Sunday, July 26th, 2015
Short Pants or Long Pants
Today I was going to a shrine in Kanagawa prefecture, which name is "Sakitori Jinjya ( 前鳥神社 )," and is famous as the place of job hunting gods. Before starting looking for my job, I had also prayed there, and finally they helped me out. This time I just wanted to say thank you to them. While preparing for this short trip at home this morning, I tried to put a short pants on because of recent hot weather; however, one thoughts came up to me. "Isn't it rude for gods I go with short pants? Should I put long pants on at least?" I took a few seconds for thinking about it, and my answer was here. "OK, I'll go with short pants." I know the opinion on this topic highly depends on individuals, but I personally made such a decision because of following 2 reasons – the priority and our history.
First of all, I believe what the most important point we should care here is not my appearance, but showing how big my gratitude to gods is. In a shrine we should follow some codes, for example, “be quiet” or “don’t take a picture,” and caring about my appearance is one of them. I think it is not debatable that every such a code is for showing our respect or gratitude to gods. So, I think it is not smart that making a bad effect to the first priority in order to protect the second priority. If I wore long pants under the hot sun, it would be definitely annoying and it may trouble my showing gratitude. Furthermore, I believe gods can read our minds perfectly. Because of this, they would understand how I decided to choose short pants.
Secondly, I cannot believe Japanese gods regard long pants as a formal style. Looking back over 2600 years’ Japanese history, people were wearing Western clothes only for 200 years. The rest of time, they had put traditional clothes on in front of gods. For this history, sort of the same discussion to here had already been seen in Japan and we have overcome it. By the way, I personally think “short pants or long pants” is not a big deal comparing with “Kimono (着物) or tuxedo with a silk hat and a stick.”
Finally, I chose a short pants and arrived at Sakitori Jinjya. After finishing praying I enjoyed a peaceful time in a garden of the shrine for a while. Then I saw some old guys who I guess live around there were coming for pray as well. They looked like just stopping by on their way of running. However, the way they looked when they solemnly prayed for gods with a tank-top and short pants was totally beautiful. Then I realized this was what I had thought.
