2011年01月26日
New Year’s Traditions
Japanese New Year’s and Christmas are very different holidays. Yet some things about the two seem surprisingly similar.
Christmas as celebrated by my Canadian family is a time for reconnecting with family and friends through Christmas cards. In Japan, we do the same but with New Year’s cards. Here is the bundle we received on New Year’s Day.
Many are just store bought but some are personally designed and even handmade like the selection below. As you can see by the pictures, 2011 is the year of the rabbit.
Christmas in Canada as I remember it, is a time spent celebrating the joy of being together, free from the busyness of everyday life. Japanese New Year’s is the same. Everyone heads “home” to be with family and the mass of humanity leaving the big cities clogs up the transportation system for several days. We were happy to have our two city dwelling kids join us from Tokyo.
Christmas and New Year’s are both religious festivals. In Japan, the New Year is welcomed in by tolling the temple bell at midnight on December 31. The bell is tolled once for each of 108 worldly passions to wipe the slate clean for the coming year. This is followed over the next few days by a trip to a shrine (or 2 or 3) to pray for good fortune. The lineup of people at Tamura Shrine went all the way out the gate and down the street. Obviously, this is still a popular custom.
Lining up to pray (photo from Jan. 2010)
Finally, both Christmas and Japanese New Year’s mean food and hospitality and the traditional foods, while very different, are prepared with the same concept in mind – to feed a large number of people for some time and free the cook from the kitchen. I remember preparing sweets weeks before Christmas and storing them in the pantry to serve visitors during the Christmas season. While the turkey was made on Christmas Day, it also seemed to last for at least a week, reappearing as soup or sandwiches.
Japanese traditional New Year’s foods likewise are made ahead and made to last. One of these is mochi, glutinous rice cooked, pummeled and molded into cakes. A friend kindly invited us to join their family’s annual mochi-making gathering. The process is labor intensive and therefore everyone took turns pounding and shaping. Here is the rice being steamed,
pounded in a stone mortar
and hand shaped by a pro.
The result is a colorful array of mochi in black bean, dried shrimp, seaweed and plain flavors that last at least a month when they have dried.
Much of the pounded rice, however, was consumed while still hot before it even had the chance to become mochi. Various fillings and sauces included bean paste, grated daikon and soy sauce, soy sauce and sugar, strawberries and chocolate almonds. Mmmmm!! Delicious.
This is what mochi looked like on New Year’s Day in the traditional New Year’s soup called zoni.
The contents of zoni and the way the mochi are eaten differ from one area to another. In Takamatsu, zoni is made with sweet, white miso and the mochi are filled with bean paste. This custom appears to be unique to the Kagawa region and often grosses out people from other areas who haven’t tried it. It’s actually quite tasty.
My mother-in-law, however, is from Osaka, near Nara, so our family’s tradition has been passed down from her. The soup is still white miso, but the mochi are allowed to dissolve into a gluey mess, then removed from the soup and coated with soybean flour and sugar. It tastes far better than it looks!
I hope you all enjoyed your own special family traditions this holiday. Best wishes for 2011.
Christmas as celebrated by my Canadian family is a time for reconnecting with family and friends through Christmas cards. In Japan, we do the same but with New Year’s cards. Here is the bundle we received on New Year’s Day.
Many are just store bought but some are personally designed and even handmade like the selection below. As you can see by the pictures, 2011 is the year of the rabbit.
Christmas in Canada as I remember it, is a time spent celebrating the joy of being together, free from the busyness of everyday life. Japanese New Year’s is the same. Everyone heads “home” to be with family and the mass of humanity leaving the big cities clogs up the transportation system for several days. We were happy to have our two city dwelling kids join us from Tokyo.
Christmas and New Year’s are both religious festivals. In Japan, the New Year is welcomed in by tolling the temple bell at midnight on December 31. The bell is tolled once for each of 108 worldly passions to wipe the slate clean for the coming year. This is followed over the next few days by a trip to a shrine (or 2 or 3) to pray for good fortune. The lineup of people at Tamura Shrine went all the way out the gate and down the street. Obviously, this is still a popular custom.
Lining up to pray (photo from Jan. 2010)
Finally, both Christmas and Japanese New Year’s mean food and hospitality and the traditional foods, while very different, are prepared with the same concept in mind – to feed a large number of people for some time and free the cook from the kitchen. I remember preparing sweets weeks before Christmas and storing them in the pantry to serve visitors during the Christmas season. While the turkey was made on Christmas Day, it also seemed to last for at least a week, reappearing as soup or sandwiches.
Japanese traditional New Year’s foods likewise are made ahead and made to last. One of these is mochi, glutinous rice cooked, pummeled and molded into cakes. A friend kindly invited us to join their family’s annual mochi-making gathering. The process is labor intensive and therefore everyone took turns pounding and shaping. Here is the rice being steamed,
pounded in a stone mortar
and hand shaped by a pro.
The result is a colorful array of mochi in black bean, dried shrimp, seaweed and plain flavors that last at least a month when they have dried.
Much of the pounded rice, however, was consumed while still hot before it even had the chance to become mochi. Various fillings and sauces included bean paste, grated daikon and soy sauce, soy sauce and sugar, strawberries and chocolate almonds. Mmmmm!! Delicious.
This is what mochi looked like on New Year’s Day in the traditional New Year’s soup called zoni.
The contents of zoni and the way the mochi are eaten differ from one area to another. In Takamatsu, zoni is made with sweet, white miso and the mochi are filled with bean paste. This custom appears to be unique to the Kagawa region and often grosses out people from other areas who haven’t tried it. It’s actually quite tasty.
My mother-in-law, however, is from Osaka, near Nara, so our family’s tradition has been passed down from her. The soup is still white miso, but the mochi are allowed to dissolve into a gluey mess, then removed from the soup and coated with soybean flour and sugar. It tastes far better than it looks!
I hope you all enjoyed your own special family traditions this holiday. Best wishes for 2011.
2011年01月14日
Happy New Year!
For me, it was a very happy New Year. We had the kids home and did traditional Japanese New Year’s things, such as… waking up at 6 AM to watch the first sunrise of the New Year.
Or, at least, my husband and I did. The kids actually stayed up all night and kindly (?) woke us up to join them. Considering that we had already stayed up until 2:00 AM writing (late) New Year’s cards and doing other traditional things, this was a bit painful but still we dragged ourselves from our nice warm futon and headed for Mt. Yashima. (At less than 300 meters in height, this is actually a hill by Canadian standards.)
Mt. Yashima as seen from our house.
To be really true to tradition, we should have made the steep 30-minute climb on foot and many people still do. As this was our first time, however, we chose the easy way – a 5-minute car ride up Yashima driveway. To my surprise, there was actually a lineup at the tollgate and the parking lot at the top was getting quite full even at 6:30 AM. Many people had also staked out choice viewing spots along the driveway. It finally dawned on me that seeing the first sunrise of the year is a popular event! There must have been at least 400 people on Yashima alone, and there are plenty of other good viewing spots in the city that probably had their own crowds.
Once at the top, the booming of Wadaiko (Japanese drums) led us to the viewing site.
Drummers and spectators greeting the sun
Crowd waiting
There is something primeval about walking through the dim pre-dawn light on a mountaintop, accompanied by the deep rolling thunder of drums, and then merging with an anonymous crowd of people all gazing expectantly towards the horizon.
Brave drummers sleeveless despite sub-zero temperatures.
The sun slowly but surely showed its face, welcomed by a cheering crowd and the clicking of camera and cell phone shutters.
Great panorama of the Seto Inland Sea from this spot
Here comes the sun!
This tradition is called Hatsu-hinode, meaning “first sunrise”. All “firsts” in the New Year are awarded special attention in Japanese culture and each important action is given the character 初(“hatsu” or “hajime”) when you do it for the first time in the New Year. Such as “hatsumode”, the first trip to pray at a shrine or temple. Once the sun was up, that’s exactly where the crowd of sun spectators headed – to pray for the coming year at Yashimaji, a temple with a shrine beside it.
Crowd pouring through the temple gate
And heading for the temple
We, however, went home for breakfast!
View on the way down
Yashima Access: If you want to see the sunrise, you’ll need to go by car or on foot. If you want to sightsee during the day, the train and shuttle bus are also options. Please note that the shuttle bus does not run from Dec. to Feb. except on January 1, 2, and 3 and the earliest bus is after 8:00 AM.
By car: From downtown Takamatsu, take Route 11 east towards Tokushima and turn left at the MacDonald’s that is on the left side of the road. Yashima Driveway runs up the hill past Shikoku Mura. The toll for passenger cars is 610 yen. The parking lot at the top has 400 parking spots.
On foot: It takes about 30 minutes to walk up the hill and it’s quite steep. The hiking trail starts on the east side of Yashima Elementary School, which is not on a bus or train route. I recommend biking there if you live within decent biking distance. The trail can also be reached on foot from Kotoden Yashima station, which adds an extra 10 to 20 minutes to your hike. You will need to ask someone who knows the area to give you directions to the trail.
By Kotoden train: take a train from Takamatsu-Chikko Station to Kawaramachi Station (4 minutes, frequent departures) and transfer to the Shido Line. Get off at Kotoden Yashima Station (13 minutes, 3 trains/hour). The entire trip takes about 20 minutes and costs 310 yen. Sanjo Shuttle bus runs once per hour to the summit (10 minutes, 100 yen).
By JR train: take a local train from JR Takamatsu Station traveling in the Tokushima direction. Get off at Yashima Station (15 minutes, 210 yen, 2 trains/hour). From the station the Yashima Sanjo Shuttle bus runs once per hour to the summit (20 minutes, 100 yen).
Or, at least, my husband and I did. The kids actually stayed up all night and kindly (?) woke us up to join them. Considering that we had already stayed up until 2:00 AM writing (late) New Year’s cards and doing other traditional things, this was a bit painful but still we dragged ourselves from our nice warm futon and headed for Mt. Yashima. (At less than 300 meters in height, this is actually a hill by Canadian standards.)
Mt. Yashima as seen from our house.
To be really true to tradition, we should have made the steep 30-minute climb on foot and many people still do. As this was our first time, however, we chose the easy way – a 5-minute car ride up Yashima driveway. To my surprise, there was actually a lineup at the tollgate and the parking lot at the top was getting quite full even at 6:30 AM. Many people had also staked out choice viewing spots along the driveway. It finally dawned on me that seeing the first sunrise of the year is a popular event! There must have been at least 400 people on Yashima alone, and there are plenty of other good viewing spots in the city that probably had their own crowds.
Once at the top, the booming of Wadaiko (Japanese drums) led us to the viewing site.
Drummers and spectators greeting the sun
Crowd waiting
There is something primeval about walking through the dim pre-dawn light on a mountaintop, accompanied by the deep rolling thunder of drums, and then merging with an anonymous crowd of people all gazing expectantly towards the horizon.
Brave drummers sleeveless despite sub-zero temperatures.
The sun slowly but surely showed its face, welcomed by a cheering crowd and the clicking of camera and cell phone shutters.
Great panorama of the Seto Inland Sea from this spot
Here comes the sun!
This tradition is called Hatsu-hinode, meaning “first sunrise”. All “firsts” in the New Year are awarded special attention in Japanese culture and each important action is given the character 初(“hatsu” or “hajime”) when you do it for the first time in the New Year. Such as “hatsumode”, the first trip to pray at a shrine or temple. Once the sun was up, that’s exactly where the crowd of sun spectators headed – to pray for the coming year at Yashimaji, a temple with a shrine beside it.
Crowd pouring through the temple gate
And heading for the temple
We, however, went home for breakfast!
View on the way down
Yashima Access: If you want to see the sunrise, you’ll need to go by car or on foot. If you want to sightsee during the day, the train and shuttle bus are also options. Please note that the shuttle bus does not run from Dec. to Feb. except on January 1, 2, and 3 and the earliest bus is after 8:00 AM.
By car: From downtown Takamatsu, take Route 11 east towards Tokushima and turn left at the MacDonald’s that is on the left side of the road. Yashima Driveway runs up the hill past Shikoku Mura. The toll for passenger cars is 610 yen. The parking lot at the top has 400 parking spots.
On foot: It takes about 30 minutes to walk up the hill and it’s quite steep. The hiking trail starts on the east side of Yashima Elementary School, which is not on a bus or train route. I recommend biking there if you live within decent biking distance. The trail can also be reached on foot from Kotoden Yashima station, which adds an extra 10 to 20 minutes to your hike. You will need to ask someone who knows the area to give you directions to the trail.
By Kotoden train: take a train from Takamatsu-Chikko Station to Kawaramachi Station (4 minutes, frequent departures) and transfer to the Shido Line. Get off at Kotoden Yashima Station (13 minutes, 3 trains/hour). The entire trip takes about 20 minutes and costs 310 yen. Sanjo Shuttle bus runs once per hour to the summit (10 minutes, 100 yen).
By JR train: take a local train from JR Takamatsu Station traveling in the Tokushima direction. Get off at Yashima Station (15 minutes, 210 yen, 2 trains/hour). From the station the Yashima Sanjo Shuttle bus runs once per hour to the summit (20 minutes, 100 yen).
