form of Japanese that I knew, then placed my hands in a prayer position and bowed deeply. But the sentiments felt inadequate.

So breaking all rules of Japanese etiquette, I gave them both a huge American hug.

These are the nutty buckwheat noodles that families all over Japan enjoy on New Year's Eve to bring them good luck and a long life. Although recipes vary from family to family, this special soup always includes soba in a base of dashi. Kamaboko is available in Japanese markets, often in the freezer section. If you buy the fish cake frozen, thaw it before slicing. For an added punch, sprinkle on some
shichimi,
a seven-spice mixture containing cayenne pepper available at any Japanese market.

• One ¾-pound bunch spinach, rinsed, tough stems removed
  

• 5 cups dashi (
  page 48
  )
  

• 5 tablespoons soy sauce
  

• 1½ tablespoons sugar
  

• 1 tablespoon mirin
  

• Twelve ¼-inch-thick slices kamaboko (fish cake)
  

• 4 large eggs
  

• 8 ounces dried soba
  

• 4 sprigs mitsuba (Japanese wild chervil)
  

1. Bring a small amount oflightly salted water to a boil in a medium shallow saucepan. Add the spinach, cover, and steam over low heat until the leaves have collapsed and just wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. Drain, form the spinach into a bundle, and lightly roll in a clean tea towel to remove excess water. Cut the spinach bundle into four pieces.
   

2. Pour the dashi into a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the soy sauce, sugar, and mirin and bring to a simmer. Add the sliced fish cake.
   

3. Using the same saucepan used to cook the spinach, poach the eggs until soft in the middle. Keep warm.
   

4. Bring a medium pot ofwater to a boil. Add the soba and cook according to package directions until al dente. Drain.
   

5. For each serving of soup, use a two-prong carving fork to twirl one fourth of the soba into a coiled nest. Place in a large soup bowl and add a bundle of spinach. Gently arrange an egg over the noodles and then arrange several slices of fish cake near the egg. Carefully ladle the broth around the noodles and garnish the soup with a sprig of mitsuba.
   

Makes 4 servings

13.

cold snap occurred overnight, so that when I awoke on New Year's Day the gray tile rooftops outside my window were fuzzed with a thin layer of snow. It was hardly a day for swimming, but that is what Yasu had in mind, as he did every January 1, when he drove to a lake in northern Kyoto to join his swimming club in a Shinto purification ritual. About forty students ranging in age from seven to seventy would meet at the lake and paddle through the icy water until their instructor told them to stop. The plunge had been scheduled for noon, to allow plenty of time for New Year's visits and breakfast.

Like families all over Japan, that morning we tucked into a special New Year's breakfast soup called
ozoni.
Although recipes vary from region to region, they all contain mochi because the pounded rice dumplings symbolize the breaking of “bread” with
the New Year's deity Toshigami-sama. The rest of the ingredients in the soup, aside from the dashi base, vary according to what is fresh and regionally available. So around Hiroshima, for example, cooks add oysters, prawns, and saltwater eel caught from the nearby Inland Sea to their ozoni, while natives of Tokyo toss in nubbins of chicken, sliced fish cake, and spinach-like greens. For those living in Kyoto, the ozoni always includes lots of sweet white miso.