Japanese Traditional Wedding Style: Shiromuku for Brides

I’ll write about Japanese traditional wedding ceremony. Especially, I’ll focus on Japanese women’s clothes or accessories for the traditional wedding ceremony. And I’m going to talk about the origins of those traditional things.

This is the typical Japanese women’s style called shiromuku.(白無垢) for traditional wedding ceremony . Brides at the wedding in shrines always wear white clothes like the woman shown in the photo. As you can see in the picture, everything including inner wears is pure white. Not only their clothes, but also their accessories such as hats, shoes and pouches are all white. Why Japanese brides have such custom to be covered with only white things on a day of wedding ceremony? It’s because “white” has been regarded by Japanese people as a symbol of pureness, cleanness or virginity. “White” can be dyed with any color, so shiromuku means that brides are ready to be dyed with color of groom. “White” has also been regarded as a sacred color for many years, so Japanese people have believed shiromuku to be suitable for the wedding ceremony held at sacred and religous places.

The white hats called wataboshi(綿帽子) or tsunokakushi(角隠し) is one of the essential parts of shiromuku. It is said that wataboshi is worn during the wedding ceremony and tsunokakushi is worn for wedding reception(結婚披露宴: kekkonhirouen) held after the ceremony. However, there are no special differences between those two hats today and brides usually can choose whichever they like. There are a lot of theories about the origin of those hats, but we can’t tell which is true. It’s not clear. One says that tsunokakushi(角: horn, 隠し: cover) has a meaning that brides become obedient to their grooms by covering brides’ heads which is considered to have horns like demons(鬼: oni) which symbolize anger. And another says that those hats are used to hide women’s long hair where bad spirits are considered to exist. There are also many other origins such as the traditional custom to hide women’s face from any other people except her grooms, the traditional clothes to avoid dust and so on.

Except tsunokakushi, there are other accessories which are important for Shiromuku style. In their bosoms, brides have a small sword (懐刀: futokorogatana) and a small box (箱迫: hakoseko) with a hand mirror or comb in it. They have a gold or silver fan(扇子: sensu) shown in the left picture and wear a pair of white slippers(草履: zouri). Those are all included in the traditional Shiromuku style.

Japanese-style Western Restaurant

I have been looking forward to today’s topic “globalization” because, in today’s Japan, I actually have had difficulty finding Japanese traditional cultures and taking photos representing Japanese cultures. There were few pure Japanese traditional cultures. It means that Japanese cultures hardly exist without modernization or globalization. When we think of today’s Japanese cultures, we can’t help thinking of combination of Japanese cultures and western cultures.

Today, I’ll introduce some interesting western food restaurants in Japan. You can see “globalization” in Japan by examining them. And, you will see that Japanese are not just imitating western cultures at the same time. They not only adopt various cultures from other countries but also adapt them to Japanese use.

This is the Italian spaghetti restaurant in Japan. Although this restaurant serves mainly spaghetti, it looks Japanese-style. There is a wooden shop sign carved with shop name in Kanji (五右衛門: Goemon: a typical name of Japanese man). The shop name is painted in black, which gives us an image of calligraphy. The food samples in front of the shop are displayed with background color of red and black, which reminds us of Japanese color for Hinomaru or Kabuki makeup(隈取：Kumatori). Moreover, this shop serves spaghetti with chopsticks! As you can see in the smallest picture, people eat spaghetti with chopsticks, drinking Japanese tea with tea cup(湯呑：yunomi）. These are very strange combination, but Japanese are creating our own Italian restaurant which cannot be found in Italy. We can call them Japanese-style Italian restaurant.

Tag: 洋麺屋五右衛門http://www.n-rs.co.jp/brand/youmenya.html

This is the French restaurant in Japan. This shop also has interesting combination of some Japanese-style interior designs and French food. You can see a chef wearing a white long cap. And, you can see some seats facing with the chef, which is similar to the sitting style of Sushi bar(寿司屋) in Japan. This style of sitting is often used to allow customers to see a cook making Sushi in front of them and to order menu from the cook easily. This French restaurant takes advantage of the sitting style to make Japanese people feel familiar with French food.

This is the picture of parfait in the Japanese sweet café. There are small rice cakes(白玉) and bean paste（餡子） in the cup and there are ice cream on the top. There is originally no so-called parfait in Japan, so this sweet is completely new. By combining the ice cream which is adopted from western countries and Japanese traditional sweet into a form of parfait, we can taste completely new food.

Now, it is sometimes hard to find Japanese traditional cultures which are not influenced by other cultures at all. Japanese people probably seem to be imitating foreign cultures, but it’s not true. They are adopting foreign cultures and making their own cultures by combining foreign cultures with Japanese traditional cultures. In the case of Japanese-style western restaurant I introduced today, Japanese people leave some parts of Japanese culture such as chopsticks, Japanese tea, and Sushi bar(寿司屋) style of sitting and so on, and are trying to adapt foreign cultures to Japanese style. Therefore, while Japanese traditional cultures are gradually weakening, the Japanese modern cultures are replacing today’s Japanese society.

Japanese Elderly People After Retirement

These pictures show elderly people playing gateball in a park. These pictures represent today’s Japan because they remind me of the aging society of Japan. More and more elderly people who retired spend their time on playing gateball with their local gateball teams. Playing gateball is one of typical leisure activities after retirement in Japan. A lot of elderly people participate in their local gateball teams. It is a good moderate exercise for elderly people. Moreover, it encourages them to go outside and allows them to have friends in their teams.

Gateball was originally invented in Hokkaido as a children’s sport in 1947. However, actually it didn’t become popular among children at all and fell into a decline at that time. Instead, it became very popular in 1960s as an elderly people’s sport because of its less physical fatigue. Now, it widely spread among elderly people and we can often see them playing gateball in parks. They are not only playing for their enjoyment but also practicing for official games. In fact, a lot of official gateball games are held in Japan.

My grandfather was a member of the local gateball team so I know a little about the activities of gateball team. I’ll write about it because it will help you to know more about gateball teams. Team member come together in the local park 6 days a week and play for about 2 hours in the morning every time. There are often special events especially on Sunday such as joint practices with other gateball teams or official games which are usually held in other parks, so the team members sometimes wake up early in the morning and go to far places to participate in the official games. The team members sometimes eat out together after 2 hours practices in the morning. And they sometimes clean up the park by picking up litter, fallen leaves or stones. Thus, gateball teams play a role not only as sport teams but also as city communities.

Under the today’s aging society, gateball has flourished as one of elderly people’s enjoyments after retirement. Gateball is a good way for them to communicate with others and to become a member of communities even after they retire from their companies. It is important for people to be involved in communities somehow or other.

Noren plays an important role

When I was walking a shopping arcade, those Japanese traditional shop curtain(or noren:暖簾) caught my eye. Noren is often found especially at the traditional shops or traditional arcades in Japan. Today, I’ll focus on noren.

As you can see in the pictures above, the name of the shops is printed on the noren. Now, shop names are usually printed on noren with several colors such as red, blue or sometimes green and so on. However, in former times, noren were originally colored with dyes such as black, brown or indigo blue, remaining only the letters white so that the shop names stand out against the background color.

Noren is considered to symbolize the shop itself, so the word noren is used in a symbolic sense. Here are some examples of Japanese expressions which include the word noren. “暖簾に傷がつく（lose one’s credit）” or “暖簾にかかわる（affect one’s honor）” are both using the word “noren” to mean “credit”, “honor” or reputation.

Noren is very important in terms of not only the symbolic sense but also its practicability. There are several important purposes of hanging noren at the entrance of the shops. Noren plays an important role as blinds. It can shut out the direct rays of the sun. It makes the room well ventilated at the same time. Moreover, noren also plays a significant role as divisions between inside and outside the shop so that what's going on inside is less exposed to the outside.

My Changing Hometown: Suita in Osaka

Today, I’ll introduce neighborhood Suita(吹田市) where I now live with my parents. I think the name Suita itself is not so familiar to most people. Quite a few people are surprised to know that Suita city is the place where International Exhibition(万国博覧会) was held in 1970. Now, there is a large Memorial Park (万博記念公園) at the area where the Exhibition was held. Therefore, we can say Suita is one of the most important cities in the world!

While Suita has such a world-famous park which tends to be considered a place for special events or festivals we can’t see in daily life, Suita is also famous for its residential area where people spend their daily lives. Because of its easy access to town center and comfortable environment which is neither noisy city nor solitary country, more and more people have decided to become residents of Suita. As a result of it, empty lots have been disappearing and the number of high buildings or new houses has rapidly increased.

Under the circumstances, however, I can find old apartments which are standing among new sophisticated houses. Old apartments surrounded by high buildings are not unusual in Suita, but those old buildings are now disappearing because of the land development on a large scale. Some decrepit apartments are forced to be reconstructed. Although I am one of the residents of newly developed area, anyway I feel sad about the decrease in such old houses. People of my parents’ generation especially seem to feel sad about it because those buildings remind them of their good old days in Showa period.

Even these types of old buildings shown in the right picture used to be regarded as the most fashionable houses especially in a rapid economic growth period of Japan. However, as the times change, those houses began to be considered as old fashioned houses. At the same time, the more high-tech houses have begun to receive people’s attention. People started to demand earthquake-resistant construction, security systems, wide electrical network systems and so on. In fact, these technology have enabled people to deal with today’s unsafe and information-oriented society.

I think both old fashioned and high-tech houses have their own advantages in each of them, so I hope that Suita will become a unique city where both “new” and “old” can exist together.
However, the environment of Suita’s residential area is in fact greatly changing because of the convenient location of Suita. That’s my developing hometown!

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Map of Osaka

More information about recent housing problems

Photo Collection of Showa-style housing

Baby Goods!?

What can you see in these two pictures? As you can see, these are strollers and wide variety of clothes, but they’re not pictures taken in Nishimatsuya(西松屋) or other children’s goods store. These pictures are actually taken in a pet shop in Japan. Now, you find that these goods have been produced for animals such as dogs or cats kept as pets.

Today, pets are getting more and more popular in Japan, which is quite noticeable as you see Japanese people walking their dogs on the streets or in the parks every day. In fact, the number of dogs kept as pets exceeds that of children under 15 years of age in Japan. People are likely to seek for a kind of healing effect in having pets. Now, the pets tend to be regarded as a member of family rather than an animal. Therefore, people take care of their pets by dressing them nicely or going out with their pets put in strollers as if dogs were their babies. One of the reasons why the small sized dogs(小型犬: kogataken) are especially popular is probably because that people want to let their dogs stay indoors as a member of their families. I think the dogs are downsized to fit the limited living space of Japan.

I think that this pets boom has something to do with a declining birth rate which is one of the recent serious problems in Japan. Japanese people are substituting pets for their babies and they seem to be satisfied with their pets. Quite a few people who have pets don’t feel attraction for having their real babies. The dogs might join a resident registrations network in the near future.