NEW YEAR IN JAPAN

Hi guys! Welcome back to our blog! Since we have recently welcomed the new year and, as you know, I’m fond of everything Japanese, today I’d like to tell you what happens in Japan on  New Year’s Day.

The 31^st December and the 1^st January are very important days in Japanese culture, they correspond respectively to the holidays called Omisoka and Shogatsu.

Like any other important celebration there are traditional rites, in the Japanese culture there are many; 9 traditional rites!

Joyanokane (除 夜 の 鐘): Ringing of bells in Buddhist temples.

Hakizome (掃 初): Cleaning at the beginning of the year.

Hatsumōde (初 詣): First visit of the year to Buddhist and Shinto temples.

Hatsuhinode (初 日 の 出): Vision of the first sunrise of the year.

Hatsuni (初荷): Exposure by traders of new goods.

Nengajō (年 賀 状): Tradition which consists in sending greeting cards to friends and relatives.

Otoshidama (御 年 玉): The elderly give money enclosed in small decorated envelopes to children.

Sanganichi (三 が 日): The first three days of the year, traditionally considered holidays.

Otakara-e (お 宝 絵): Good luck sheets of paper on which a palindrome poem is written.

31^st December: Eve (Omisoka)

Traditionally, New Year's  Eve is spent with the family eating traditional dishes. Also in Japan there is the custom of making fireworks,  real fireworks! The most impressive can be seen  near the Tokyo Tower or near the Tokyo Sky Tree.

The real custom follows on New Year's Eve:  they listen to the 108 peals of the bells of Buddhist temples, and visit them on the same night.

1^st January (Shogatsu)

After midnight traditionally the Japanese go to one of the Buddhist temples and if they manage to stay awake they admire the first sunrise of the year.

In these day the Japanese are used to preparing typical cuisine called osechi ryori, but also traditional dishes like toshikoshi soba, a dish based on thin buckwheat noodles, usually cooked and served with various garnishes and condiments. A typical  New Year’s cake  mochi, consisting of crushed and crushed glutinous rice until a white, soft and rather sticky paste is obtained, which is then manipulated until it assumes the typical rounded shape stuffed with red bean jam. They sound delicious, don’t they?

Traditional decorations

There are some New Year decorations in Japan that every observant  Japanese  will show in their houses. One of these decorations is the shime-kazari, consisting of shinto straw and other materials such as ferns and ritual strips of paper. Another very common decoration is the kadomatsu, made with pine branches and placed at the entrance of restaurants, shops, houses or hotels: they think they host a deity in charge of ensuring good harvests and they convey the blessing of their ancestors.

 

Traditional New Year's Dishes

That is all from me! Do you know other different traditions to celebrate the New Year? Let me know in the comments and till my next post! Happy 2020, everyone.

AKIRA