Sunday, December 18, 2005

End of the year Oh-souji (That's "cleaning house" to we lesser mortals)

Being married to a very unconventional Japanese woman has it's advantages.

One of the things I love about my wife the most is that she doesn't feel so terribly bound by the customs and traditions of Japanese society. For those of you who know little or nothing about Japan, let me just say that life can be pretty oppressive for a Japanese woman living in Japan. Social rules/conventions, superficial human relationships and the constant watchful eye of others who will quickly inform you that you are sticking out (when you should be fitting in) and disrupting the group harmony are the main reasons- in a nutshell.

But my wife, she really doesn't have much truck with Japanese society simply because she avoids it in most cases.
Knowing Japan and Japanese people as well as I do makes her all the more astounding. This of course makes life a lot easier and smoother for me too.

But on occassion, my dear wife "Japs-out" and one such time of the year is the end of December, when she, usually on the one day I want to rest or nurse a cold, decides that the entire house must be purged of the following:

1. Everything (materially speaking) that I hold dear.

2. All the warm air inside the house (something else I hold dear when it is 35 outside). She opens all the doors and windows.

3. All the stuff she should toss out during the whole 12 months preceeding this fateful day, but failed to do.

4. The last 3 weeks worth of dirty laundry.

Following said purging, a terrrible cold or headache soon follows.


Now I realize that this end of the year stuff is a Japanese tradition and all, but coming from my wife, well, it makes it all the more strange. It is as if she has been repressing her need for fullfillment as a Japanese national all year and then lets go with a vengeance!

I guess I shouldn't complain about the house getting cleaned.

Even stranger is that I am somehow infected, or rather influenced by all this frantic floor sweeping. Three weeks of free time are staring me in the face. I have to do something~ cleaning, organizing....

Maybe I will sell off some stuff on Ebay?

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