After the Jehovah's Witnesses that blew steadily at the gates of my residence hall Norman last year, a quick word about the religious groups that haunt
1) Caring for the residences reserved for foreign students: in this case, mine. All my interlocutors are Christians (do not ask me more: Japan and exclude religion dogma, and regardless of whether a Catholic church, protests, Baptist, I believe they themselves do not really understand the difference ), my backyard overlooking a church and the Japanese Christian Center. A Christmas dinner was held where everyone had to bring a dish typical of his country and which was to follow a "small talk". Getting late for I do not know why I waited my scalloped potatoes to finish cooking when a message arrived on my laptop: my friends had been trapped for two hours a Mass in the church. And I do mean stuck: no Another explanation, they were asked to come quietly in a group ... docile, everyone had followed up the church. Once the group had returned, the doors were sealed. I laughed so much since my kitchen (much less my friends, they then took twenty minutes trying to convince officials to open while the priest retailed his sermon).
2) Supermarkets ... and then I sighed because there's a month I got caught in a trap as a beginner. She looked nice this girl yet! I'll spare you the details, but I was very disappointed because it started as a friendship and then one night she just changed, changed clothes, changed his tone, invited me to her house waiting for me in fact a group of Japanese who quickly dropped the gossip for ask me if I went to church, if I believed in God, if I wanted to join a Bible study group, review my kanji in dissecting the religious songs or if I wanted to participate in the choir ("they sing as in Sister Act "yes ... yes.).
3) The subway. is always adorable little grandmothers that I-don't-know-how to locate your nationality (she is for all of us in our language as we speak in English generally: limit is scary) and you ask three questions about your life in Japan before giving you a plan to get to the nearest church . Formidable.
Japan is a country extremely quiet about religion: 99% of Japanese are even unable to understand the existence of religious wars. It surpasses them altogether. In the past there have been some persecution of Christians and some conflicts between monks, but other than that ...
Is it because I am a foreigner that I am addressing all of these groups ? I hope. I have nothing against religion, however, I may even consider me a believer, but the institution and the church is another problem. And most importantly, they mark me as something to bring to the table of hunting it, it m'éneeeerve.
I just hope that Japan will not turn South Korea ba ... Conservative Protestantism began to worry some Koreans - and I also, at the same time ...
