Summer is about one thing – heat. You can choose to fight it, or embrace it like a lover. I’m a lover of everything summer, so when the sun is out, so am I, at the BBQ. Japanese love the grill as much as anybody, so I invite as many friends as I can and head for one of the thirteen areas I can host a BBQ. Being an Izumisano boy, I like to grill a few burgers at Rinku Town Park, where you can BBQ without fees or reservations.

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The people of Okinawa don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter or many of the religious holidays many westerners are familiar with. But they do have plenty of their own special holidays and traditions to speak of. They even have one or two that are not celebrated elsewhere in Japan. One holiday in particular that is celebrated throughout the month of April is called Seimei. Pronounced “She Me” in the local dialect, it’s a gathering of all the family that is rich with ritual and tradition that goes back for hundreds of years.

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Its spring here on Okinawa and everything as far as the eye can see is turning a bright fresh shade of green. That reminded me that St. Paddy’s day is upon us once again. I’m not Irish but having lived in Okinawa these last few years, I couldn’t help but notice the many similarities between these two peoples. It almost seemed to be too many to count let alone ignore!

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For all of you girls out there, your special day is coming up soon on March 3.  That’s right – Hina Matsuri!

Hina Matsuri is said to originally come from an old Chinese tradition of transferring your bad luck to a doll and floating the doll down the river.  In Japan, the tradition eventually became the celebration for young girls that it is today.  Families with young girls set out beautiful, expensive hina doll sets like the one in the picture, which represent the royal family. The girls get to eat special sweets and snacks and drink amazake, or “sweet sake”, which is made from rice malt instead of alcohol.

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photo credit: mick62

Most people who come to Japan know about Setsubun, the bean-throwing holiday which comes on the 3^rd of February, but most of them do not know about another very special tradition that only happens in Osaka during the same time. Well, if you haven’t already guessed from the title, it’s Japanese Halloween. On the 2^nd and 3^rd of every February, everything from Snow White to sexy nurses to Geisha costumes can be seen after dark on the brightly lit streets of Kitashinchi in Umeda. If one is unaware of this tradition which is only celebrated in Osaka, one might be very confused if “accidentally” stumbling into Kitashinchi after dark. Much like Halloween, wearing “scary” costumes during this time is meant to ward off evil spirits.

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photo credit: sor

“Setsu-bun” according to Wikipedia is the day before the beginning of each season. The name literally means “seasonal division”, but usually the term refers to the spring Setsubun.

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