Donald Keene’s Japan (Pt. 48): Starting the New Year with Japanese friends and food

TOKYO — In the early 1980s, Donald Keene was just about to reach the age of 60. He became settled, and established a lifestyle where he spent the first half of the year teaching classes as a university professor in New York and the latter half in Japan, busying himself with writing, lectures, and research. In an autobiographical passage, Keene describes his yearly rituals, or “nenchugyoji,” during the New Year’s holiday in Japan around this time. The reader can glimpse his gradual transformation into a Japanese local as he adapted to the country’s customs. During the 1980s my life tended to consist of a series of nenchugyoji (annual events). New Year’s Eve each year would be spent with Abe Kobo…