Let’s start with easy practices you can do at home and foods you can make yourself throughout the Japanese New Year’s season, called oshōgatsu.
One needs to remember that the general principle here is this:
• Activities done before New Year’s Day are intended to rid yourself of bad spirits, misfortune, and other burdens.
• Activities done on and after New Years are intended to bring in as well as preserve good fortune, hope, and prosperity.
Japanese New Year traditions to implement in your own home
1. Deep House cleaning
Japanese people love to clean in late December. It’s called ōsōji (大掃除), which means “big cleaning.” Ōsōji is not only a time to clean up your house to get a fresh start in the new year, but also a symbolic practice to sweep away the bad luck that may be lingering in your home. But be careful to get the cleaning done in December because if you do it in January you may accidentally sweep away some good spirits.
2. Listen to Beethoven
The last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth is the one we all know as “Ode to Joy” and it is adored in Japan, especially in December. You’ll hear “Ode to Joy” at community events, on the radio, in commercials, in shopping malls, and on TV programs throughout December, and especially on New Year’s Eve. The song gained popularity during post-war reconstruction, when the people sought hope and fraternity during hard times. So, why not crank it up yourself, while cleaning of course?
3. Do not miss the first sunrise of the year
This is interesting, and we’ve written about it in our last blog. In the West, we treat Christmas as a time to be with our family, while we tend to treat New Year’s as a party time. In Japan, it’s all reversed. Christmas is seen as a secular holiday meant more for couples to hang out and have a good time (there’s also a romantic note to it), while New Year’s is steeped in time with family, tradition, and meaning.
Because of this, instead of partying and not even noticing a lot of stuff around you, they do it differently in Japan. It’s a very real Shinto tradition up to this day that after watching the sunrise, many go to their local shrine to pray. Try it yourself, and ponder on your goals for the year to come.
4. Give some money to the children in your family, come on!
If you want to introduce oshōgatsu culture into your family, well you’ll need a bit of money. It’s normal to give around 5,000 yen per child (which is around $32 USD at the current exchange rate, or 27 euros). This amount occasionally increases as the children get older. Anyway, make sure the children start the year with good fortune, pass the otoshidama (お年玉) over to them on New Year’s Day, not New Year’s Eve.
During the Meiji Restoration, Japan switched from the lunar calendar to the Gregorian calendar in the name of modernization, so people also shifted their New Year’s practices back a couple of months. Practice these traditions this New Year and feel very Japanese…you’ll love it!
Happy New Year!
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