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Walking the Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage (Part 8) - O-settai, or, "I'll treasure this tissue case"
Near Kumadani-ji, temple number 8, we had stopped in front of some glorious cherry blossom, and I got chatting to two older gentlemen who were walking the trail. One told me he had never spoken to a gaijin-san, foreigner, before.
(The cynic in me wonders if that’s really true, or if by “foreigner” he meant “white person”…)
We took some pictures in front of the cherry blossom, and walked up the hill together.
Further up the road, a lady came out of her house and gave us some hard-boiled sweets ...
“Wait here. I want to give you o-settai.”
Near Kumadani-ji, temple number 8, we had stopped in front of some glorious cherry blossom, and I got chatting to two older gentlemen who were walking the trail. One told me he had never spoken to a gaijin-san, foreigner, before.
(The cynic in me wonders if that’s really true, or if by “foreigner” he meant “white person”…)
We took some pictures in front of the cherry blossom, and walked up the hill together.
Further up the road, a lady came out of her house and gave us some hard-boiled sweets.
The sweets were a form of o-settai, small gifts given to walking pilgrims. Traditionally, pilgrims didn't carry money, so they were helped along their way by gifts of food, lodging and other acts of generosity from local people.
“Wait here,” she said when she saw me, “I have something else for you.”
She came back with a colourful children’s section of the newspaper – a visual guide to the Shikoku pilgrimage, with readings for the kanji characters written above in hiragana.
It was several years old. I wondered if she had been saving it for a passing foreigner.
I briefly considered attempting to refuse it: I already had a good map, and I can read kanji, so I didn't need a children’s guide. The next non-Japanese person she met might have more use for it.
But explaining that would have felt arrogant, and you’re supposed to accept o-settai graciously, so I thanked her, and we went on our way.
The next day, I heard it again. “Wait here. I want to give you o-settai.”
I was alone this time. I had stopped to rest on a fading bench outside a children’s centre, and was enjoying my first iced can coffee in a couple of years.
There were no houses on this side of the road, but an elderly lady had come out of her house and crossed the busy road to strike up a conversation with me.
She referred to herself in the third person as obaa-chan, grandmother. She was 82.
The obaa-chan had walked the whole pilgrimage twice, she told me, and had hoped to do it a third time.
“But I’m too old to walk it again now, so I give o-settai instead.”
She went back into the house, and I saw her in the front room with a cardboard box. She did look frail. I wondered if I should follow her over the road so she didn't have to cross it again, but I didn't want to intrude.
“I must have given out hundreds of these,” she said proudly when she came back.
Inside the box were dozens of cotton tissue cases, in all different colours, each with a small packet of tissues inside.
“Did you make these?”
“Of course! Choose one.”
I picked out one with black cats sitting by front doors.
“Thank you very much. I’ll take good care of it.”
The tissue case had a secondary compartment, and inside that was a paper insert. It was a photocopy of handwriting - guidance for living a good life. “I like these words, so I included them too,” she added.
“When you use it, please remember the 82-year-old obaa-chan from Shikoku.”
The tissue case has travelled 6000 miles with me back to England, but I haven’t opened the tissues yet. I’m know she wanted me to use it; but I just want to keep it safe.
It smells faintly of incense.
I think about the obaa-chan sewing tissue cases. I wonder if she waits by the window in pilgrimage season – spring and autumn – waiting for walkers to pass by.
She gave me much more than a tissue case. She made me feel welcome, and showed me kindness. Perhaps that’s what o-settai is…? It’s about human connection. It’s not about things, it’s about people.
I’ll treasure this tissue case, I promise.
Related posts:
Walking the Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage (Part 1) - Plan, plan, plan!
Walking the Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage (Part 2) - The Best First Day in Japan
Walking the Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage (Part 3) - What To Wear
Walking the Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage(Part 4) - How to Talk to Strangers in Japanese
Walking the Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage (Part 5) - Signs of Shikoku
Walking the Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage (Part 6) - Shouting at the French
Walking the Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage (Part 7) - Five Types of Rest Stop You'll Find Hiking In Shikoku
And also: "I treasure this pen case"
On walking, and creativity
There are two reasons I like to walk.
The first is that if something is bothering me, I usually find it impossible to be annoyed about it once I have been walking for about half an hour.
You might think that's just because the irritating person or thing is now half an hour away from me.
And that's true. But I think it's something deeper than that, too.
There's something about …
There are two reasons I like to walk.
The first is that if something is bothering me, I usually find it impossible to be annoyed about it once I have been walking for about half an hour.
You might think that's just because the irritating person or thing is now half an hour away from me.
And that's true. But I think it's something deeper than that, too.
There's something about movement, and being outside, that forces my brain to think about things differently.
Maybe
I
was in the wrong?
Or maybe they
are
being unreasonable, but there's nothing I can do about that, and that's ok?
Everything seems better after a half hour walk.
The second reason I like to walk is that's when inspiration seems to strike.
Or to put it another way, I find it almost impossible to be creative while sitting at my desk.
The idea of a
course had been rumbling around in my head for a while, but it formed itself into something concrete when I was in Shikoku in April.
I was surrounded by all these
, and reading constantly. It made me think back to the first time I visited Japan, in 2008. I couldn't read
anything
then, and it was so frustrating.
By the end of the day, I had a clear idea in my head of what I wanted the Survival Japanese course to look like - a practical class, all about getting around.
And an explicit invitation to students to be pro-active and selective about what they need to learn, and what they don't.
I wasn't trying to plan a course on my walk. I was on holiday! I was supposed to be resting my brain, and definitely not working...
But don't you ever find that ideas pop up when you're relaxed, physically away from your work space, and thinking about something else?
This can be annoying. My office isn't at the beach, and I can't take my computer with me on a walk. (You could get out your smartphone, I suppose, and start making notes. But that's not really in the spirit of the thing.)
The writing-things-down part has to happen at my desk. But the thinking part - that usually happens on a walk.
I suspect I'm not the only one. Am I?
Like many people in the UK, I studied French in school. I liked French. I thought it was really fun to speak another language, to talk with people, and to try and listen to what was going on in a new country. (Still do!)
When I was 14 we went on a school exchange to the city of Reims, in northeastern France. I was paired with a boy, which I’m sure some 14-year-olds would find very exciting but which I found unbearably awkward. He was very sweet and we completely ignored each other.
That was nearly 20 years ago, and I didn’t learn or use any more French until, at some point in lockdown, I decided on a whim to take some one-to-one lessons with online teachers. Here are some things I learned about French, about language learning, and about myself.