Cody 's Blog @ Bressler.org

New Years in Japan

New Years or 'Oshogatsu' in Japan is a very important holiday.  Each year in Japan is considered to be completely separate from the others so the start of a New Year is a way for people to start over with a clean slate.  People decorate their homes with a traditional decoration of pine and bamboo called a Kadomatsu.  People set a pair of Kadomatsu on either side of their front door to welcome the harvest spirits.  You also see very fancy Kadomatsu in front of businesses.  Another traditional decoration is the Kagami Mochi.  It consists of two mochi rice cakes stacked on top of each other with on orange on the very top.  The mochi rice cakes represent the going and coming year while the orange represents continuation of family.  Generally these decorations are placed in the household Shinto altar but some people will put a few in various rooms of the house. 

At the end of December many coworkers and friends have Bonenkai's (forgetting the past year party).  These are drinking parties were everyone forgets their troubles of the past year.  My friends and I had one on the 28th and everyone easily forgot their problems as it was a Nomikai (all you can drink party).  On December 31st many people eat soba and watch the music show "Kohaku".  This show is a competition of the most famous and popular Japanese enka and J-pop musicians.  They are divided into a red team (female vocals) and a white team (male vocals).  I did not watch the show but the winner this year was the J-pop boy band Arashi (Japanese version of Backstreet Boys). On New Years day children get Otoshidama from their parents and relatives.  Otoshidama are essentially fancy envelopes with money inside.  A lot of my Junior High School asked me for Otoshidama. 

During the first few days of January people eat a traditional meal called Osechi.  This is a meal consisting of seaweed, fish cakes, black beans, herring roe, egg custard, mashed sweet potatoes, and various vegetables.  This meal was originally eaten because families could not buy food as nobody worked for the first few days of New Years.  Another tradition that happens within the first few days of the New Year is Hatsumode.  This is when a person visits a shrine for the first time that year.  During the visit people buy new Omamori (good luck/protection charms) and return their old Omamori which are burned at the shrine.  People also buy Omikuji which are fortunes written on small pieces of paper.  The bigger shrines in Japan will attract a lot of people for Hatsumode.  One year the Meji shrine in Tokyo attracted 3.4 million people in only 3 days.