火の中にも三年 Perseverance Prevails

『火の中にも三年(hi-no-naka-nimo-san-nen)』is a famous proverb in Japan, which literally means "perseverance prevails". Indeed, in Japan, you can see the notion of 我慢("gaman") or

patience, in all aspects of people's lives.

It was not a coincident that I encountered this "Gaman Spirit" at the Fire Festival, or 火焚祭(Hitaki-sai) as the locals call it, which took place in Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto a couple of days ago. As Shokaku Karasawa explains in his book, "Inari Okami Reiken Ki", every year on Novermber 8th, the shrine burns wooden votive sticks to show appreciation of the year's harvest to Inari Okami, one of Shinto's well known Gods.

During the festival, several hundred thousands of wooden votive sticks gathered from the venerators from all over Japan are burned. The fire shows gratefulness to Inari Okami, and the sticks being burnt represent people's sins.

What astonished me the most was that for over an hour, a single man kept throwing the sticks into the fire, almost non-stop. Meanwhile the priests chanted 大祓詞 "Oharai-no-kotoba", one of the Shinto prayers, for what seemed like and endless amount of time. It was hard enough for me (who was standing about a good 5 meters away from the fire) to manage to take these pictures because of the heat. After a while you cannot help but wonder what it was like for the young man to repeat the same action, over and over again, facing the open fire. When you looked into his eyes, you could clearyly see his 忍耐力("nintairyoku") or perseverance - his amazingly strong will and concentration to stay with his given task.

Interestingly enough, it wasn't more than half an hour before the audience got bored of the same move. Even those who were pushing their way to the front of the crowd at the beginning had apparently lost interest several minutes after the dramatic opening of the fire. As for me, I stood there until the very end of the festival, mesmerized by the young man's soul. With his eyes saying so much about our country's culture, I felt there was nothing more that could be better explained by words.