This past Friday, Theresa and I went shopping for Ochugen gifts. In Japan, more than being celebrated as a holiday, Ochugen is one of the times of the year when it is customary to give gifts to one’s associates. The level of giftyness varies by person, but the general idea is that the gifts are meant to repay (or at least thank) a person to whom you feel particularly indebted. We had a list of a few people, but wanted particularly to find a nice gift for the Japanese contractor who acted as our consultant (not to mention volunteering a lot of his time) renovating our apartment. We decided to go to a Japanese gift store, called Daishin.

A beautifully laid out coffee gift set is one of the many items available for giving.

When the Japanese give a gift to someone outside their family, it is usually something practical. Things like coffee, soap, fruit, or cooking ingredients are very common (more on that some other time). They are usually very nicely packaged and in shops like this one, you hardly have to do anything. Theresa and I walked around and browsed all the displays. As we decided on gifts for particular people, we took one of the little cards next to the display and wrote the person’s name on it. When we were all done, we went up to the counter (which reminded you of a jewelry counter) and handed one of the staff our cards. She and another staff member then proceeded to go around the store and collect all the things we wanted to buy and brought them behind the counter where they wrapped them all beautifully for free. They then proceeded to copy the people’s names to little post-it notes and attach them to each package. After we paid the bill, they even loaded them onto a cart and took them out to our car for us. If we had wanted, they would have also prepared any of them for delivery around the country. All in all, a very pleasant experience.

But here was the part that really impressed me… After our gift shopping, we went to another store to pick up some groceries and headed home. On the way, we realized that I had left my computer at the gift store. (To any of you who know me very well, this is not a surprise.) I had taken it in to help identify some of the pictorial characters that we didn’t know, and set it down on the counter and left without it. As we were about to turn around and go back to the store, hoping they were still open, my cell phone rang. It was our team leader, who was over at the church doing some painting. One of the employees who had helped us went out of her way to stop at our apartment on her way home from work to drop the computer off. She insisted on waiting until we got home and giving it to us personally (which fortunately gave us a chance to thank her personally). I am sure there was some special dispensation since we were foreigners, but that takes treating your customers well to a whole new level!

Pray for the Japanese, as they are very aware of the gifts they must give to each other, but are unaware of the gift that God has given to them through his son, Jesus. Pray that many of the non-Christian Japanese who we will be giving these gifts to will come to know the truth of the gospel as they see it lived out in our lives.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Life in Cross-Cultural Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.