My sixth "Letter from Tokyo" for The Japan Society of Boston
I just wrote my last 2021 "Letter from Tokyo" for The Japan Society of Boston about the differences between Japan's Bonenkai "forget-the-year" year-end parties and Christmas parties in Western countries, and the placid Japanese New Year's week (Oshogatsu) versus the Western NYE one-night blowout. Openly cribbed Joan Didion, with respect, and not a little reverence. LETTER FROM TOKYO, DECEMBER 2021: BONENKAI BLUES “It is easier to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.” That’s the first line of “Goodbye to All That,” one of the most widely read personal essays by American author Joan Didion, who died this month, two days before Christmas. The sentence is deceptively simple and seductive, like a Zen koan, but it takes on added weight when you actually come to the ends of things—like another year. In Tokyo, the year usually starts ending in November, with elaborate light displays cropping up in the city’s shopping and strolling centers, pre-...