On the morning of August 14, my wife and I rose early, mumbling ohayō’s between sips of our morning coffee.
It was a special day. One where we would visit the graves of her ancestors. It was Obon, a time when the spirits of the ancestors come home. When they are closest to our world.
We drove an hour away from our city, through green mountains and spotted rice fields. The towns we passed were ghostly, tucked in the foothills, only a few years left in their lifespans before they too disappeared.
A Maeda grocery store sat near the stoplight we were at. The letters of its weathered sign were difficult to make out even in the daylight. While far from the pinnacle of modernity, it still looked out of place among the landscape. If you took a snapshot of this place, I wouldn’t have known what year it was.
We drove on further, making our way to the center of town. Orange and white lanterns hung on the streetlights, and the pulse of human activity grew slightly stronger than before. Pulling into the parking lot of the Universe grocery store, I saw the roof of the temple jutting out from behind the building.
Condensation streaked the windows of Universe. The promise of the coolness inside beckoning us as we swam through the dense humidity of the day. My wife told me we needed to buy makizushi and some okashi to give to her ancestors.
“What do you think is good? What do you want to eat?” she asked.
I looked at her in confusion. Around me, many elderly stared in a shocked stupor, apparently never having witnessed a foreigner in their grocery store before.
“I thought we were giving it to them?”
“We are. But afterwards we’ll eat it. We don’t leave it there.”
We chose a variety pack of makizushi — crab, nattō, egg — and then grabbed a manjū on the way out.
Trudging back out into the heat, we circled behind Universe. A gateway welcomed us in, and the old temple sat among the company of countless granite stones. The main pillar of each stone displayed carved kanji. The family name of the deceased.
With a Universe plastic bag in hand, I followed my wife towards the main temple. We took off our shoes, stepping onto the soft tatami. The smell of incense hung heavy in the air, stinging my eyes and reminding me of going to church as an elementary school student.
We knelt in front of the large incense holder and golden Buddhist prayer bowl. Taking four thin sticks of incense, my wife handed two to me.
“Light these, and then extinguish the flame like this.” She waved her hand back and forth to create a small breeze. “Don’t blow.”
I stuck the incense in the holder, a thin vein of smoke curving up towards the ceiling. My wife took the small mallet that lay next to the prayer bowl and struck it three times. The clear sound faded as it stretched to the dark wooden walls of the room.
Walking back outside, we filled a small bucket with water and moved over to her family’s grave. Using a large ladle, I poured the water over the black granite. My wife lit incense again, placing them in the small holder attached to the grave.
She put the makizushi and manjū on the ledge of the stone, then arranged the pink flowers next to them. “We are supposed to stay until the incense stick stops burning,” she explained. “That is how long your ancestors stay here for.”
We waited quietly as they visited, watching the incense rise like a ghost of August.
Back out in the car, we headed towards the house of one of her relatives. Visiting the homes of her family members and praying at each butsudan was also an important part of Obon.
As the car wound through the narrow road, shadowed by trees, I wondered what it meant to be a part of a culture.
Visiting graves during the Obon holiday in Japan was something I could never have imagined doing. I wondered if it had become a part of my culture. As part of the family, it was now expected of me to participate in these types of rituals.
Culture is a complex and multifaceted entity — it is effervescent, changing and molding, experienced by different people in different ways. It is a collective phenomenon that grows organically.
To my wife and her family, this was now my culture, too. To some, a foreigner participating in ohakamairi might be looked down upon. By others, it might be celebrated.
Either way, if there was a door to culture, my wife had opened it and said, “You need to come with me.”
We spent the rest of the day visiting her relatives’ homes, lighting incense and praying at the Buddhist altar. My wife thanked me for coming with her. She smiled brightly.
I didn’t have to question my acceptance then.
As the night dwindled and we celebrated the day with a barbecue at her family home, I wondered what everyone prayed about during their visits to the graves. I don’t know exactly what my wife said during those prayers, but I believe she welcomed back her ancestors.
I had thought it would be odd if I welcomed them back, so instead I had introduced myself. I thought that couldn’t hurt. I’m sure they were just as surprised to see me as I was to be there.