...And God Created Sushi

Facts first- Shinto and Buddhism are two major religions in Japan but Japan is a confusing place.  People consider themselves either Shinto or Buddhist, neither Shinto nor Buddhist, and often times both. On the surface, Japanese do not appear religious, not in the monotheistic sense, not like those of us who think Christ actually died and rose from death for our sins, fancy that, or, that the Quran teachings and its practical applications such as four wives are the way forward in 2012.

Ironically, days before Christmas, Christopher Hitchens, one of my best loved Vanity Fair columnists and a crusader against all things religious lost brutal battle to cancer.  The New York Times tore up its front page on midnight the day Hitchens died to make room for his obituary. Half of my Facebook friends appeared to be in mourning for the loud atheist when I began thinking about this piece on Christmas in Tokyo. The moment was right to brush up on my knowledge of world’s religions, read a few obits, send some Christmas cards and revisit the writings of evolutionary biologist and my favourite man of science- Richard Dawkins.

Japan is a special place on regular days but come Christmas it turns unquestionably odd.  Consider this; 80% Japanese claim no religious affiliation, 64% do not believe in God  and 55% do not believe in Buddha. And yet 93% of the Japanese people do practise some Shinto, meaning "the way of the gods".

Furthermore, Buddhism doesn’t have the concept of Creator God and Shinto is a polytheistic religion, meaning many little deities or ‘gods’. The concept of a God is a hard-sell in Japan subsequently making the concept of atheism equally difficult to interpret. They do have the word for it,  無神論,  but it has a more general meaning, like ‘ not believing in the system’.

And yet, for 3 weeks in December, Tokyo gave impression of being more Christian than the Pope, for not believing ‘in the system’ inspired the most systematic display of marketing and sales tactics I have ever seen. So what’s up with that? 

Buddhism and Shintoism and the Christmas Sales

Buddhism (arrived from China with the opening of the Silk Route in the 2nd century BC )  and Shintoism had a very public breakup in the late 19th century but continued to ‘see each other socially’. Buddhist temples have been built on the sites of the Shinto shrines. My hairdresser, lovely Ken, tried to explain, he is a Buddhist in life but will become a Shintoist when he dies. It is hard to imagine a religion that contents itself on recruiting dead people for members but it is best to never argue with a man holding scissors and hair spray.

Shintoism, native to Japan, originated in prehistoric times, claims no single founder, no ‘church’ canon, no rule book, and fundamentally is a respect for nature, the sun, rock formations, trees, even sounds. Each of these is associated with a deity, or kami. Effectively, Shintoists can, and do worship a flower, a fruit, a beach pebble, or the entire beach (that and the custom of eating lobster on New Year’s makes Shinto something I could easily subscribe to).

So here is a nation of Shinto and Buddhist non-believers and yet in December there is no getting away from the tacky Western holiday tunes and hideous plastic decorations made in 'communist' China. While Buddhism and Shintoism are native to Japan, Christianity in the land of the rising sun is all about the imported plastic from China and Christmas sales, imported pageantry of an imported religion.
Japanese love of toys and cute (kawai) décor reaches epic proportions in the weeks leading up to Dec 24. All the sushi bento boxes come with Merry Christmas stickers, we had three great Christmas trees installed in the lobby of our building and giant panda toys got dressed in outfits more befitting Finnish reindeer.

Flashback

For me, New Year’s Eve in Gstaad 2011 was a particularly debauched experience. It involved all manner of deliciously derelict behaviour with dear old friends, followed by many days of quiet contemplation and self-loathing. In fact I spent the entire month of January making promises to reform my ways. I also decided to seek more mainstream experiences in 2012- and what is more mainstream than going to places of worship with a bunch of people who actually do not believe.
(I also vowed to be less cynical)

Meiji Jingu in Tokyo was my shrine of choice for the New Year’s. While my friends rang in the New Year in Gstaad again in a tight embrace with a champagne bottle, I was standing in a disciplined line with some 500,000 disciplined Japanese surrounded by cedar trees and hundreds of municipal traffic supervisors shouting instructions ‘move to the left, stay in line, move to the right, stay in line’.
Dressed like Nanook of the North, in a public park on December 31 and not understanding a single instruction I was in a bewildered awe of the contrast of my life experiences. At midnight the gong and the drums went off 108 times (for 108 passions of the human soul) but as I was trying to disable flash on my blackberry I missed the poignancy of the moment. A million people tossed coins in the direction of the main temple.

I leave you with the thoughts of Fukuzawa Yukichi, one of the founders of modern Japan, writer, entrepreneur, founder of the Keio University and a political theorist who also appears on the back of the 10,000 yen note.

"It goes without saying that the maintenance of peace and security in society requires a religion. For this purpose any religion will do. I lack a religious nature, and have never believed in any religion. I am thus open to the charge that I am advising others to be religious while I am not so....Of religions there are several kinds - Buddhism, Christianity, and what not. From my standpoint there is no more difference between those than between green tea and black...See that the stock is well selected and the prices cheap"

Suggested Reading and Trivia

The God Delusion, author Richard Dawkins
Bible, author disputed

According to Amazon.co.uk website, publishing of the book ‘The God Delusion’ led to a 50% growth in sales of books on religion and spirituality (including anti-religious books of Christopher Hitchens) and a 120% increase in the sales of the Bible.