2nd Celebrating Japanese Tradition in HI
●Let’s celebrate “Okuizome”! Traditions may be fading, but to me it’s the sign of the times when you can Google “okuizome” and get the complete history and rundown of how to prepare the whole shebang. Aaah, the Internet is the greatest gift to the knowledge-impaired! After I’d figured out what foods to prepare and how to plate them properly, the rest was pretty simple. Lucky I live Hawaii — one trip to Marukai was all I needed to gather the fixings for nimono, pickles, osumashi, and sekihan. Then my mom picked up an ono piece of whole fresh red snapper at Chinatown. The okuizome spread also called for some stones to symbolize the growth of strong bones and teeth. I couldn’t be bothered to go out and pick rocks, so I stole a few from my daughter’s rock collection instead.
The actual ceremony was short and anti-climactic — never mind that a meal that took two hours to prepare served its purpose in a mere five minutes — especially because Ry doesn’t actually eat any of this stuff. Basically the eldest male in the household (which in our case is my husband, Paul) pretends to feed the baby each food, in a particular order. The best part of dinner was watching Kyrie go hysterical over noticing her precious little rocks were a part of the offering – SHOCK! HORROR! First she wanted them back. Then, she changed her mind, grabbed an empty bowl, put all her rocks in it, and dumped it on the lacquer tray. We begged her to let us use just a couple of them until we finished taking pictures, all the time laughing under our breaths at how ridiculous this whole thing was becoming. But alas, we had completed an important ceremony. Ry, may you live long and healthy!!
So far, Ry is turning out to be one blessed Hawaii-bred baby, even beyond what is expected of growing up in Japan. When he was still in utero, I received a blessing at Tokyo’s Suitengu Shrine, home to the god of “safe delivery”. A few weeks after he was born, the whole fam visited the Izumotaisha shrine in Honolulu for his first “omiya mairi” and baby blessing ceremony. Omiya mairi is typically done at around 32 days after birth but my in-laws were only in town for a short while, so it had to be done when the babe was two weeks old. Very loose on the rules, but that’s also Hawaii for ya. The shrine itself is very modest by Japanese standards, located near the business district, of all places, on the edge of Chinatown and across the street from a mortuary. Yes, joggers would occasionally mistake the cleansing water for a public water fountain, but I guess that also adds to the charm of having a traditional Japanese shrine in the middle of the urban landscape.
I was completely clueless as to what I was supposed to be doing, so thank god for my mother-in-law who knew exactly how to slip into the kimono whilst carrying the wiggly baby. (How does she remember? The last time she did this was when Paul was a baby… that was over 30 years ago!?). I suspect we’ll be visiting Izumo-san, which for generations has been a sanctuary for Hawaii’s Japanese immigrants, for more celebrations to come – hatsumoude, shichigo-san, and perhaps even another hatsu-mairi? |
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娘：エリン･霧江(きりえ)、愛称きーちゃん。外見は恥かしがり屋、家では結構「キレちゃう」典型的内弁慶。ハロー･キティとパパをこよなく愛す保育園児。ちなみに、ハワイの人達のひとついいところは名前に「ちゃん」付けをしても分かってくれること。サンフランに住んでた頃、「きーちゃん、きーちゃん」と呼んでる私は廻りの人に「なんだそりゃ？ 中国語かい？」と聞くかの様に変な顔をされました。こっちでは白人でも平気に「きーちゃん」と呼んでくれます。 
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