Happy New Year! I know you probably thought you were done greeting everyone with “Happy New Year!” But I greeted at least 20 students with that phrase today in Japan, so even though I’m a procrastinator, here is a belated post about my new years experience in Japan!
To preface things a bit, I’ve heard it said that Japan’s Christmas is like America’s New Years, and vice versa. So, I went to school on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and so did all of the other teachers and students, and if you can imagine, I was the only person in the entire building wearing a Santa hat. I was a little shocked to find that things were so normal at school, but it was fun sharing what Christmas means to me with my students. All things considered, I’d rather not spend another Christmas in Japan without my family and friends, but there were many things about my Christmas this year that I’ll remember and it was great to have a unique Japan Christmas once.
And so Christmas came and went and Japan was into the real holiday season: New Years! Like an American Christmas, the focus of New Years is being with family. Relations travel to meet one another and usually spend at least a few days together. In Japanese families, there is a “trunk” of every Japanese family tree and all of the branches travel to meet up at the trunk’s house. The trunk is responsible for taking care of his/her parents (they live together), has the family shrine in their house, and will usually host family get-togethers such as New Years.
Once everyone’s together, they eat a lot of food. :) (Also like Christmas, right?) They eat “o-sechi” (I think) which means food traditionally eaten at the beginning of the new year. Each kind of osechi represents a different aspect of the coming year: for example, you eat “mame”, or beans, to help you work diligently and fish eggs if you want to increase your fertility and have a baby this year. My favorite new years food was “zin zai”. Sweet bean soup with mochi rice cakes in it.
Some families will visit a temple and/or shrine during New Years. Not all Japanese families subscribe to the religious aspects of New Years, while other families might not pray all year long, but go to a shrine just on New Years. It depends on the family (just like families differ about going to church at Christmas in America!). On New Years eve, I went to a Buddhist shrine and temple with a friend’s host family. (See pictures) We rang a giant bell (108 times to represent the 108 vices of mankind), listened to the story of Siddhartha and how he became the Buddha, and ate snacks and chatted. Then we were off to the shrine (Fujisaki-gun) where we prayed for luck, bought lucky arrows to put in our homes and burned the arrows from the previous year, and paid to draw our fortunes and tie them on strings. We also ate okonomiyaki and squid and sweet bean pancake balls in the shape of a popular cartoon character.
New Years day and until the third of January is time to spend with family. I spent January second with my host family and their extended family. We went to a shrine in Aso where we prayed for luck for the coming year. I thought that the shrine I went to on New Years eve was really busy with LOTS of people. This shrine was much more sedate (maybe because it’s in Ozu, not the city, and maybe New Years eve is the most popular time to go…not sure), but we still ran into a lot of people we knew at the shrine. After we finished at the shrine, my host family let me join their family dinner. This is where I learned all about osechi! We ate lots of food, had lots of great conversation (the extended family also speaks lots of English-lucky me!), and even enjoyed some Japanese music!
All in all, Christmas and New Years in Japan was a very interesting time and I feel a bit more Japanese for having experienced it. And I know that all of that praying for luck has worked already, as I have wonderful friends who were so generous to share their special holiday with me.
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