Sunday, January 01, 2012

Joya No Kane at the Asian



San Francisco's Asian Art Museum has been offering an annual, participatory Japanese New Years Eve celebration for the last 26 years called Joya No Kane that involves ringing a Buddhist temple bell before the New Year to purify oneself of the 108 worldly desires.



The museum advertises the event as a family activity, so the place was crawling with kids on Saturday afternoon.



While waiting for their turn to ring the bell, the Cedric Westphal clan above was playing with colored markers and glue...



...while decorating an elephant in sparkly East Indian style.



We were given numbers on our entry to the museum at noon for a chance to ring the bell, but were running out of time so my math professor friend Matthew Hubbard (below right) pretended to be numberless and joined a female trio in the communal gonging.



Possibly he was expunging one of his 108 worldly desires.

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