Against my better judgement I'm going to mention religion.

It was Kodomo no Hi today, and for reasons that had nothing to do with that I went to a modern Shingon Buddhist temple today for a special service. It was in Tachikawa. Not only was it a holiday but the head priestess of this particular Shingon sect was presiding over the ceremonies. So it was packed, news cams everywhere, and a bunch of city officials were sitting behind me. I tried sitting seiza style, that lasted all of three minutes. A woman in front of me new better, and had a special mini seiza helper chair. The seiza-helper has the shape and mechanics of a mini-ironing board, but it is meant to accommodate the sitting habits of a small woman's buttocks. Even with the ironing-board I would be incapable of 'getting my seiza on'. And while we're talking about asses, after sitting two and a half hours on the floor today, I discovered how truly bony my ass is. My fat distribution is completely unacceptable.

One quick note about me. I am neither Christian nor Buddhist, and I'm not exactly atheist. I believe in "reserving judgement" as to the existence of god(s) and what not. That actually puts me in a really good position to try to understand and respect other peoples faith without being in any kind of antagonistic position. Understanding people is what's most interesting to me.

I went to to the service out of cultural curiosity. It was very very different than any Christian church I have ever been to, including the one I've been into in Japan. But there were similarities as well. The biggest difference, uh besides all the chanting in Japanese and no statues of Jesus, was the no-pressure sales staff attitude of the folks there. It was really like how all car dealerships should be. Out of the churches I've been to, even though there may be no outright sell, there is this god damn WEIRD vibe that always made me uncomfortable. I think that vibe is one of two things: people think because I'm not Christian I'm criticizing their choice to be so, or they just plain think I should be Christian. Anyway that's just my anecdotal experience, there are many many types of churches in the world and I have been to very few. And I have many Christian friends who I respect, and I respect your Christianity, so please don't flame me.

One similarity I noticed was fancy gold decorations and big decorated pillars. I'm not a big fan of that.
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