New Year's Day in Japan

As I mentioned in the last post, Christmas is not a very big event in Japan like it is in the west, largely because of the lack of religious connection to the holiday. But if you want to talk about a holiday with a strong religious connection in Japan, you need only look at New Years, or oshougatsu. This is the time of year that the Japanese go all out in their celebrations, and there are so many customs associated with this particular day! Note this all has to do with New Years Day, so January 1st, rather than New Years Eve which is when everyone in the west is busy celebrating. So, lets get started, cause this is a LONG post.


First off is the decorations. Even during Christmas time when all the twinkling lights and pine trees are up, you'll still see New Year decorations adorning homes and businesses. One thing that is very common is a stand of three bamboo stalks of various heights, called kadomatsu. It is usually placed outside entrances and symbolizes growth and prosperity, and in most cases there are two placed on either side of the entryway to show balance. But these bamboo stalks don't only symbolize a fruitful year; they also serve as a temporary dwelling place for the kami, or gods, of the New Year, so the kadomatsu is a very religious symbol.


Next is the tamakazari, usually placed above the outside door. This is an ornament with a small orange on top, and wrapped bits of twine, and usually some charm or white and red paper, white and red being the most popular colors for New Year decorations as they symbolize good luck as well as other things. Inside the home is a similar decoration called a kagamimochi. Two rice cakes, or mochi, are stacked on top of each other and a small orange is placed on top. There is usually some sort of red and white ribbons or cloth decorating these too. Usually, this item is placed in front of a family's Shinto shrine or somewhere else important in the house. Though many people use real mochi and oranges, you can get some in a mold that will keep them fresh until the start of the year, or you can do what we did and buy plastic kagamimochi instead.


All these decorations are placed out either during the Christmas period or shortly after. It's kind of bad luck to put the decorations up right before New Year's Day, and the decorations are usually all taken down by January 7th as that's how long the New Years kami stay.


Now, my personal favorite of the New Year celebrations and something that we were able to do this year, is the hatsumoude. Roughly meaning the first shrine visit of the New Year, this is when everyone makes an appearance at a shrine or temple (kind of like how some people only attend church service on Christmas). The first shrine visit is very important, and major shrines will be staffed by priests and priestesses, and New Year's decorations will be in abundance. But it's very important that this visit takes place on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd of January. This is when it's most effective traditionally, but these three days are usually when everyone in Japan is off of work, so it makes sense. We went to one of the bigger local shrines, Haruna Shrine, for our visit. I had been there once before, and there had been no one except a single priest cleaning the grounds. But this time was different. The shrine felt almost alive with all the people going in and out, the fires burning, and people praying at the shrine and purchasing their New Year charms.


That being said, the first step of hatsumoude is to go pray at the shrine of course. The exact way this is done varies from region to region in Japan, but generally, you walk up to the shrine, throw a 5 yen piece into the offering box (5 yen are the best for this), ring the large bell hanging from the roof by hitting it with the large rope hanging next to it, clap twice, bow and think your prayer, then clap once and bow again. It seems like a lot to remember, but when you think about it, it makes sense. First you offer money so the local kami will listen to your plea, then you ring the bell to get the kami's attention, then the clapping and bowing shows you respect for the kami (I don't know if this is really what it all means, but remembering it this way helps me keep the steps in order!). This is done any time you visit a shrine and offer a prayer, not just on New Year's Day, but this is the time when the most people will visit shrines and you may be waiting in line for a while to offer your prayer for the new year.


The second major part of the hatsumoude is omikuji. This is a kind of fortune telling. You pay a fee and randomly draw a small scroll or stick (the stick then tells you what number slip of paper to draw). On the paper will be your fortune for the new year, and it can be various degrees of good or bad. Our shrine had quite a few different options to choose from, including the standard 100 yen omikuji, but the rest of the omikuji were 200 yen and came with some sort of good luck charm. We decided to do one with the charms, choosing the omikuji that had the magatama charms. Ben got the pink magatama symbolizing fortune in love and I got the blue magatama symbolizing success in school, which I guess works since I teach at a school. Though omikuji tend to have some rather complicated kanji, we were able to at least figure out that both of us had received positive fortunes! Customarily, if you get a bad fortune, you tie it to wires located around the shrine in order to rid yourself of the bad luck. But if you get a good fortune, you can either take it with you, or also tie it to the wires in the hopes that your luck will increase. We decided to tie both of ours to the wires. I got 吉, or blessing, and Ben got 中吉, or middle blessing. There are generally 12 options you can draw from the omikuji, and the only one better than Ben's is the 大吉, or great blessing. So he has some pretty good luck coming to him this year! I only got the standard blessing, but it's better than a curse!


Ok next step! We went and bough omamori. These are charms or amulets purchased at shrines or temples and they can be for a variety of things, usually offering luck or protection. They are little flat cloth bags with a string at the top, so people can attach them to their bag or purse. It is customary to never open them as that will remove the effect of the charm, and I have heard that at the start of the year you return the previous year's charm when you buy a new one, though as this was our first year doing this I have no idea how customary this is. Ben purchased a charm for shobai hanjo, or success in business and money as we hope he can find a job soon (every little bit helps!). I purchased a simple kaiun charm, which is just for general good luck. There are also charms for passing exams, traffic safety, protection from evil, finding a partner, and health and safety for pregnant women, just to name the most common ones.


There are other items to be bought at the shrine around this time of year too. One thing is the ema plaque. Though we didn't do this, I had learned about this practice before arriving in Japan. The plaques are small and made of wood, usually with one side decorated in some symbol associated with Shinto or of good luck, or representing the new year, so many of the ones available this year had a rooster on them as 2017 is the Year of the Rooster. After purchasing a plaque, you write your prayers or wishes on the un-decorated side and hang it on the designated board. This is so the kami can see and know your prayer for the new year, of course in addition to whatever prayer you made at the shrine earlier. Side note, many ema plaques may also depict horses as originally, people would give horses as a gift to shrines or noble houses in the hopes of receiving good favor. Eventually this tradition changed and people would bring these wooden plaques as gifts to represent the horses instead. I'm not sure how, but that eventually changed to being the method by which people made their wishes at shrines.


And the last thing you can purchase for the New Year is a hamaya. Again, this is not something we did, in part because one costs between 2000-5000 yen (so like $20-$50) but I kept seeing people walking around with them so I did some digging as to their purpose. Hamaya literally translates as demon-breaking arrow and is a decorative arrow used to ward off misfortune and attract good luck for the New Year. You may have noticed this, but a lot of the things associate with the New Year in Japan have to do with luck. This custom comes from an old tradition of offering an arrow and a pair of bows to a male child on their first New Year.


At Buddhist temples, priests or sometimes a combination of patrons and priests will ring the large temple bells starting at midnight. No, this is not done to literally 'ring in' the New Year. The bell is rung 108 times to rid people of the 108 desires that are said to cause suffering according to Buddhist doctrine. We didn't experience this particular aspect as we were at Shibuya Crossing for the big countdown, but I had heard about the practice and wanted to include it here.


New Year's Day is a very important holiday to the Japanese, and it is full of tradition, religion, and family. There are all sorts of other traditions associated with the New Year in Japan, such as sending money, giving gifts, eating specific foods, and more, but I have only written about what I experienced. There are lots of other websites and blogs that go into more detail about the other aspects of the New Year in Japan, so I recommend Googling it if you're interested!