New Year is a time of great celebration all over Japan. The Japanese have been
celebrating this day on the 1st of January as per the Gregorian calendar only
since 1873. Before that, they used to celebrate New Year in the month of spring,
as per the Chinese lunar calendar. The people of Japan welcome New Year with
great zeal and enthusiasm and follow several customs and traditions on this day.
Read on to know all about the interesting New Year celebrations in Japan.
New Year Celebrations In Japan
Japanese people have several typical traditions that they follow on New Year.
They prepare delicious dishes on the day; some of which have to be prepared
compulsorily. Their traditional set of dishes is called osechi-ryori and
contains a group of items, like boiled seaweed, mashed sweet potato with
chestnut, sweetened black soybeans, fish cakes and simmered burdock root.
Japanese also have a special soup for the celebration, known as ozone, which
contains miso. All the traditional foods are made in such a way that they can be
stored for a long period of time, even without the refrigerator.
On the seventh day of January, Japanese people prepare a soup out of the seven
herbs. It is called jinjitsu and helps in relaxing and soothing the
heavily-laden stomach. They customarily make rice cakes called mochi for the New
Year celebration as well. The rice cake is prepared by patting boiled sticky
rice in a wooden container with water, by using a large wooden mallet. The rice
cake is eaten in the beginning of January. In Japan, people even make a special
decoration of mocha called the kagami mocha, on the day. In kagami mocha, they
place two round mocha one on the other and put a bitter orange on top of it.
The Japanese send postcards to their near and dear ones on the New Year day.
This custom of sending postcards is as popular as the exchange of Christmas
cards in United States. The post offices in Japan assure people that the
postcards would be delivered by the 1st of January, provided they are posted
within the mid and end of December. The postcards are to be marked with the word
nengajo, which acts as the symbol for the post offices to deliver them as soon
as possible. The post offices even hire students on part-time basis, to help
them in the delivery of these postcards. People take care not to send a postcard
if there is any death in the family. In this case, they just send a simple
postcard, informing every one that as a sign of respect to the deceased soul,
they should not send the New Year cards.
In Japan, There is a popular custom of giving money to the children on New Year.
This custom is called otoshidama. As a part of the customs, people hand over the
money to children in small attractive envelopes, called pochibukuro. They also
play some traditional games on New Year, like koma, takoage, fukuwarai, karuta,
hanetsuki, sugoroku, etc. There are also several entertainment programs,
organized exclusively for the celebration. People also watch the first sunrise
of the year, which they call Hatsuhinode. Many people visit a shrine or temple,
either after the midnight on 31st December or on morning of 1st Janauary. This
first trip of the year is known as Hatsumode. They also mark several other
firsts in the New Year, like hatsugama (first tea ceremony), keiko-hajime (first
practice), shigoto-hajime (first work) and so on.
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