Marriage

Now that December has begun, Milan, decorated with the colours of Christmas, is a spectacular sight. Forget the near-zero cold -- the streets are overflowing with vitality, making this the most cheerful season of the year.  Italian practice is to spend Christmas with the family and to ring in the New Year with friends. There are no special celebrations for the New Year as in Japan and the sole holiday is New Year's Day itself, so Christmas is the main holiday. Personally, I always feel a little let down at the lack of a dramatic demarcation between the old year and the new. The Japanese love the four seasons and seasonal changes, whereas religion is central in Italy . . . different countries, different customs.

Trumpet flourish! I have an announcement for my readers. Forgive me for introducing a personal note, especially one that makes me feel very bashful, but I'd like to polish off this year's topics within the old year (sounding pompous?). What I'm leading up to is that I got married this summer.  My husband is an Italian named Ivan Vigano and I met him at the Milan Go Club. In passing, his go strength is 4-kyu, which would be around 1-dan in Japan.  Ivan is a welfare worker; his current job is as a counselor at a welfare facility that assists the rehabilitation and return to society of alcoholics.  In a country like Italy, where wine is drunk as freely as water, people have little sense of crisis about over-indulgence in alcohol and consequently the rate of alcoholism is quite high. There's more to it than its effect on the body; it gets mixed up with other problems such as drugs and crime, the collapse of family life, and so on. Just hearing about this kind of job makes me depressed.  Though the work is very hard, the pay is low, so I sometimes wonder why Ivan keeps at it, but on the other hand I really respect him for being concerned about this world. Do I sound lovestruck?  Anyway, that being the way things are, in our household alcohol = poison; we hardly every drink except when we have guests (you must pity me . . .)

That reminds me, I wrote a while back about how the Italians who like go tend to be the introspective type and I mentioned that no one had every tried to hit on me in a go club. That's true. I don't think Ivan is introspective, but he is a little shy and retiring. Good friends have said to me that he's much more Japanese than I am. Er . . . hem . . . what I'm trying to say is that it was I who made the first move. Probably at first he was just overwhelmed by my forcefulness.  Our wedding ceremony was very simple. His family are not Catholic, so we didn't go to church but to the town office for the marriage. Afterwards we just had a dinner party with about 20 relatives. Although it was a modest affair, I was warmly welcomed by his family, so I was very happy.  In contrast to Japan, where you just register the wedding and that's it, I was surprised at how careful Italians are over the procedures.  To begin with, your application is not accepted on the spot. A notice stating that 'A and B are going to get married' is displayed on the town office's noticeboard for about two weeks. If no objections are lodged, then for the first time you can decide the date. This is supposed to be a traditional custom to avoid bigamy or illicit marriage and it is continued today.  The marriage ceremony itself is conducted by a marriage executor and a public notary; in my case, there was also an interpreter; as our families watched, we signed a pledge about the rights and duties of a married couple.  Something that really impressed me came at the end of the ceremoney: with the words 'Welcome to Italy,' an Italian flag was handed to me. It's a big hard to imagine this being done in Japan for a bride from overseas.  All the procedures were finally completed when I registered my marriage at the Japanese Embassy. International marriages are really a lot of trouble.  I had originally been living with Ivan's family anyway, so my life has not changed very much. With the support of his family, I plan to continue my efforts to spread go.  One thing that has changed after getting married is that I've become more patient. I seem to be able to look at things more in the longer term . . . Well, that's probably necessary, since my stay looks like ending up a much longer one than I'd first planned.  Well, I hope to be as active teaching this year and to get around as much as before. I look forward to meeting you all in my travels.  I wish you all a great year! �@�@�@