Ceremonies

iPod morning commute music: Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde (1966)

This is probably my favorite all-time Dylan album. At over 70 minutes, it's a tour-de-force of Dylan's songwriting skills, blending genres and images into one helluva song list. It also boasts one of his most quoted lines (at least by me, since my high school days): "...To live outside the law you must be honest." (Absolutely Sweet Marie). To give you an idea of how great I think Blonde on Blonde is, I listened to it on Monday morning (short teachers' meeting, I didn't get around to posting, sorry about that) and again this morning. I could easily listen to it again on the way home. Even after all these years, it still surprises and pleases.

Japan is a country of ceremonies. One of the lingering traditional images is the tea ceremony, but that is only an obvious example of a cultural underpinning. I remember when I first watched sumo, how ridiculous the wrestlers looked when they hunched over, gave each other the evil eye until one of them stood up and stalked to the sacred salt, purifying the ring once more before slapping his belly while his opponent did the same. Now, this ritual, this ceremony, is such a part of sumo for me that watching highlights is uninteresting because it is edited out.

The Japanese school year is punctuated with ceremonies: In April, entrance ceremonies for new students, opening ceremonies for those returning; in February and March, graduation ceremonies for those moving on, closing ceremonies for those coming back. Every major school event, from Sports Days to Cultural Festivals, at every level from day care to university, begins and ends with a ceremony.

At my school, the Christmas Service is the most important ceremony of the year. This year, the service was held in Osaka's Catholic Cathedral. The brass band and string clubs provided most of the music, along with the PTA choir and the year group performances (each grade performs one, usually classical, piece). The highlight is Handel's Hallelujah chorus, performed by the seniors.

The music each class performs is the same each year; the seniors always sing the Hallelujah chorus. This is part of the ceremony, the ritual. At first it bothered me. I kept thinking, why don't they challenge something new? But after twenty years, it is another ritual I've come to understand and wouldn't want to go without.

You see it in the yes of the alumni as they mist up when the music begins, and they silently sing along with the graduating class. Across the generations, the ceremony binds them together, binds us together.

Christmas has begun.