2007-12-20 - 4:37 p.m.
Christmas Extravaganza, PART III
Christ in Japan: Version 2.0*
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In the Bible it is written that Jesus was crucified on Golgotha Hill and died.
In reality, Jesus had fled the country and was safe and sound in Japan.
Jesus first came to Japan to study religion and Japanese when he was twenty. He lived in Japan for eleven years and returned to his country at the age of thirty-one.
Upon his return, Jesus worked as hard as he could to teach people about what he had learned about god from Eastern religions. Jesus' wisdom, however, was very different from that of traditional beliefs and Jesus was met with resistance nearly everywhere he went.
Eventually, Jesus was captured in Rome and sentenced to death for his controversial beliefs.
However, before Jesus' sentence was carried out, one of Jesus' believers traded places with him and Jesus fled the country.
Jesus travelled across central Asia, through Siberia, and to America and Alasaka before finally going, again, to Japan. It was a very long trip, but it was easier for Jesus because he was not only able to walk on water, but could also fly.
Eventually, Jesus settled down in Herai Village (now the Herai area of Shingo in Aomori Prefecture), changed his name to Toraitaro Tenkubo, and married a woman named Miyu Sawaguchi.
Jesus worked as a farmer in Herai and often gave the surplus from his crops to the poorer residents of Herai. In his spare time, Jesus would usually walk around town and teach people about god.
Jesus continued to live in Herai until he died at the age of 106. Jesus' body was given a so-called "fuso" funeral, which is when a corpse is left uncovered, exposed to the wind and rain, until only the bones are left, which are then buried.
To this day, many customs persist in Herai which were originally learned from Jesus.
Firstly, in the local dialect dads are often called "aya", "ada", or "dada" and moms "aba", "apa", or "eba", names which are derived from those of Adam and Eve.
Furthermore, during Bon Festival residents of Herai sing a song called Naniyadoyara, the lyrics of which are in Jesus' native tongue.**
Other customs continue to exist that must have been adapted by the locals, as they are not present in either the Christian or Jewish faiths today.
Before an infant is brought outdoors for the first time in Herai, a cross is drawn on the baby's forehead in ink. It is believed that doing this will protect the baby from harm.
And if you see someone tracing a cross on their forehead using their own saliva in Herai, it's because their leg has fallen asleep and this will help to wake it up.
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* This version, if anything, makes even less sense, but I kind of like to compare the two. Probably because I don't have much of anything better to do... Sorry if this is boring for the rest of you.
** Jesus, appearently, probably spoke Aramaic. Thanks to Jeremy for looking that up! Unfortunately, I think that these silly folk tales want me to believe that Jesus spoke Lebanese. I decided to leave that part out because it would have made my stories self-contradicting. Incidently, this may also be why I've left religion out of my life, and will cheerfully share blasphemous stories with you all tongue-in-cheek-like. That is, that religions make things self-contradicting. Merry Xmas!
