I was excited to be writing up a post about all the fun and exciting things I've done since the new year began (we went to sakura matsuri/cherry blossom festival up in Nago yesterday), but this morning, HP and I received a flurry of calls and an apartment visit to say that his eldest uncle had passed away.
This was the uncle I was unofficially not allowed to meet. He was considered something of an embarrassment, and whenever he was brought up in discussion or mentioned, he was waved off or the subject was quickly changed. This, I've come to understand, is a very Japanese way of treating it.
Needless to say, an uncle is still an uncle. And funerals are a big affair here. So HP called his father, who had already been notified (and is not flying over), and was only irritated by the lack of helpful information his father offered as far as what to do.
There are two issues at work here, culturally:
1. It's very hard to explain customs that just are. It's a part of your life, your culture, something you don't even think about - so when someone asks you what to do in a situation that you're just supposed to understand, it gets tricky.
2. We're not sure where we fit on the "family/foreigner" slider. We're not sure what's expected of us or what to even do, as we're family from overseas. There's a whole set of rules that no one seems able to explain (not the fault of any one person, it's just a cultural obstacle), and neither can anyone tell us what role we're needed to play, if any.
So far, all we've been told is "take the day off of work tomorrow" and "stay in the area." HP is getting quite testy from the stress of figuring things out, and I have no idea what's going on in general. But I'm going to stay in the city, make sure he's fed and okay, do my best to communicate with the OkiFam, and do some research.
And so far, google-fu just tells me "be supportive."
Maybe HP was right when he said earlier that we're in something of a unique situation, and that we're just going to have to tough it out. In that case, the least I can do is document what the process is like for foreign in-laws for the funeral, and maybe help someone else in a similar situation be able to focus more on the grieving family and not have to worry about offending a house full of mourners.
