Living & First "Eid Adha" in Tsuruoka

Being here, living in Tsuruoka for couple month is a new journey for me. How is it feels? Well it’s not that surprised for me but there’s also some trouble and it’s not a big deal. By the way i want to tell my impression abput Tsuruoka. Tsuruoka is not a big city, so quite and peaceful. There’s also some shops and a mall. I mostly visited Daiso for bought some stuff, Seims/Family Mart/Seven Eleven for snacks, Izmo and Gyomusuppa for foods such as vegetables and fruits also meat and chicken. Everytime i bought some stuff or foods in the shops i love the voice of the workers greetings, mostly i heard Iraseimase, Arigatou gozaimasu. I don’t know why but i just love to hear it. The atmosphere here in Tsuruoka so clean and fresh. I still remember when i visited for the first time here, last year in November entering the Winter Season the air i breath just purifying myself. So fresh and clean! Even now is Summer season, it’s still the same. Living like Japanese here slowly makes me understand about the culture and it’s so interesting!

Here some questions from my friends in Indonesia that mostly they asked: (1) How do you find Halal foods? (2) How do you pray?. As a muslim who living in Tsuruoka i still the same muslim while i living in Indonesia or other country. My beliefs it’s same. What’s the prohibited and the things you shouldn’t do, it’s the principles of life i have to keep everytime and everywhere. How i find Halal foods? Well to be honest it’s so hard to find Halal foods in here especially food product that ready to eat. If we comparing to food product in Indonesia, you can easily find the ”Halal Logo” on the packaging but not in here. The product i found that labelled Halal only Chicken meat and fish nuggets in Gyomusuppa, Korean instant ramen in Don Quijote and some Indonesian products that you can find in here. But some products that not labelled Halal i have to read the ingredients first, so i have to know some Kanji about prohibited ingredients. Even there’s no Halal logo on some products but there’s no prohibited ingredients i still eat them. I remember my brother said to me “If you believe it’s ok, then it’s ok at least you have the effort to know about what you’re gonna eat” but some people have different opinion about this and it’s allright. For foods i usually cook and just buy some ingredients in the shops.

Living in a small city like Tsuruoka you may have limited access about something. For me as a muslim, there’s no mosque here. So how i pray? I do praying personally in my homestay and laboratory. I’m so grateful there’s a facility to pray in 6th floor in my building. The room isn’t that big but it’s so useful and also facility to pray at Friday in 6th floor in 3rd building. I downloaded application in google playstore, it’s called MuslimPro. This application can be a reminder for pray and also a compass to help you find the direction (Kiblat) for praying. It’s so useful, indeed! By the way the when i just visited here last month i little bit surprised because the time for pray at dawn it’s 2:41 AM! The difference of season also makes the time for pray also changes. If we comparing to Indonesia the time for pray it’s always same, the difference it’s not that much because there’s only 2 season and the sun position isn’t change that much.

Days by days i’ve been through then i realized the Eid Adha is on August 11th! This is my first time i celebrate the Eid Adha without my family. For information as i cited from Wikipedia, Eid Adha is a “Festival of Sacrifice”. It honours to willingness Ibrahim to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God’s command. But, before Ibraham could sacrifice his son, God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead. In commemoration of this intervention, an animal is sacrificed ritually and divided into three parts. One share is given to the poor and needy, another is kept for home, and the third is given to relatives. Even i’m not celebrating the Eid Adha with my family, i still have family here, my friends and all Indonesian people and Muslims from other country too. The Eid Adha it’s still Eid Adha.

As the describe above, we usually eat meat at this event. We cooked meat that we bought in a shop and make it some Indonesian foods that we usually eat in Indonesia. We pray at Daihoujimachi residence, it’s another homestay for Indonesian students exchange. A day before the day we prepare the ingredients and cook it first, so at the day we just eat all the food and focus to pray and also enjoying the momments with all Indonesians here and Muslims from other country too!

I also want to say, Happy Eid Adha to everyone!