New Years Day: A Big " PS to Christmas"

 

In America, I almost feel like New Years is a "PS to Christmas" because it is so much less celebrated.  However, here in Japan it is just the opposite.  Instead, New Years in Japan is the biggest holiday of the entire year!  Frankly, it seems more similar to our Thanksgiving than anything else.

First of all, there is the time period involved.  Just as our Thanksgiving holiday seems to stretch through the weekend and become at least a four-day holiday, so it is with Japan's New Year's celebrations.  First of all, the women start preparations the last three days of December:  All cleaning and cooking is to be done at this time since there will not be time for it afterwards.

Secondly, the holiday lasts from New Year's Eve through the 3rd or 4th of January.  However, I've seen numerous signs on shops indicating they were still closed until the 7th.  We were totally in awe to find that both the banks and post offices were closed the 1st through the 3rd.  It's true that mail was, in fact, delivered to us, but the actual post office, itself, was closed.  Most stores are also closed at this time as well.  

Thirdly, this is the holiday in which everyone travels to visit relatives over this long break.  "Over the river and through the woods...," you might say.  Many people were absent from Church either last week or this week since they were off to their various destinations.  And while visiting with family, it is also the time for children to receive gifts (mostly money) from grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

Just as we have foods typical to Thanksgiving, the Japanese have certain foods served during these festive days: one popular treat is sweet bean paste wrapped around a fresh strawberry, covered in a thin layer of pounded rice (mochi).  The Japanese also have door decorations similar to our displaying wreaths during the holidays.  Most of them contain a blend of bamboo, pine, and/or rope.  I have yet to find out if there is a specific reason for this combination, but they are very pretty.

   

    

Another tradition practiced at New Years involves a children's game--actually, a little girls' game.  The game is played with wooden paddles--like a stretched out ping pong paddle--with a girl's face painted on them, and small shuttlecocks.  They bat back and forth much like in a game of badminton.  The girl who misses has to allow herself to get her face painted by her opponent.  Then the game begins again.  This was practiced pretty much in the "olden days," and kids today don't really do it.  However, someone capitalized on this idea and created very elaborately decorated paddles with "3-D" padded ladies on the front whose fabric designs make them very, very expensive.  These are displayed in the home over the holiday season.

Another tradition is to display the Daruma, an armless, legless representation of one of the Buddhas.  The practice is to make a New Year's wish and blacken one of the eyes.  When that wish becomes a reality, then one blackens the other eye.  Although this is customary to do over New Years, you see these displayed at many restaurants and businesses throughout the year.  Since Daruma is somewhat rounded on the bottom, when tipped over it turns itself upright; thus, the accompanying admonition,

 "When you fall down seven times, get up eight!"

This is also a time of parties and dinner invitations.  We and seven other missionaries were invited to a nice restaurant by a very special older couple in the wardm the Kodamas. It was a restaurant specializing in shabu shabu, which is made up of paper thin slices of meat and a variety of vegetables, which you cook by yourself in the pot of boiling water in front of you..  Each person puts something in the pot, cooks it, retrieves it, and then places it in one of two "personal dishes" before them filled with two different types of sauces.  The Elders were known to have added raw eggs to make their sauce even better.  We were very grateful to have been invited out to share in this holiday event!  I don't think this couple is all that wealthy, and yet they treated nine of us to a very fancy meal which we'll long remember.

Lastly, many of the women here at our Japanese ward chose to wear a kimono to church today in honor of New Years.  Unfortunately, I was able to get photos of just one sweet gal, Kiyomi,
but I think they are priceless.

Shine o-medeto gozaimasu!

(Happy New Year)