Koden

 

In Japan, if you attend a funeral, in most cases, you need to bring koden, condolence money. They will give you back a present.

One day I attended a funeral. They gave me back a nice present. The bag that covered the present was especially good. In most cases, this bag is made of paper or plastic, but the bag was made of cloth. The color was chic. I liked it. I couldn’t throw it away.

Another day, I was invited to a birthday party of a friend of mine. I bought a present. I needed a bag to cover the present. I came up with an idea. I had the nice, chic cloth bag. As long as I didn’t say that it was from a funeral, I thought it would be a very nice bag to cover the present with.

I gave the present to my friend with the nice bag. My friend liked my present, but he also found a small pocket inside the bag. In the pocket, there was a packet of salt. That was concrete evidence that the bag was from a funeral.

In old Japanese tradition, after attending a funeral, you have to purify yourself with salt. They had given me salt. At that time, I couldn’t find the small pocket and the salt.

I told the truth. All my friends in the party laughed about that. I was humiliated.

 

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Picture by Uni Hirano