Happy New Year from Japan

Osechi is not the only traditional food related to the new year. On New Year’s Eve, it is traditional to eat long noodles signifying a long life called toshikoshi soba (year-crossing noodles). It is considered good luck to try to stretch the gooey rice cakes in your zouni soup as long as possible, too, to guarantee a long life. In a sad ironic twist, numerous elderly die each year at New Years from choking on those very same “long life” rice cakes (don’t picture the dry rice cakes you buy in American stores, these are gooey-when-heated bars of pounded rice called mochi.)

SHRINE/TEMPLE VISITS

On New Year’s Eve (Oumisoka), many people visit Buddhist temples to hear the temple bells rung 108 times at midnight (joya no kane) to dispel the evils of the past year. Often, they are able to line up and ring the bell themselves, if they have purchased a ticket beforehand for 500 yen (and up). {256K RealVideo G2 of bellringing}. The first day of the new year (ganjitsu, remember?) is usually spent with family members, toasting with that nasty toso (even Japanese make a face when they drink it and say “mazuii!” – gross!) and eating osechi. But people also flock to the Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. On the ganjitsu, the emperor - the head of the Shinto “church” if you will - performs a ceremony in private called the shihouhai, or “worship of the four quarters.” On the 2nd day, the public is invited to enter the Imperial Palace (the only other times it is open to the public is the emperor’s birthday, Dec. 23). While the ganjitsu is reserved for family, on the 2nd and 3rd days of the new year friends and business acquaintances call on one another to toast with toso and extend greetings.

There is much more to the Japanese New Year celebration, some of it impossible to capture the spirit of in such a short (you call this short??) article, much as you could not explain the spirit of Christmas in a few paragraphs about Santa Claus, the nativity and decorations (explain that to my American next door neighbor, whose house is lit up like a pachinko parlor and can be seen from Mir). Traditional activities like kite flying, top spinning, fireworks launching and a form of badminton playing are deeply rooted in Japan’s court and feudal eras. There is a tournament

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