"bonenkai". It's derived from three seperate words-
"bo" is part of the word for "forget" (bookyaku suru).
"nen" is "year".
"kai" is "gathering" or "meeting".
And so "bonenkai" is when everyone gets together to celebrate the end of the year, to forget all the troubles of the year, and to look ahead to the next year.
The dojo actually had two bonenkai's, one for the kids in the morning and one for the adults at night. Both followed a final training class before Shiramizu went on holidays and both were very filling. There were also unlimited drinks in the one for adults, which helps when you're trying to forget things =-P........ although from the way the food looked, I'm not likely to forget.
Also during the party is when everyone gets a short speech about how their year went and what they're looking forward to for the next year. My was probably the shortest of them all, due to my limited Japanese, but........ A for effort I suppose ahha......
Aside from that little bit of busy-ness as the year winds down, Christmas is rather low key here. All the stores and all the people go through the formalities of decorating things and giving presents, but underneath it all, the 25th is still a working day for most people.
And, horror of all horrors, they don't do Boxing Day Sales! Oh noes.......
But that's ok, I have some time off so I'll be off to some short day trips around Tokyo to sights I've yet to see. So until then, please have a very Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year.
And remember................ don't do anything I wouldn't do =-P........
6 comments:
Merry Christmas Lawrence!
There is no such thing as boxing day in the states either, so you're not the only one suffering :)
The Japanese culture doesn't celebrate Christmas at all? I guess Santa avoids that section of the world altogether!
I thought that you would have come back to Vancouver for Christmas; I guess we'll see you in half a year?
Take care.
Garrett
Oh, I take that Santa comment back :)
Merry Christmas~!!! ^^
It is really smart to have a "bonenkai". We should all forget the bad times and unhappy things in the past and look forward to a better time in the New Year. Happy New Year and have a wonderful time in Japan.
I'll be back in August =).
But yeah, Santa does come around to Japan, but he doesn't have to do nearly as much work as he does in America or Canada or England haha.......
As for Boxing Day, no. But apparently Jan 1st is a big day for sales. You can buy these bags of "surprises" and see if you get something good (say, money inside). It's like gambling basically haha.....
And Merry Christmas to you too Noelle =)
and thanks dad. I'm very good at forgetting things so no problems there =)
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