Although few people in Japan observe the ceremonial end of the New Year holiday, 鏡開き (kagamibiraki) and 小正月 (koshōgatsu) falls between the 11th and 15th of January and it concludes more than ten days of festivities at the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.

Preparation

Before the season begins, it’s very important to clean house. The last week of December, a month famous for being busy for centuries in Japan—the old name for December is 師走 (shiwasu), which refers to the frantic running of priests, eager to get everything done before the year is out—is when you are supposed to focus on a cleaner, more organized living space for the new year.

Hiro and I carted six hundred pounds of accumulated junk (foodstuffs that had gone way past their expiration dates, old, broken furniture, even Hiro’s old school notebooks from his time at Chiba Institute of Technology) to the dump on December 29th.

The season begins on December 31st, a date known as 大晦日 (ōmisoka). Traditions for the closing of the year include eating noodles, usually buckwheat noodles, called 年越し蕎麦 (toshikoshi soba), although Hiro is found of making his summertime favorite, chilled rāmen noodles with tomatoes, cucumbers, ham, and rolled omelets.

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New Year’s Eve

When we lived in Japan, we would line up before midnight at the oldest temple in Tōkyō, Sensōji. The Asakusa neighborhood, where Sensōji is located, is adjacent to what was once one of the largest pleasure quarters in Japan, Yoshiwara, and Asakusa remains vibrant and exciting even now.

During our last visit to Sensōji on December 29th, 2016, there were already crowds, eager to clear out bad luck at the end of the year, to welcome the new year with a mental clean slate.

As we waited, we heard the monks ring the giant temple bells in a very Buddhist countdown. The bells are rung one hundred and eight times, once for every human attachment that prevents you from attaining nirvana. The crowds are orderly and calm, as they always are, and we wait patiently for the gates into the temple precincts to open at precisely midnight.

To visit a shrine or temple early in the new year is considered lucky, a sensation that was physically palpable as we moved forward with the throng, past the massive braziers sharing the purifying scent of incense, and up the stairs to the offertories placed before the temple’s open doors. Your wish for good fortune could be matched with financial generosity for the temple and although a few people got close enough to let ¥1,000, ¥5,000, or ¥10,000 bills slip into the offertories (worth about US$8, 40, and 80, respectively, nowadays), most offered either ¥100 or ¥500 coins.

Getting close to the offertory was tricky in such a massive crush of people, so most people, Hiro and I included, would toss our coins when we were reasonably certain of scoring a divine basket. But because Hiro and I are both tall, at that distance we also were accidental targets when people behind us, impatient, tossed their coins too. Thankfully, no one threw a coin with enough force to bruise us, but when we moved to the side of the temple, down the stairs to the office where amulets are sold, we both checked our jacket hoods. Because we kept our heads bare, more than a few coins collected in our hoods, and we made certain to drop them off with an amulet-vending monk.

New Year’s Day

I’ll talk more about amulets in another post (although I will say that I have one for my desk here at home, for my car, and for my workplace not to mention the souvenir-like amulets we collected on our last trip to Japan and will be collecting on our next trip this coming spring), but another key purchase at a shrine or temple on New Year’s is your fortune. I’ve spoken about fortunes in another issue of Out of Japan, but the best thing about the 御神籤 (omikuji) fortunes is that, now matter which one you pull, leaving it behind, tied to either a dedicated rack or a plant within the precincts, will ensure that the deities will read it and either honor it if it’s good fortune or nullify it for you if it’s a bad fortune.

My fortune for this year was lovely. At left are specifics for different aspects: illness (recovery happens when you properly attend to treatment), romance and relationships (don’t hurry), the person you wait for (they’ll be late—I hope that refers to a literary agent), lawsuits (you will succeed after time to make progress), lost items (you’ll find them after a time), buying and selling (good time to shop, don’t hurry to sell), construction (think carefully before moving), travel (consider your plans carefully), financial (think carefully—so many mentions of that adverb! I get the hint!), tests (efforts will be rewarded). At right, however, is a summary that strikes me as far more poetic: amid the gathered clouds, the light of the moon will shine forth/exercise patience in all things and with very, very careful consideration, happiness shall arrive under divine auspices.

Now that your house is clean and you’ve made your first visit to a shrine or temple, you get to relax. During the first few days of the year (and depending on the calendar it can be anywhere from three to five days—New Year’s on a Wednesday is optimal!), it is traditional for people to not work. Families gather, food comes out (that was made in advance—even housework is supposed to cease during the holiday), and you hunker down in front of the TV and watch all the singing competitions. Some families will also observe the traditional amusements for New Year’s: flying kites and playing a type of net-less badminton with exquisitely decorated battledores (called 羽子板 (hagoita)) and feathered shuttlecocks (called 胡鬼子 (kokinoko)).

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I still have the battledore I bought at a dedicated market, usually held on December 19th within the precincts of Sensōji.

In the past few decades, more and more stores have started opening on January 3rd (and sometimes even on the 2nd) to proclaim their first sale of the year. These usually include lucky bags, called 福袋 (fukubukuro), that can include items worth well beyond what you pay for one.

But I prefer the eating.

Traditional New Year’s food, お節料理 (osechi ryōri) is a smorgasbord of auspicious treats. There are the lucky colors (red and white), wishes for big families, wishes for long life, and wishes for a clear or sweet future, all symbolized in the different dishes. Back in 1991, before I met Hiro, I challenged myself to make all of these dishes by hand. I bought all the traditional equipment and all the traditional ingredients and then probably succumbed to a very traditional panic attack because some of this food is crazy difficult to make. Nowadays, we order from Fujiya, a Japanese grocery store in Vancouver, because even with the gas figured in for the drive up and back, it’s cheaper (and better) than the versions they crank out at Uwajimaya, our local Japanese grocery store.

Another traditional dish is among the first things that Hiro ever cooked for me, お雑煮 (ozōni). This a soup that can be eaten any time of the day during the holiday and there are both many regional and many family-based variations. Hiro’s version is very Tōkyō in presentation: clear mushroom (either shiitake or matsutake) broth, poached chicken, pre-cooked spinach and carrots, stewed mushrooms, and mochi rice cakes.

We try to buy handmade mochi at the end of each December specifically for this dish.

Mid-January

The food options for the holiday are rich, cooked with intense amounts of traditional seasonings, not to mention sugar. January 7th is the date for returning to cuisine normalcy, and it is tradition to consume a rice porridge called 七草粥 (nanakusagayu—the seven-herb porridge). Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to get the seven herbs here in North America, so we had another bowl of ozōni.

I started off by mentioning the mid-January observance, 鏡開き (kagamibiraki). The characters literally mean mirror-opening, but it refers to a specific rice cake offering placed before your household shrine called 鏡餅 (kagamimochi). The offering is to honor the deity of grains (hence the rice) who also happens to be the deity of the new year—even deities have to multitask! And it’s called a mirror rice cake because its round shape mirrors that of ancient mirrors.

On the 11th, after allowing the deity of the new year to spiritually savor it for more than a week, you get to proverbially crack it open and enjoy those rice cakes yourself.

Our kagamimochi is decorated with a little rabbit because the Year of the Rabbit begins on January 1st in Japan.

Another aspect of the end of the New Year’s holiday is a Shintō ritual called 古札炊き上げ式 (kosatsu takiageshiki).

Amulets and other protective items from the previous year are brought back to the shrine.
They are burned out of gratitude for the work they did to protect us. Burning allows their spiritual essence to return to the deities.

Later this month, I’ll talk more about my impending trip to Japan and how the place I loved for ten years while living there has changed, especially for my queer kindred.