Passing on cultural traditions

Posted on June 10, 2013 by moonbridgebooks

Today’s BlogHer Find Your Roots prompt is about family traditions. Of course we in the States have our standard holidays with their traditions, with some variation by family. The only special cultural tradition I’ve kept from my childhood has to do with New Year Good Luck Foods. There are no other Dutch traditions I know of.

My Japanese side has a LOT of cultural traditions. I think the Japanese have the most holidays and celebrations of any country, but they don’t get celebrated much by Japanese in the States. I don’t know anyone here who throws roasted soybeans out the door in February for Setsubun, shouting, “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” That  means, “Demons get out! Happiness come in!” Japanese have a thing for cleaning the house of dirt and bad spirits each year and starting fresh. I do clean the house extra well just prior to New Year’s Day, like the spring cleaning tradition in the U.S. which I suspect most people don’t follow anymore. I don’t know if my Japanese friends do this New Year cleaning anymore either, but I just can’t stop myself. Mom taught me well.

I’m fortunate to live in St. Louis where we have the annual Japanese Festival on Labor Day weekend at the Missouri Botanical Garden. MoBot has the biggest and arguably the most lovely Japanese garden in the country, and the biggest Japanese Festival. That’s when everyone becomes part Japanese. People of all races are seen wearing yukata, the cotton summer kimono which are sold by a vendor there. We dance around the yagura, a raised stage holding a singer/leader and taiko drummers. This folk dancing is done as part of the annual Obon festival, where in Japan the people welcome back the spirits of deceased ancestors for a few days. There is so much going on at our St. Louis festival, like a crash course in all things Japanese. My mother dearly loved it because it made her feel she was back in Japan. You can see my video of the St. Louis Japanese Festival on YouTube. Especially now that my mother is gone, I have to keep up the tradition of bon dancing, or bon odori. Tsukiga … deta deta ….

Tossing mist during a "Tanabata" Star Festival storytelling

Tossing mist during a “Tanabata” Star Festival storytelling

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Tell me a story! Got any family stories?

Posted on June 7, 2013 by moonbridgebooks

That’s the BlogHer Find Your Roots prompt for today. Family stories! Hmm. My Dad doesn’t have any actual stories, mostly details and explanations of growing up on a little farm around Chicago chasing loose cows and breathing in the dust from baling hay. My mom was the storyteller in the family. Her stories are all in her memoir, Cherry Blossoms in Twilight. I don’t remember all that much from when I was little, so I can’t believe how good her memory was.

One of my favorite stories of Mom’s was how she and a friend, as teen girls tired of pigtails and wearing drab colored clothing to camouflage themselves from warplanes, decided to ride their bikes out to the hairdresser to get permanents. Mom’s mother warned them it was dangerous, but off they went pedaling down the path between tea fields, carrying charcoal to make the fire to heat the curlers. They heard the whine of a warplane behind them in the distance and pedaled faster. But the whine got louder and louder until the plane was so close they threw their bikes down on the dirt road and jumped into the tea bushes. Rat-a-tat-tat, the plane dove in and shot up their bikes, leaving the girls to walk their bikes the rest of the way to the hairdresser and all the way back. When they finally returned, my grandmother shook her head, saying, “You girls are foolish! Your lives are more important than curly hair.”

Girls will be girls, I guess, war or no war.

My mom (left) kept her hair curly almost all the rest of her life

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Where does your name come from?

Posted on June 6, 2013 by moonbridgebooks

Today’s BlogHer Find Your Roots prompt asks where my name came from. Am I named after someone in the family? Nope. Even though I am Japanese-Dutch, my first name is Spanish. My mom saw a movie and liked the main character’s name. Then my parents forgot everything about the movie, even the title. My namesake character must have been boring! My middle name is Japanese, though, but I think my mom just liked the sound of it, no significance. Linda Emiko means beautiful blessed one in the two different languages. And how fitting of me to have names in two languages because I am good at mixing different languages. Usually I mix Spanish and French, but since I learned a little Japanese a few summers ago, I can mix all three languages now. I know just enough to sound ridiculous.

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