Blue Moon
Japanese celebrations and memories of my father
The fifteenth day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar corresponds to a full moon, which this year happened to be the first full moon after the autumnal equinox. On the Gregorian calendar, the date was September 29th, 2023, and in China and Taiwan, it is the Mid-Autumn Festival.
I had assumed that the corresponding celebration of Moon-Viewing in Japan was a product of the cultural contacts between Japan, China, and Korea that began in the sixth century, CE. In truth, however, stories of moon-viewing date back far earlier.
Although Japan’s oldest folktale, alternately titled 竹取翁 (taketori no okina, The Old Bamboo Cutter) and かぐや姫 (Kaguya hime, Princess Kaguya), was first written down during the ninth century CE, the story actually dates to a long period of Japan’s history called the Jōmon Period, which ran from the end of the Old Stone Age in 14,000 BCE to the third century CE.
The tale of Princess Kaguya is a charming one with similarities to my all-time favorite Japanese folktake, The Tale of Momotarō. Instead of find a baby boy within a peach, however, the old bamboo cutter in the story of Princess Kaguya discovers a baby girl within a bamboo stalk, along with a hefty amount of gold.
The old man and his wife raise Kaguya, finding more and more gold in the bamboo as the days pass, and Kaguya enters her womanhood as an incredible beauty who needs to content with five suitors before being courted by the Emperor himself. During that lengthy courtship, however, Kaguya takes to gazing at the moon with increasing frequency and melancholy until the old bamboo cutter asks what ails her.
I am not of this world, Kaguya replies, and on the fifteenth night of this eighth month I must needs return to my people on the moon.
It’s interesting to note that in mythology, Kaguya and her people are not the only lunar residents. A Chinese belief in a Jade Rabbit who pounds mochi rice cakes on the moon (and who is celebrated together with the Gold Crow who lives in the sun) entered Japanese folk traditions as well, and rabbits are now part of the traditional moon-viewing iconography.
Kaguya’s story reminds me a little of my father, but not in any folklorish ways. Charles Watson was certainly not born in a bamboo, nor was there any gold attendant on his birth. But before his heart disease forced him to rely on an oxygen mask during the months leading to his death, he sang a lot. Mostly it was just snippets of lyrics here and there, a habit I inherited, and because his formative years were the 1950s, much of his repertoire would not be out of place at a Sha-Na-Na concert. The first line of Blue Moon—You saw me standing alone—was in frequent rotation.
On most days I regret never having been able to come out to my father. I was fourteen when he died and although I was already very certain where my proclivities were aiming me since my puberty arrived two years before that, I wasn’t aware of coming out as a practice until late in my teen years and only began that process when I was 21.
But I also really regret not being able to show my father the Japan I love, including, most prominently, my partner of nearly thirty years, and my husband of ten years, Hiro. As Hiro and I prepared our honoring of the Moon-Viewing festival last week, I wanted to look up at the moon and show my father the rabbit in its shadows. I wanted him to see the art in our home that depicts rabbits getting drunk on sake under a full autumn moon, the clumps of Japanese pampas grass blowing in the wind.
And I wish I could have asked him what moon-viewing treat he’d want to try. Some sweet balls of pounded mochi rice? A cup of chilled sake, perfect for capturing a reflection of the moon? Or a bowl of udon topped with a perfect poached egg to represent the moon? Or, best of all, the nostalgia that Hiro and I chose, a moon-viewing hamburger, sold exclusively at McDonald’s in Japan but painstakingly recreated by Hiro.
In other news, the one agent rejection and two publication rejections (one for an essay, one for a manuscript award) that floated into my inbox this past week cranked up my creativity. Two new collections of t-shirt designs finally made it to my retail site here and here. I sent out essays and chapter excerpts to ten different publications. And I’m roughly halfway through another round of revisions to my memoir’s manuscript. A new writing friend asked me to beta-read his young adult queer horror story and I’m loving it. And I finished one of my most important pieces of nonfiction: my performance review at work.
“... much of his repertoire would not be out of place at a Sha-Na-Na concert.” Aww. . . what a lovely--and loving--post. 🩵