card naming new baby tacked to edge of Japanese household altar
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by Hugh Cook |
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Section 104 Entry 0001. Date: 2004 April 29 Thursday.
(diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents) Japan is still, in very many ways, a nation of ceremony, and so the birth of a baby is (naturally) accompanied by a certain amount of ceremony. Seven days after my daughter was born, she was given a name - in Japan, it is, apparently, a standard custom to name a child seven days after birth. In my mother-in-law's house in Gunma Prefecture there is, up high near the ceiling in the corner of one room, a little altar, and candles were lit there, and offerings made, and a name card was tacked to the edge of the altar. The top of the name card is shown in the photo below, with the kanji reading "kotobuki" ("congratulations") shown on the right. (This kanji, incidentally, is the "su" of "sushi," but that is completely irrelevant.) |
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card naming new baby tacked to edge of Japanese household altar |
 Kanji for kotobuki - in English, "felicitations" |
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The top of the card is shown in the photo above. Down below, out of sight, are the names of the parents, the date of the naming day (seven days after the baby's birth) and, of course, the name of the child.
The white things sticking out of the vases very close to the lighted candles are made of paper. The house is made of wood. Japan has many earthquakes. There are very few old wooden buildings in Japan. (The foregoing facts may possibly be connected.) The photo below shows the top of the altar with offerings. On the far left it is just possible to see the edge of a glass of wine (dry white Australian sparkling wine). Out of sight, over to the right, is a second glass which balances the display. In the center, behind the two vases, is a saucer on which sit two manjū (or, if you like, manjuu - or, ignoring the long vowel, manju.) Manju being buns filled with bean paste. For sad occasions, such as funerals, only black and white manju are used. But for happy ceremonies, such as a ceremony for naming a baby or a ceremony for entering elementary school, red and white manju are used. (The "red" manju seem to be only rhetorically red. As the camera sees them, they are pink.) |
 household altar with offerings - white card center rear is probably a good-luck charm obtained from a local Shinto shrine in the New Year period |
 Kanji for kouhaku manjuu - showing long vowels as macrons, kōhaku manjū - this translates as "red and white manju" |
 On the left, three manju (manjuu - manjū), one showing inner bean filling ... on the right, something else, made of sweet and chewy rice, the name of which I seem to have gone and written down wrongly, as I can't find it in the dictionary. Note that the photographed pinks are rhetorically "red" - on the saucer there is a white manju to the left, a red manju to the right, and a red (partly-eaten) manju in the front |
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While we contented ourselves with white and red manju for the naming day ceremony, apparently on a day like this it would be standard practice for a Japanese family to consume special ceremonial rice, a red rice with sweet red beans. This dish is called "sekihan".
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 Kanji for sekihan - a special dish of red rice with sweet red beans |
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On the eighth day of life the stump of the child's umbilical cord fell off (there is no timetabled day for this to happen - it just happens when it happens) and it was retrieved and placed in a special box (a present from the hospital). The black raisin shown in the photo below is the stump, which will be ceremonially preserved; the two pink things are hospital ID bands worn in hospital by mother and daughter. (Some lettering visible on one of the bands is, I think, part of the brand name of the ID bands.)
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 box for ceremonially preserving stump of baby's umbilical cord pictured with pink ID bands worn in hospital by mother and daughter |
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