After college, my mom lived in Japan 7 years. She taught English to get by and apprenticed as a potter to gain experience. My dad visited her a few times, and picked up a lot of the culture alongside her. Though his knowledge is not as deep as hers, he still knows quite a bit.

Driving home from lunch one sunny afternoon, I ask him and my mom if they have any stories that I could use for my folklore project.

“And then, the um, New Year’s observance is that they don’t use knives for three days, um… can’t remember if it’s three days before New Year’s or three days before three days after… I think it’s three days after. Three days, including New Year’s and two days after. When they…so they do all their cooking all their food prep in advance, so they don’t have to touch a blade. Um, because New Year’s is a Shinto holiday, it’s a life affirming religion whereas Buddhism is the religion of death. And so, um, they- they prepare huge quantities of food, enough to last for three days. And then they don’t use knives for three days. They don’t want to take life, they don’t want to do anything with a blade. Oh-Shong-Atsu. It’s the same day as our New Year’s. Oh and they take their last bath of the old year on the thirty-first, and then on the first- on New Year’s day they eat long noodles, you know, noodles for long life. And they eat o-mochi in the morning. I can’t remember why they eat mochi, you probably wanna look that up. But they definitely eat noodles first thing in the morning.”

This is such a cool way to live. To apply symbolism, usually saved only for literature and movies here in America, to your everyday life is a whole other way of being. After the interview, my mom corrected a few pronunciation mistakes my dad had made, but all in all said his cultural memory was pretty accurate. A few times as a kid, we ate noodles first thing in the morning as a way of referencing my parents’ time in Japan. It was delicious and fun, and I will try to keep the tradition going with my children.