Weekend Warrior
This double post will cover both Saturday & Sunday. On weekends I work as a Wedding Minsister. I go to a Wedding Ceremony Hall in Tokushima (about 1 1/2 hrs away on Shikoku) and perform wedding ceremonies for Japanese couples.
First of all, I'm not a real Minister. I'm not exactly a Christian either. I would classify myself as more Buddhist orientated - although I don't really like how Buddhism is practiced in Japan either. More on that in another post some time in the future.
Of course the couples I'm marrying aren't Christian either. I've read that only about 10% of Japanese are Christian and I think even that's a stretch. If the couples were real Christians they could get married at a real church. That's the other thing, the wedding hall I work at is not a church. It's just a business, with a few small chapels and many large banquet rooms for receptions. Weddings are big business in Japan. Traditional Shinto style weddings, typically reserved for the immediate family only, are not fashionable. Young Japanese think that Western style weddings with tuxedos and white weddings dresses are very romantic. Part of the fashion is to have a Western minister (read as white male) perform the service. This is where I come in. As I'm both white and male I'm suddenly fashionable (perhaps for the first and only time).
Many people ask my why I do this job? Well there are several answers. The most obvious is that it pays very well. For a very busy month my weekend salary will triple my high school salaryl. Secondly, the service is all in Japanese, so it is very good practice for me. Thirdly, weddings are a joyous occasion and everytime I do it I remember how I felt at my wedding.
This weekend I only had weddings on Sunday. Saturday was a 'butsumetsu' day, an unlucky day. It signifies the day that Buddha died so it is not considered an auspicious day to marry. Because I had the day off I was able to go to a party at my friend Dan's place. It was good mixture of Japanese and foreigners. Many of the people are members of the same Japanese language school that I go to. Unfortunately, due to my Sunday wedding schedule Yukiko and I had to leave early.
Well that's it for the weekend. Yukiko and I are watching the 1st season of '24' on DVD with Japanese subtitles for Yukiko. I've already seen it once, but it's interesting watching it again knowing which characters are hiding things.
First of all, I'm not a real Minister. I'm not exactly a Christian either. I would classify myself as more Buddhist orientated - although I don't really like how Buddhism is practiced in Japan either. More on that in another post some time in the future.
Of course the couples I'm marrying aren't Christian either. I've read that only about 10% of Japanese are Christian and I think even that's a stretch. If the couples were real Christians they could get married at a real church. That's the other thing, the wedding hall I work at is not a church. It's just a business, with a few small chapels and many large banquet rooms for receptions. Weddings are big business in Japan. Traditional Shinto style weddings, typically reserved for the immediate family only, are not fashionable. Young Japanese think that Western style weddings with tuxedos and white weddings dresses are very romantic. Part of the fashion is to have a Western minister (read as white male) perform the service. This is where I come in. As I'm both white and male I'm suddenly fashionable (perhaps for the first and only time).
Many people ask my why I do this job? Well there are several answers. The most obvious is that it pays very well. For a very busy month my weekend salary will triple my high school salaryl. Secondly, the service is all in Japanese, so it is very good practice for me. Thirdly, weddings are a joyous occasion and everytime I do it I remember how I felt at my wedding.
This weekend I only had weddings on Sunday. Saturday was a 'butsumetsu' day, an unlucky day. It signifies the day that Buddha died so it is not considered an auspicious day to marry. Because I had the day off I was able to go to a party at my friend Dan's place. It was good mixture of Japanese and foreigners. Many of the people are members of the same Japanese language school that I go to. Unfortunately, due to my Sunday wedding schedule Yukiko and I had to leave early.
Well that's it for the weekend. Yukiko and I are watching the 1st season of '24' on DVD with Japanese subtitles for Yukiko. I've already seen it once, but it's interesting watching it again knowing which characters are hiding things.
posted by Jason at 10:04 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home