Ayame's blog Jan 4, 2017
http://ayano.me/archives/333
Translation:
What If They Silence the New Years Bells?
Well, I have a have a lecture in Kyoto coming right up in 6 days. This will include a talk on the theme of "sound environment," and there turned out to be New Years news story of the same mood.
"Expel the 108 New Years Bells that Expel Worldly Desires 'social acceptability.' The shifting tide of Japan's tradition." - Yahoo News (R25)
Source: http://zasshi.news.yahoo.co.jp/article…
There is a complaint about it being noisy, they may stop striking the New Years Bells, times change and the Temple may do so. Still, over 15% of the people turned out to have objections about the New Years Bells, saying "it would be good to stop it" in their answers to the news' survey. That's especially interesting news.
I wonder, are the New Years Bells Noise?
In the lecture, "Sound Environment" is a discussion that involves what is noise and what is not noise. I wonder if it's an ambiguous theme, yet it's simple, if you feel something is noise, then it is, if you don't feel it's noise, it's not. In the train, I have my music blasting, sound that leaks out might be noise to people around me, something like that. In the first place, the noise problem started when we started to split sound into two categories, noise and not noise. It is a curiosity, what if there was no noise problem in olden days before the word "noise" existed. As proof, since the piano noise murder case in the 1970s, cases involving noise have been prosecuted more often. [ piano murder, in 1974 an mentally unstable and overly sound sensitive man killed his neighbors for playing the piano too much:http://www.japantimes.co.jp/…/when-should-we-make-noise-ab…/ ]]
"People who don't notice they have stiff shoulders don't strain their shoulders," it might be something like that, eh LOL.
Of course, there is the same question about whether or not preschool children's voices are noise, don't you think? People who think it's normal to hear children's voices, don't feel that it's noise, do they?
Still, that which is called noise is not necessarily a problem of volume. On the train there is concern about speaking in a low voice on the phone, but not about having a conversation in a normal voice. Sound is in air space, and then environment makes a set. That air space, when sound and environment don't link up successfully, there's a "iwakan" (bad feeling), we could draw some conclusion about this inexplicable phenomenon like this.
Well, getting back to the discussion of the New Years Bells. These New Years Bells, I dare say, most people feel it has the charm of New Years Eve about it, there's no question about it, they don't feel that it's noise, I think. I dare say, this is a long standing custom, and these so called reasons are not enough. I guess if you rang bells in the middle of the night in a country that did not have a New Years Bells tradition, you might be told to shut up. In the same way, if "gong" sounding bells are not wanted, "vooooii" they'd be devoiced, with the same volume, same timing, I wonder if as many people would feel they were noise. Maybe self-centered people could get into the spirit of expelling their worldly desires, eh.
** here is a nice article about Japanese New Years Traditions, including the 108 New Years Bells, which are rung at Buddhist Temples all over the country, sometimes for an hour or two, to dispel 108 worldly desires: https://www.japantoday.com/…/a-guide-to-new-year-traditions…
