Easter: Lesson

The actual Easter lesson went much like last year's, except this time I left off explaining the Christian part of the holiday. I did that because, when taken as a single holiday, and presented as a celebration of new life (life symbolized by brightly-colored eggs) heralding the approach of spring, Easter has only the most tenuous of connections to Christianity.

I mean no disrespect to Christianity; I'm just speaking from experience. Last year I tried explaining the resurrection of Jesus, and this was greeted with more confusion than interest. This year I decided not to spend fifteen extra minutes belaboring the point (and fielding the thorny questions we asked when we were twelve) that three days after Jesus was crucified (what's crucified? holy crap, why was he crucified? what are Romans? what's Judea? tell me again why you people celebrate this occasion every year?), he rose from the dead and went up to heaven. (why did he rise from the dead? if he's the son of God, how did he die to begin with? why did he come down in the first place, if he went back up to heaven? doesn't your soul go to heaven when you die anyway?)

At any rate, I settled on a more streamlined presentation. I began by asking what season this is, to which almost everyone answered, "Spring." Most of my classes were before the equinox, though. Intrigued, I asked them when spring begins. Some of the silly ones threw out random months, but a sizable portion of the class gave February 3 as the date. This is Setsubun (or, more correctly, Risshun, the spring setsubun), and traditionally marks the beginning of spring in Japan.

I find this interesting, because the rest of February is bitterly cold, and mid-March, while still chilly, is the first time the weather approaches anything resembling spring-like. Anyway, the explanation of spring equinox wasn't as difficult as I feared: once I explained what 'equi' means, most classes correctly identified it as Shunbun no hi in Japanese.

I then asked what we do in the spring. I was hoping for--and, for the most part, got--students to pipe up with "Hanami!" (Flower viewing) I asked why we look at flowers in March instead of January, and almost everyone caught my drift: the flowers start blooming in March. From this, I explained that spring is a time of new life, and paused for someone to tell me what "new life" means. At this point, a few students saw where I was going with this; most of them caught it not long after: Easter is a celebration of the spring.

Like last year, quite a few students caught the "east" in Easter, though I opted not to dive into the etymology of east and Eostre. Also like last year, several students recognized Easter from Easter Island, and were satisfied when I explained that Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island on Easter Sunday, 1722.

I then showed the students pictures of cute baby animals--you'd be surprised how well freshman girls stay focused on a lesson when you flash puppies and ducklings on the screen--and then brandished an egg. Explaining that people decorate eggs for Easter, I asked why we do this. Though some classes were much slower and needed more nudging than others, eventually someone in each group touched on the notion of eggs being a symbol of new life.

Next, I explained the process of dyeing eggs, relying on props and their listening comprehension to get the point across. "Vinegar" was a tricky word, but when I sniffed the air, they all got it. (Even with a window cracked, the room had the unmistakable odor of vinegar, which every student commented on--"くさっ!"--as they entered.) I finished by showing them pictures of dyed and decorated eggs that I'd found on the Internet.