The Friends

Title: The Friends
1997 Batchelder Honor Award
Author: Kazumi Yumoto (translated by: Cathy Hirano)
Published: 1992
Group: Japanese
Cultural Indicators: (1) In a traditional Buddhist Japanese funeral procession, the body is cremated. The Buddhist priest and/or family members chant a sacred mantra in unison. Family members pick the bones in unison from ashes of the cremated body and place them in an urn. In the novel, Yamashita explains the rituals that he witnessed at his grandmother's funeral, "Everyone wore black and the chanting was boring..." "When someone dies, they burn them. They take the body to what they call a crematorium, and the coffin is slipped into this great big oven..." "Everybody picks the bones out with chopsticks and puts them in an urn..." (2) Buddhism is a major religion in Japan. Yamashita is a Buddhist as evident by the rituals performed at his grandmother's funeral. (3) Japanese educational system is generally characterized by Juku or cram schools. The young boys in "The Friends" attend cram school. (4) Sushi is a staple of the Japanese diet. In the novel, references to sushi are made. (5) The characters in the story have traditional Japanese names: Yamashita, Kawabe, Kiyama (6) Stress induced incidents of suicide and work related deaths are cultural phenomena in Japan. The three young boys in this story are preoccupied with death. Kiyama's father works incessantly. (7) A kotatsu, a low table, is a traditional part of Japanese culture. Everyday the three young boys watch " the old man..sitting at the kotatsu watching TV." (8) Tatami mats are a type of traditional Japanese flooring. Kiyama observes, "The sound of footsteps moving across tatami floor mats." (9) Typhoons are specific to the Northwest Pacific Ocean. Kiyama learns a lesson in resilience when he discovers that "Despite the raging typhoon, our cosmos survived." (10) Originally relegated to Japanese warriors, suicide was a form of honor as opposed to falling in the hands of ones enemies. The old man that the boys befriend tells them a story about a warrior who was thought to have killed himself but had actually fled to another country. "