Japanese New Year

After spending the last few days of 2007 in Osaka, seeing the New Year in at the top of Osaka's Umeda building (I do like a good view...though it was FREEZING...) I said a very miserable goodbye to my boyfriend, who had to go back to the UK from Kansai airport, then I decided to brave the train crowds and get on the shinkansen back to Kokura. I wanted to see how the Japanese typically spend New Year, which doesn't normally involve big cities, but going back to the smaller towns people may have grown up in.

So, back in Kokura, after standing up for two and a half hours on the shinkansen, minus a boyfriend with a week off work but no money on the horizon, I was feeling pretty miserable. (In retrospect, though I was so close to leaving, the week following this was one of the hardest stretches I had in Japan. You know what they say about so close to the finish line, yet so far...)

Anyway, as I stepped off the train and down the big, unusually deserted steps of Kokura Station, (did I was miserable...?) when I felt a really cold feathery drop hit me in the eye-SNOW! Snow has always had a great effect on my spirits. Maybe it's because I was born in the winter in a pretty small, snowy countryside town, or maybe it's because my first memory was my dad taking me out into the snow. Either way, it cheered me up and made me feel like I wouldn't be missing out by staying home alone that night.

Kokura was weirdly quiet on the walk back-New Year is the only time that things really truly close down across the country. It felt strange, as Japan is normally such a fast paced place. But it was also a nice anomaly to experience. The rest of that day, I settled back into my apartment, unpacked, and checked my boyfriend's flight progress on the internet...nerdy, much?

That night, some people I worked with were still around and we went to a 'Little Chef'-style roadside diner called 'Royal Host' for dinner and stayed chatting until after midnight.

This was nice, but I ate a bowl of noodles with some DISGUSTING excuse of a reconstituted pork steak lumped on top. It made me feel constantly like I was going to chuck up through the night, so, I do not recommend Royal Host, Ringer Hut, Volka, Joyful, or those other mock-Western, half-arsed places in Japan. If you want decent food in Japan, eat Japanese, (food, not people). It's as simple as that.

On January 2nd, I decided to go to the really beautiful shrine next to Riverwalk shopping centre and see in the New Year Japanese style. Things hadn't gone extremely well so far, so I thought maybe a Buddhist blessing would give me an untouchable security bubble to live in for the rest of the year. After all, with the big move back to the UK and six the weeks of travelling I had planned, I really needed the luck and safety.

So, I went to the shrine. Aah...



So peaceful and picturesque, considering it's flanked by main roads on all sides, and a massive shopping mall and car park.



The Japanese New Year tradition goes something like this. Japanese mothers (who still, traditionally, cook) prepare a few days worth of food, kind of like a bento with vegetables, etc.. which is likely to keep well. The family then live on this and laze around together for a few days, many going back to their family homes, if they don't already live with their parents and grandparents.

'Mochi' (steamed rice that has been pounded and formed into cakes) is in abundance at New Year, as are public mochi-pounding cook-ups, where you can watch it being made and then offered to the Gods. I had a kind of love-hate relationship wih mochi throuhout the year- it's exceptionally chewy (many elderly people die every year by choking on it...) and, as it's basically glutionous part of the rice, gives me bad heartburn. You can eat it as a sweet, however (with strawberries or anco bean paste in the middle...gorgeous!) or you can eat it in soup (not so great...) People also grill it at New Year and eat it in a special soup, known as 'Ozoni'.

The home is an imporant hub at New Year, and one of the things some of my work colleagues told me about was the intense cleaning which goes on before the bells toll. Japanese people believe no baggage should be carried over into January, therefore they hold 'Bonnenkai', or 'forgetting the year' parties in the workplace (kind of like the typical English 'photocopy your arse office party', but even better because everbody had to forget it afterwards, ahah) and also try their best to wrap up all of their business affairs and debts in time for January 1st.

Families make offerings to keep their household Gods happy, also. Some of the foods they offer up on small tables include dred fish (seabream, shrimps,cuttlefish) mochi, dried persimmons, sardines, herring roe, cray fish, sea-bream, dried chestnuts, pine seeds, black peas, dried cuttlefish, 'Mochibana', or flowers made of rice and straw, mandarin oranges, and many other items varying from district to district. 'Otoso', a thick rice wine is also traditionally serve around this time.

Within the first four days of the January, millions of families visit shrines to bless themsleves and offer things to God's for the New Year.



The 'Shimenawa' (rope) and the 'kadomatsu' (pine decorations) are important adornments. The shimenawa is a sacred rope made of straw on which zig-zag strips of paper have been hung, which is placed above the front entrance of Torii (the arch entrances to Shinto shrines)/ buildings/homes/shrines to prevent "evil spirits" from entering. The two weeks (or one week in Tokyo) during which these decorations are hung is referred to as 'matsunouchi'.

Another thing which you commonly find around shrines and generally anywhere and everywhere are small white papers tied to tree branches. These are called 'Omikuji', or fortunes/prayers which people write/choose from on long thin pieces of paper, read then tie to tree branches in the hope that their prayers will be answered.



Another important thing worth mentioning is that every year, people buy charms in the form of arrows from their local shrine (which cost around a tenner, or 2,000 Yen), to give them good luck for the year. Then, at the end of the year, they return these arrows to the shrine and buy new ones. In february, the old ones are burnt on large bonfires to officially end the New Year celebrations. here are some of the arrows collected by my local shrine in Kokura...



Some of the busiest places in the country include Tokyo Meiji shrine (7 million visitors during the first few days of NY) and also Fukuoka's Dazaifu temple ground. I decided to visit Dazaifu, which needed a whole post of its own, so do have a browse at that post if all of this New Year stuff has grabbed your attention.

I went to the shrine next to Kokura castle and there I followed other people and said a little good luck prayer for the year ahead. I've attached a video I took, showing how the New Year prayer works. Basically, it involves washing your hands in a freshwater font with a long handled square spoon, bowing in front of the temple, clapping you hands, yanking a rope so a bell rings, clapping your hands again, praying, making your wish, bowing then sodding off again to knuckle down and stick out your year.

The Japanese also send postcards 'nengajo' with traditional pictures and New Years Greetings to friends and colleagues- I sent and received a few, just for good karma.

In February, I was running out of weekends left in Japan and decided to finally make the trip to Hiroshima. I went around the 14th/16th and therefore caught a great ceremony which officially ends the New Year celebrations. 'Setsubun', is when shrines compile all of the good luck charms returned to them at New Year, stack them onto a pyre and burn them in public.


I caught the burn up at 'Hiroshima Gokoku Jinja' (the city's busiest shrine), which is just next to the gorgeous Hiroshima Castle. It was, understandably, bustling with people taking photos, dressed in kimono and worshipping at the time.


Anyway, being one of the three weeks the Japanese are guaranteed to get off work per year and, unlike most holidays, bringing the mighty Japanese work ethic to a grinding halt, I thought it was a major thing to think on while I was there. Not a part of my year away which I will forget easily, and was really interesting to outside eyes.



PS.) I walked out of the temple down the side of the shopping mall where my bike was parked for TWENTY MINUTES while I visited the shrine, only to find it had BEEN NICKED!!! For the SECOND TIME in TWO MONTHS!!! AAAH!!! Maybe this serves me right for butting into a Buddhist celeration when I'm not a Buddhist...maybe Karma does work afterall.


The culprit, frequently ransacked bike park, outside Riverwalk Mall, Kokura.