Seven Things Meme - Part One.

Comment to this post and I will pick seven things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

learnteach (who I knew I could count on to come up with some good stuff) gave me the following:

giri, sake', monkey, dance, seltzer, wide-eyed, culture.

Giri (with a hard G) is usually roughly translated into English as meaning duty or moral obligation, usually with the caveat that there is no easy way to translate it. Remember how everyone was marveling at the patience and cooperation exhibited by the Japanese after the tsunami? It wasn't particularly marvelous to the Japanese, it's how they live and interact socially. It's Do Unto Others Without Expectation Of What They Would Do Unto You.

There's a scene in Kurosawa's only WWII propaganda film, "The Most Beautiful," which illustrates giri. One of the factory girls receives a letter from her father informing her that her mother is deathly ill. A Western heroine would get find a way to get home at any cost: instead, she blinks back a couple of tears and returns to work. Her giri is to keep working; her parents' giri is to insist she stay at the factory, sacrificing their personal wishes for the greater good of Japan's war effort. Later in the film, giri keeps her up all night, exhaustedly reinspecting weapons' optics because it might mean someone's life on the battlefield.

At its simplest, giri is about doing the right thing without expectation of what's in it for oneself. Selflessness is key (and for many of us, the hardest part). Japanese company loyalties, firmly rooted in feudal tradition, go both ways: giri means devotion to your employer (the long hours are legendary), even graciously turning down a job offer with better pay to stay with the employer that trained you up (with the expectation that the company will fulfill its own obligations to you as one of its loyal workers).

Giri manifests in gift giving customs: Baron Vail from the Far West and I are now locked in an omiyage death spiral - if I know he's coming to an event here in the States that I will be at, I make sure I have some small item(s) to exchange with him (and any other Far Westerners who may be there. My giri is to be able to reciprocate in a considerate manner: the gift has to be something he will like, that will not inconvenience him by being so large he has no way to get it home (or keep it once he gets there), that will not cause loss of face or other social pressure by being a "better" gift than the one he gives me, and so forth. Things got a bit out of control at Estrella when he showed up with a set of dishes, a tea set and a polystyrene crate full of Childrens' Day decorations for me, which, if I were Japanese for real, would have placed me in an unbearable position because all I had for him was a package of chocolates. (On another level, I realize he's just tickled to death that I do a Japanese persona because he insisted it was all for my camp, so I accepted graciously and made sure I got photos of the Childrens' Day display I put up the following Beltane). Balance and harmony was re-established at Great Western War - I gave him a small bottle of St. George Absinthe Verte, he gave me some very nice tea and a pretty canister to keep it in. 

Not being Japanese, I'm sure there are subtleties I am missing, but the concept of giri has crept into my life and colors it somewhat. Sometimes it means doing things I maybe would rather not do, but it mostly keeps me from having an itchy conscience.

Sake. Ah, sake. While commonly translated into English as "rice wine," it's got a lot in common with beer, being a fermented grain product. I started drinking sake because it was the Japanese thing to do. I soon discovered that even through the filter of what importers think will sell in the US, there's a wide, wonderful spectrum of sake to be sampled and enjoyed. I freely admit being swayed by poetic names and interesting label art when shopping for new ones to try, because you just can't tell what it's going to be like until you taste it.

It also gives me an opportunity to play hostess. Part of my "giri" as a Japanese in the SCA living among so many other peoples is to offer hospitality in a manner befitting my station, while making my guests at ease and welcome. Loud, crowded and rowdy doesn't appeal to me as much as a small, congenial party with good conversation - the Cheerful Monkeys set-up works well for this.

And on that note, I should log off for the night. Will post on the other topics tomorrow.