I recently attended a "kankin" ceremony to mark the 100th day since the death of my neighbor Ueda-san. The usual funeral-goers were there as well as a couple of Sweat Suit Boys. Many of the attendees were people I only see at funerals. I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't a sort of hobby. It's hard to avoid funerals when 20 people die of old age per year on our island. Add to that "kankin" ceremonies (which the locals call "kanki") and "hoji" at one, three, seven, 13 years and so on up to 50 years after death, and that's 320 ceremonies in just the four years I have been here. That's frequent enough to be called a hobby, or at least a part-time job.

There were so many of these ceremonies last week that the Buddhist priest was too busy to make it to Ueda-san's kanki.

Before I left for the ceremony, I opened the shrine in the wall of my house, which still holds the "ihai," where my landlord's father's soul resides. I'm not exactly sure how the soul gets in there, but it makes me nervous having someone's soul in my house. It makes the phrase "God rest his soul" sound more like a plea. Besides, I don't know exactly how he died. Do you think having the soul in my house could be used as evidence against me in a murder trial?