The Real McCoy

By Adam Brownstein – August 3, 2025 – Tokyo, Japan

The sages tell us that many ages ago there was a wondrous festival of torches that took place every year around the perimeter of the Temple in Jerusalem.   Young rabbinical students and even members of the Sanhendrin were given to performing splits, cartwheels and the like all while quoting the Book of Psalms, insights of the Prophets and other sources of scripture.

In the midst of a fiery glow none among the learned group danced more splendidly than Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the very Head of the Sanhedrin.  It is said that this dignified scholar would grab eight flaming torches, toss them into the air without any touching each other, and recite verses Torah as they spun above his head.  As you may imagine, this was met with much delight from the onlooking crowd.

Reb Shimon did not limit his joyful contortions to the festival of torches in Jerusalem.  During Simchat Beit HaShoeiva, the Festival of Drawing Water, he was well known to stand on his hands, with his feet pointed straight up in the air, while doing backflips—to celebrate the drawing of water from the Shiloach spring.

Upon observing this one young student inquired, “Is this really the head of the Sanhedrin?”

To which a noble member of the Sanhendrin rejoined, “Even the highest scholars dance for joy when the water of life is drawn!”

Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 53a

Jewish tradition is hardly alone in making merry to honor the elements of the physical world. High in the Andes, The Festival of Pachamana, honoring Mother Earth, is feted by locals in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Amidst its proceedings the first drop of any drink—especially chicha—onto the ground is accompanied by a toast: “Pachamama, santa tierra, para ti” (“Mother Earth, sacred ground, this is for you”). Rather than solemn silence, there is ruach, laughter, color, food, and dancing in brilliant vestments. 

Each Spring the Finns honor Ukko, the god of thunder toasting the power of air, water and earth with goblets of freshly brewed mead.  In Bali at the start of every new year the people of the island celebrate the oncoming of Nyepi.  While the namesame festival  itself is a day of silence, the days before it are full of wild, element-centered ritual joy including the fabled Ogoh-ogoh parades: giant papier-mâché demon effigies are marched, danced, and burned to cleanse the island of negative spirits (fire + air).  

The list goes on and on.

Here in Japan the sweltering summer calendar is studded with matsuri, seasonal festivals celebrated throughout the island archipelago.  Matsuri have a hyper local vibe, and bring people together the way that Spring Fling did in Rinconada Park in the late 1970’s.  

In Minami Boso, at the southern tip of the Chiba Peninsula, the Umi No Hi (Ocean Day) holiday brings with it a ritual that has fascinated my extended family for some time.  A seaside haunt of, amongst others, the pop act Bubble Gum Brothers, Minami Boso has an easy-going nautical vibe that calls for flip flops, loud Aloha shirts and a day (or two) of afforded stubble. 

On the eve of Ocean Day, as the sun lazily slips into the Pacific ocean, hundreds of female divers, clad in simple white tunics and snorkel masks, enter the harbor.  They carry torches and a message to the nautical powers that be; take care of us.  Protect us.  Provide us with good fortune in our nets and spears in the year to come.  It is a solemn gesture of respect to forces more majestic, mysterious and power than the human condition can ever really know.  Last year, my wife and youngest son were able to take in the scene with their own eyes, and their testimony was stirring. While I do not suffer from FOMO, in this instance I felt an acute case of it.

So it was with numbing disappointment that we arrived at this year’s festivities only to see the attendees and divers scurrying to their cars after the last hanabi fireworks had glistened over the small harbour.  I reckoned that I personally had good luck in many things, but not in my ability to observe hundreds of brave women enter the dark sea torches ablaze and diving masks snug on the mug.  

Our plight worsened on the short, but perilous drive home to my in-laws’ kitchy beach condo.  I was barely able to navigate the narrow alleyways of Minami Boso, and it hardly helped that my wife made a kind of wincing noise.  I expect that many readers will know this noise.  It is the kind of staccoto “oy yoy YOY!” that people who love you make when they feel you are about to hit something with your car.  At one point a kindly octogenarian approached my car and bid me to roll down the window.  He warned that I had chosen the most narrow ally in all of Minami Boso and that not even Google Maps could get me out of this one.  Thanks to the co-piloting of my wife I was able to find our way to the condo. Just barely, mind you. 

Upon arrival I decided to move on from our as yet disappointing evening.  At the sage advice of our twelve year old son I prepared my bathing kit (terry towell, fresh linen pj’s and shower sundries) and traveled down to the ground floor to take a late evening onsen.  After scrubbing my kids I proceeded towards the steaming ablutions only to catch an odd look in my older son’s countenance.  In a split second I recognized the source of both his horror and delight; in my haste to get into the hot spring I had lost my purchase descending rapidly onto the floor of the public bath.  I had literally fell on my ass buck naked before an audience of amused alter kakers and shocked children.  I immediately sprung to my feet attempting to brush off my ever typical stunt of poor luck mixed with mind-blowing misjudgment.  Nothing to see here, people!  But of course, there was everything to see. 

After my bathing mishap I retired to the confines of my in-laws condo, taking comfort on the tatami floor and the coolness of my modest futon.  Aided by the listful rhythm of the Pacific waves meshed with the snoring patterns of several family members, I drifted into the comfort of sleep with two thoughts floating in my brain.  First, my low back smarted from my fall, and I may have broken my right piggy toe.  And next, things were going to get better. 

And indeed, the next morning they did get better.  I awoke refreshed and upbeat, the bright summer sunlight washing across my eyes.  In the background I recognized the familiar patter of my mother-in-law working quick and light in her galley kitchen.  She began to pass steaming cups of Key brand coffee, diminutive bowls of yogurt, cold cuts, fresh trimmed salad, shokupan toast and plates of scramble eggs through the small portal connecting the kitchen to the sitting room.  The familiarity of the breakfast fare added to my new sense of optimism, and I rose from the meal caffeinated and chuffed.

Soon after, both our sons began lobbying me to go to the pool.  After a quick slather of Anessa Perfect Sunscreen and inventory check of towels and goggles we raced downstairs just in time to be the first group to enter the temperate water.  Like most pools from the Bubble Era of Japan, it is nothing much to look at, but to the eyes of my sons, it is magic.  After two straight hours of squirt gun skirmishes and imaginary Super Bowl final plays with a $5 Wal-Mart floaty football we were summoned to lunch.  Reluctantly, the three of us emerged, dried off and piled into the car for a short drive down the coast. 

The restaurant my wife had selected was typical of Minami Boso.  It was a simple place, anchored by tatami mat seating and a bill of fare featuring fresh-caught seafood at gentle prices.  Taking a seat against the wall to accommodate my gaijin lack of flexibility I took in the decor.  Lined on the wood slatted walls were nautical knick knacks (shells, webbing, lamps and the like).  What most caught my eye were an array of photographs depicting a woman clad in the instantly recognizing vestments of a true Minami Boso diver.  The photos were faded by the hands of time, but the smile of the young diver radiated clear and bright and true.  

Then, out of the corner of the restaurant, a woman emerged.  She was well on in years, approaching 90 I reckoned, yet she moved with the spritely joy of someone who was content . Atop her head was a bandana affixed in a triangular fashion on her mane of white, thick hair.  We recognized her immediately as the woman in the photographs.

“Is that YOU???” our six-year-old son inquired.

“YES it’s me!” she replied with a smile and a twinkle in her eye.  “Of course, I was much younger then.”

As plates of sashimi, rice and miso soup were set before us, the old woman struck up a lively conversation with us.  She had begun diving for abalone and sea snails in her early 20’s and had retired from diving seven years ago on her 80th birthday. Our boys, who had recently gone snorkeling off of Hatoma Island near Taiwan, asked about what kind of snorkel and flippers she had used.

“We didn’t use flippers, nor snorkels,” she explained with a kind smile.  

In fact, she and her peers employed only a simple diving mask, basic netting and their keen sense of the undersea topography.  No lights, no nautical weights, no wetsuits. On many outings she would submerge more than 10 meters.  She had participated in the Umi no Hi torch festival many times over the years, fretting that now it was far too crowded.

“It’s impossible to get parking!” she fretted.  As you can imagine, this made me chuckle.

As she spoke more and more about her life in and out of the sea, the FOMO I had once known for not witnessing the procession of torches faded. My family and I were in the company of a minor celebrity. The real McCoy.

More than an hour passed, atypically long for a Saturday lunch in Minami Boso.  But such was the affable and infectious nature of our host.  When the time came to settle up she disappeared into the chaos of the kitchen, emerging again with two gleaming abalone shells. 

“I caught these during my last dive when I was 80.  That was seven years ago,” she noted.  “Here!  They are YOURS now!”

Our boys took the precious sea relic from her with a mixture of reverence and joy in their eyes.  They knew, even at a young age, that one of the many (many) unwritten rules of life in Japan is that once a gift is given freely it must be accepted. The shells adorn our kitchen countertop now, the perfect keepsake from the festival I had so wanted to experience.