Welcome.

Thank you for taking an interest in Obon Earrings 02.

Have you already read the article for Obon 01?

There are seven pairs in this Obon series, and I am now about to write the second article.

Since I have already started, I am thinking that perhaps I should make the articles from 1 to 7 into one continuing series.

However, I am incapable of writing an article without going off on tangents, so that may be difficult.

Now then, the quality of these pearls looks quite good.

Among the seven pairs in the Obon series, I have given two of them an A grade, while the others are B grade.

The biggest difference between A and B is the smoothness of the pearl surface and the strength of the luster.

The pearls used for Obon 02 are graded A.

In the article for Obon 01, I wrote a little about Japanese Obon.

This time, I would also like to tell you a little about Obon at my family home.

“What happened to the pearls?”

As for the pearls, you have already seen the photographs and videos.

They are lovely pearls.

Now, are you ready?

Japanese Obon is on August 14 and 15.

On these days, we welcome our ancestors home, and as part of the preparations, a Buddhist priest comes to recite sutras in front of the family Buddhist altar.

At my family home as well, a priest from the temple that has looked after our family for generations has visited us for decades to recite sutras.

Until around elementary school age, I was not very good at sitting through these sutra recitations.

When the priest came, the three of us brothers, our parents, and I had to sit formally on our knees behind him and quietly listen while he chanted.

The problem was that the chanting sounded so distinctive that, to an elementary school child, it somehow made laughter rise up from inside.

And there were three brothers.

 

My older brother and younger brother were trying just as desperately as I was to suppress their laughter.

If we laughed, our strict father would become furious.

Almost forty years have passed since then, and these days I find myself moved when I hear Buddhist chanting.

Sutras that have been handed down for hundreds of years.

Wishes.

Prayers.

Comparison Video of All Seven Obon Earrings

Sometimes they even sound like beautiful songs.

The chanting performed during Obon is part of the preparation for welcoming our ancestors home.

And there was also something rather strange about Obon in my family.

For more than forty years, a priest from a completely different Buddhist sect would simply show up at our house during Obon and chant sutras for us.

There is a temple directly behind my parents’ house, and he was the head priest there.

Since he was also our neighbor, it became difficult to refuse him, and this situation continued for more than forty years.

To make matters even more complicated, the temple had two daughters, and they were childhood friends of mine.

Because of all this, my parents found it very difficult to say no.

When I was around junior high school age, my mother started becoming irritated whenever Obon approached.

“I wonder if the priest from the temple behind us is coming again this year? Honestly, he comes every single year without any shame. We are not even from the same Buddhist sect. What on earth is he thinking? This year I am not giving him an offering. I am sending him home without one.”

In our countryside dialect, a Buddhist priest is sometimes called “Bon-san.”

That year, just as always, the priest from the temple behind our house appeared looking perfectly calm and began chanting sutras as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

When the chanting ended, as usual, he politely drank the cold tea my mother served and began making small talk.

Normally, during this small talk, my mother would place an envelope containing the Obon offering in front of him.

At just the right moment, the priest would bow deeply, pick up the envelope, and tuck it away against his chest.

He would first hold the envelope in one hand, put the other hand together as though in prayer, and then place the envelope inside his robe.

When I was a child, I used to watch this and think,

“That is exactly the same gesture a sumo wrestler makes when receiving prize money from the referee after winning.”

But that year, my mother did not bring out the offering.

And then the priest did not leave.

My mother became stubborn and refused to bring it out.

Two fully grown adults had begun a chicken race over an envelope of money, while both of them continued to look perfectly calm on the surface.

At the time, I became terrified of the two of them and watched the situation in great tension.

Normally, the priest would leave after about three minutes of small talk.

But even after twenty minutes, he remained.

 

A Video of Pairing the Obon Earrings — Can You Tell Which Pair Is Obon-02?

Three minutes of small talk is not exactly short.

This was twenty minutes.

Finally, my mother gave in.

“I’m sorry. I completely forgot something important.”

She went into another room to fetch the offering.

Then she returned and handed it to the priest.

In my head, the bell for a professional wrestling match rang.

After he left, naturally, my mother exploded.

“What a shameless priest!!! I’m so frustrated! I couldn’t endure it any longer. I’m so frustrated!!!!”

That was the moment I realized that Buddhist priests were also running a business.

I felt that I had caught a glimpse of the frightening adult world.

My troubled mother consulted my father, her husband.

But even he smiled awkwardly and said,

“I can’t bring myself to refuse him either.”

My father is the kind of person who can easily talk to complete strangers, and he can also say rather sharp things.

When I became a university student, my parents came with me to Kyoto to help me move into the apartment where I would be living.

Today there are about five detached houses on that land, but at the time there was a large parking lot next to my apartment.

My father parked our car there.

He said,

“If the owner of the parking lot comes, I’ll just explain the situation properly. It’ll be fine.”

Then we all began moving my belongings.

About an hour later, the owner of the land appeared.

“Hey!!! You can’t just park here without permission! Move the car right now!!”

A rather intimidating-looking man came over and angrily protested to my father.

My father replied,

A Video of Attaching the Findings to the Obon Earrings — A Very Boring Video.

“Sorry about that. This parking lot is 20,000 yen a month, right? Then by the day, that’s about 700 yen. Fine, I’ll give you 1,000 yen. It’s a little extra, but you can keep the change.

Come on, just take it.”

He said all of this with a smile, but also with a somewhat menacing expression.

The owner was completely unable to keep up with the fact that my father had suddenly started calculating the daily parking rate.

“Ah… ah… um…”

He became completely flustered.

In the end, he bowed and said,

“Oh, no, I’m sorry to take as much as 1,000 yen.”

Then he left.

If he had stopped and thought about it calmly afterward, I am sure he would have realized how strange the entire situation was.

But perhaps he had simply been caught off guard.

Afterward, my father laughed and said,

“Don’t you boys ever do something like that. What I did was wrong. It’s someone else’s land. I was lucky this time because that owner wasn’t very good with numbers.”

That is the kind of father I have.

And yet, somehow, even he could not refuse the priest who invited himself to our house every Obon.

However, a turning point came several years ago.

My father was diagnosed with cancer.

The doctor told him that he had about three months to live.

Within about a week, my father closed down the electrical company he had run himself.

Then he prepared a single file explaining everything the family would need to know after his death:

his own funeral,

the grave,

who should be paid how much,

taxes,

inheritance,

the arrangements for the first anniversary and seventh anniversary memorial services,

the fields,

the rice paddies,

and many other matters.

Everyone in the family said the same thing.

“He works far too quickly. It’s a shame none of us inherited that competence.”

And during this period, my father sent a written notice to the temple behind our house.

“From now on, we decline all future Obon visits.”

Perhaps he thought that since he was going to die anyway, he might as well clean up this issue too.

And just like that, our strange double-contract arrangement with two Buddhist priests finally came to an end.

Incidentally, my father is still alive.

Apparently, the diagnosis was wrong.

As a family, we had already received his will and completed all of our emotional preparation.

My mother now laughs and says,

“It would be a problem if he died, but somehow it is also a problem that he is still alive.”

My older brother said,

“He is like a broken nuclear power plant. You are afraid of radioactive contamination.”

This was directed at our father, who had spent many years working in the electrical industry.

I thought it was a terrible joke.

But my family is always laughing at slightly cruel jokes like this.

Perhaps it is because everyone became so depressed when my father was told he had only a few months to live, and this is the reaction that came afterward.

We are the kind of family who are too embarrassed to openly express happiness, even when we are happy.

Yes.

 

This article now has absolutely nothing to do with pearls.

However, Obon is a very important event for Japanese people.

And because these earrings were made during the Obon season, they are Obon Earrings.

“That explanation feels a little forced.”

I understand.

But this is still only the article for Obon 02.

There are still Obon 03 through 07 to come.

Perhaps I will write a little more about pearls in those.

You do not have to buy the pearl earrings.

But I would very much like to hear what you thought about this story.

See you again!

 

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