A Japanese Wedding

Nayoro, Hokkaido, Japan – Saturday evening 26 July 2008

Rob didn’t call it a wedding, since Nathan and Minori had already been married officially at city hall, but we recognized it as a Canadian wedding despite not understanding a word of the ceremony. So this is the wedding of Rob and Keiko Witmer’s son, Nathan, who owns the little Farmer’s Café where we’ve been eating in Nayoro.

We discovered today that the guest list and the party had been kept a  secret from Minori. We could so easily have spilled the beans yesterday when we had lunch at the restaurant! As far as she knew, there would be a small simple ceremony at the Dohoku Christian Centre with immediate family in attendance.

Interesting for us to attend a Japanese wedding, even if not typical, and lucky for us to be here on this date, when we could see many of the people we knew in 1992-93. Somewhat deflating, though, when so many appeared not to recognize us. The former minister of Nayoro church and his wife, who had given us such a warm send-off in 1993, don’t appear to remember us at all. Ashizawa-Sensei (the Rev) didn’t give any glimmer of recognition and when I talked to Mrs Ashizawa (with Keiko’s translation help), she couldn’t remember me nor the recipe she taught me, which I have made many times and which I submitted to Jurgen Gothe’s latest cookbook.

The bride did get decked out in a typical Canadian white wedding dress-no hint of Japanese red kimono, or any other colours in between-and the groom wore a shimmery cream tux. Nathan’s family kept the bride closeted away in the room we’ve been using as a bedroom, since “our” kitchen-living area was full of food for the party and the Dohoku Centre cafeteria at the other end of the building was filling with more friends and family than Minori could imagine.

We slipped into the room just before 1:30 and it was standing room only. Shortly after, Rob in his black preaching robes and Nathan in his gleaming tux entered and stood at the front. The bride arrived on her father’s arm and walked down the short aisle, a white tablecloth spread on the floor for her.

We sang “What a friend we have in Jesus” and “The Church’s One Foundation,” heard I Corinthians 13, and listened to Rob preach (all in Japanese, of course). I haven’t had a chance to ask Rob what he preached, but as usual it was interesting to listen to for his intonation, gestures, and obvious enthusiasm. (Kuriko told us yesterday that Rob was suffering from withdrawal for not having been able to preach since April.) Obvious
emotion, too, particularly in the closing lines.

The bride and groom left the room to Mendelssohn’s wedding march, reappearing several minutes later. The room was rearranged to accommodate several tables of sushi and other Japanese delicacies, made in large part by the groom’s siblings Manna and Martin. It’s cantaloupe season (right, Maria?) and both orange and green were in abundance. It’s also blueberry and raspberry season, both of which (from Rob and Keiko’s back yard) decorated the wedding cake.

And there were speeches: from a friend of the bride’s and from a friend of the groom’s. The groom’s siblings sang (accompanied by the groom on his father’s guitar). The groom and a friend sang, although emotion took Nathan by surprise and he missed a few bars.

The whole family showed its emotions today-certainly appropriate to the occasion, if a bit of a surprise for us. Nathan and Martin, in particular, 14 and 11 in ‘92-93, had kept their distance from us; perhaps afraid they’d need to use their English, which they seemed to be denying knowledge of at the time. Today, Nathan was quite overcome several times, especially when a young man two years his junior gave a speech and then sang a song he’d written describing what a hero Nathan had been to him as a young boy. In empathy, the bride cried as well, so many tears her false eyelashes came off. But the bride and groom-in true Japanese style-didn’t touch, with an empty chair between–each sitting with tears flowing, sniffling as inconspicuously as they could …but never touching.

Finally, Nathan rose to say a word of thanks (his father whispering to us that he doubted Nathan could get through such a speech). Indeed, it was a challenge, but Nathan persisted and in the end did a fine job (as far as we could tell-everything happening as it did in Japanese).

By 4 p.m., the room had to be cleared to return to its function as a cafeteria for the Dohoku Centre Fukushikai (residence for former mental patients), so the ending, as it often does in Japan, came quickly. The gathering of about 55 people was informed of the deadline; within minutes the room was transformed into a cafeteria and the crowd had dispersed. On their way out, each guest was presented with a bouquet of wild flowers twisted into a newspaper cone.

The bride and groom changed into street clothes and, standing outside, handed out wedding favours-jars of citrus jam made by friends at a local factory. And Minori kept saying, “I’m so happy; I’m so happy!”

Indeed, the surprise had worked very well.

So, it was a simple, home-made wedding, the details planned (so we learned) within the past week once Manna and Martin had arrived from Dubai and Tokyo, respectively. Before that, Nathan was constrained by his desire to keep the guest list and party secret from Minori, from whom he is rarely separated. Sunday, Nathan and Minori return to work in the Farmer’s Cafe. Today’s Saturday closing is the first day the restaurant has been closed in two years. They may dream of taking a honeymoon someday, but not for a while yet.

We stood outside in the pleasant sunshine and visited with a friend of Nathan’s who took ESL classes at Grant MacEwan Community College in Edmonton many years ago and aspires to immigrate to Mongolia.

When we returned to our livingroom, Keiko and Rob were just packing away the last few wedding leftovers and within minutes were following the rest of the guests out of the Dohoku Centre, back to town.

Alone again in this ground level apartment in a mixed deciduous and pine forest, surrounded by a quiet evening, we are,
Margaret and Marcus
in between