New Year's Eve in Kyōto: Ringing in the New Year... 108 Times

I spent New Year’s Eve at the headquarters of the Pure Land school of Buddhism, watching 17 monks cast away their sins by ringing the largest bell in Japan 108 times. It was different from my previous New Year’s experience, which involved getting trashed at a Princeton party in TriBeCa.

The tradition, known as joya-no-kane, takes place at temples across the country, where monks ring bells and sound gongs at midnight. Each sounding is meant to cleanse listeners of one of the 108 Buddhist temptations. This particular bell weighed 84 tons and was sounded by a large battering ram, from which hung 17 ropes. An old monk, in purple and gold kaftan-like robes, presided solemnly over the whole affair. The Jōdo shū temple, founded over 500 years before the United States, would have been impressive even without the massive bell. Approaching Chion-in, the first thing I saw was the temple’s colossal gate, which, I learned, is also the largest in Japan. Illuminated at night, the sight of the gate was pretty awe-inspiring.



From the temple, my friend and I walked downhill through the hundreds of colorful festival fast food rotensho stalls lining Maruyama Park. We passed Yasaka Shrine and saw thousands of people lined up behind police barricades, waiting for hatsumōde, their first shrine visit of the year. We decided to skip partaking in Japan’s version of Times Square and managed to catch a cab back to the hotel.

As I stood at Chion-in, one of Kyoto’s coolest temples in my opinion, in the cold at midnight, I really couldn’t stop thinking about how much has happened over the past year and—at risk of sounding old—how quickly the year flew by. As I mentioned, I spent the previous New Year’s surrounded by a lot of Cap friends in New York. I remember talking to a guy who was in Cap and graduated ’07; he was spending the year in China through PiA and was back just for his winter break; I remember him telling me about his experience in China, and I distinctly remember thinking that it sounded really cool but that there was no way I’d ever move to Asia after graduation. Life is funny that way, I guess.

--Rob Bernstein

The bell is 11 feet in height and 9 feet in diameter. Intense.

It took 17 monks to ring the 84-ton bell.

A huge crowd waits to enter Kyoto's Yasaka Shrine for hatsumode on New Year's. Thousands and thousands more people were lined up as far as I could see down the street.

Two Beats in Bogotá

VS

My New Year’s eve was supposed to be long and unconventional, eccentric even. It was supposed to start with a mellow, late dinner with my parents, listening to typical Colombian music in downtown Bogotá. I would celebrate with them until 12:30 or so, have some champagne, then head to a “Drum & Bass” party – whatever that means – that was described to me as “very underground”.

This would have been perfect. My planned evening would have allowed me to ruminate about the greatness of our (North and South) American music, to philosophize about the merits of the old and the new, the local and the imported, music in Spanish and music in English – and how great it is to enjoy both within one Latin American metropolis. I would have made a clichéd extended metaphor: these genres somehow symbolize our shared (northern and southern) heritage. Or destiny, or something like that.

Whatever the merits of my analysis, my evening did not turn out as planned. So I get to skip the cliché and hope you’re entertained by my evening nonetheless.

At around 11:00 PM on the night of the 31st, my mom, dad, and I arrived at “Salomé Pagano Social Club”, a “traditional” (meaning old) venue in the Zona Rosa of northern Bogotá. According to my dad, this area used to be the city’s red light district when he was my age, but it has been restored and turned into an upscale place for bars, restaurants, and clubs. I know the area well, and I was surprised to see it so desolate; most venues were closed, and the streets were dark and empty. The masses of young people were notoriously absent. This Venezuelan did not know that Colombians who can afford it leave the big cities and head to the beach, specifically Cartagena, a beautiful old port city, for the holidays. My brother and sister defected our usual family New Year’s celebration and stayed in Cartagena with their friends, while I headed to Bogotá in order to spend more time with my parents.

Salomé is famous for playing traditional Colombian music – salsa and cumbia in particular – and this night was no exception. “Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto”, a well-known Colombian band that has been around for decades, was on as we walked in. I realized that Gaita means something totally different to Colombians than to Venezuelans, and decided I like it. I also realized I’d heard this music just the previous week, while at the beach in Santa Marta; it sounds like a very primitive, raw form of cumbia. The men, in white robes and traditional hats, played exotic instruments: leather-bound drums, maracas, and a long, wooden, flute-like thing that sounded like an alto sax but looked like a stuffed serpent. The crowd was older and subdued, and I’m not usually into dancing (especially not in front of my parents), so I settled in to enjoy my meal, my rum, and the music.

As midnight drew near, the waitresses distributed champagne and the drunken owner of the place got on stage to try his hand at MC-ing. He sucked. As the crowd kissed, yelled, hugged, and blew their party horns to celebrate the new year, a mock prayer rang out of the enormous speakers that lined the walls. It was meant to sound like a solemn appeal from a preacher to God, but instead of a religious message it had a political one: the Cuban revolution (which turned 50 on January 1st, 2009) was a farce, its leaders were tyrants and it had plunged the country into misery and backwardness. I’m sure the writer must have thought it was very clever, but it was out of place in a New Year’s party, and the crowd dispersed. After 10 minutes the tedious voice finally stopped, and the music and party continued.

This is where my evening took an unexpected twist. As already mentioned, I am Venezuelan; my parents only moved to Bogotá the year I went to college. Among other things, this means I never studied in Colombia and know very few people there. Most of the people I do know were away, vacationing with their parents or partying in Cartagena. The one exception was Daniel, a DJ I met a few months back, who had proposed a few days earlier a “very underground Drum & Bass party” after midnight.

As things turned out, Daniel was nowhere to be reached in the early hours of January 1st. In fact, I have still not been able to contact him, 2 days later, and have no idea what happened to him. I decided not to go to the “underground” party (where I knew no one) alone, so I called it a night around 2:30 AM.

So my planned philosophical ruminations have had to be cancelled, because of a disappointing evening. American music is still excellent in both its northern and southern variations, but I will leave the extended clichéd metaphors for someone else. At least I learned something this New Years Eve: when in Colombia, head to the coast for the holidays.

New Year's Eve in NYC... in style

I flew into New York as the snow was falling. Though Charleston’s weather was a balmier 55 when I left home (I went to the beach on Christmas day!), there was nothing better than the big, beautiful snow flakes that greeted me. It was my first New Year’s Eve in the city, after all those years of watching the ball drop from my basement TV in grade school.

I had a few hours to waste before getting ready for the evening, so I decided to venture out to see the holiday decorations one last time. I glimpsed Times Square in the distance as I was crossing 7th Ave and spotted the New Year’s Eve Ball. What seemed like a small shining orb from a distance was an 11,875 pound mass covered in 2,668 Waterford Crystals and powered by 32,256 LEDS. Beginning this year, the Ball will sit atop One Times Square year-round and add to the brightly lit skyline on 42nd Street and Broadway. Seeing it in person, I couldn’t understand all the fuss.


I spent the next hour walking around Rockefeller Center and 5th Avenue, gawking at the tourists taking pictures. I entered the Saks Fifth Avenue wonderland. Not only did they have snowflakes projected on the façade of the buildings, they had a small light show inside. My favorite store front was probably the Cartier building with the 50+ ft bright red light-up ribbon across the front of the building.

I headed back to my boyfriend’s apartment (Colin Fechter ’08) at 5 p.m., thinking that I would beat the rush and street closings. But no, they had already begun. I was forced to wander uptown until finding a street that let pedestrians cross west. I had never seen so many cops in one place in my entire lifetime. One large Police van was even blasting The Rocky theme song on loudspeaker!

I got off the street and into my little black dress. We headed down to our $150-a-head party at Capitale, a swanky club on the Lower West side that was built in 1893 and used to be a bank (I copied the picture on the left from their website...full disclosure). Though I thought the night was pricey, the scene was amazing. It was like the high school prom I never had, and with hundreds of beautiful people between the ages of 20 and 30 years old. For the lovers of the Princeton social scene, it was like Cottage House parties on steroids, but without the terribly repetitive 80s music. There was an open bar and buffet, an enormous dance floor (my favorite), and ceiling lights that changed from red to purple to green. Other studly Princetonians spotted included Colin, Kane Hochster, Amara Suebsang, Chris White, Mark Gober, and Phil Farinacci.

As I write this post a day later, I’m left wondering what other classmates were doing in New York last night. Were you in Times Square? Did you overpay for a mediocre experience? Did you crash a friend’s party and drink for free? If nothing else, I hope you basked in the energy and the common joy of the night.