How the shape and preparation of o-mochi varies from region to region in Japan. In the East, it is rectangular and usually grilled. In the West it tends to be round. Half of Kyushu grills their round mochi, while those in Kansai and Chugoku boil theirs.
My wife's family from Kagoshima grills their rectangular mochi in a toaster.
I used to get so depressed after Christmas when I was young. In America, there really wasn’t much to look forward to once King of All Holidays had passed. We had Easter, of course, but you had to first eke your way through six weeks of Lent, which was no easy task in my devoutly Roman Catholic family.
After coming to Japan, though, I haven’t had that problem. Here, there is always something in the offing to look forward to: Ōmisoka, or New Year’s Eve; Gantan or New Year’s Day itself; the first seven or fifteen days of the New Year called Matsunouchi; the Tōka Ebisu Festival held around the 10th of January; Dondoyaki on the 15th; Setsubun at the beginning of February, and so on.
And so, to keep those Christmas Blues in check, we have made it a habit to decorate our home if not as lavishly, then just as festively for the New Year. That involves a trip to one of my favorite florists, Unpas. Every year they make the most wonderful shimenawa and mini kadomatsu.
This year, in keeping up with the muted mood of the times, we opted for a simple design.
We may add something to this pine branch to make it a bit more colorful.
A few days later, we went to the Yanagibashi Shōtengai market, which is always hopping with at the end of the year, picking up New Year’s decorations and ingredients to make traditional New Year’s dishes.
I think this may be the first time we have ever bought a real kagami-mochi. I think we may have started a new tradition.
What is a kagami mochi you want to know?
Let’s ask Mr. Wiki:
Kagami Mochi (鏡餅, "mirror rice cake"), is a traditional Japanese New Year decoration. It usually consists of two round mochi (rice cakes), the smaller placed atop the larger, and a daidai (a bitter orange) with an attached leaf on top. In addition, it may have a sheet of kombu and a skewer of dried persimmons under the mochi. It sits on a stand called a sanpō (三宝) over a sheet called a shihōbeni (四方紅), which is supposed to ward off fires from the house for the following years. Sheets of paper called gohei (御幣) folded into lightning shapes similarto those seen on sumo wrestler's belts are also attached.
The kagami mochi first appeared in the Muromachi Period (14th–16th century). The name kagami ("mirror") is said to have originated from its resemblance to an old-fashioned kind of round coppermirror, which also had a religious significance. The reason for it is not clear. Explanations include mochi being a food for special days, the spirit of the rice plant being found in the mochi, and the mochi being a food which gives strength.
The two mochi discs are variously said to symbolize the going and coming years, the human heart, "yin" and "yang", or the moon and the sun. The "daidai", whose name means "generations", is said to symbolize the continuation of a family from generation to generation.
Dazaifu Tenmangu (太宰府天満宮) is Fukuoka's most famous shrine.
If you live in only one region of Japan for an extended time as I have, it’s easy to make the mistake of assuming that what is true in the town you reside in is also true throughout the rest of the country.
I first recognized this many, many years ago when I kept getting tripped up by the local dialect, known as Hakata-ben (博多弁). I’ve written about this elsewhere, but what I’m getting at here here is not my failure to understand what someone is saying because he is speaking the local dialect, but rather people not understand what I am saying because I have unwittingly used the dialect thinking that what I was speaking standard Japanese.
Take the Japanese word koi (濃い), which can mean deep, heavy, dark or thick—such as in koi aka (濃い赤), “deep red”; koi sūpu (濃いスープ) “thick soup”; ~ wa ajitsuke ga koi (〜は味付けが濃い) “. . . is strongly seasoned”; or even chi-wa mizu-yorimo koi (血は水よりも濃い) “Blood is thicker than water.” For the first ten years of my life here in Fukuoka, I thought koi was pronounced koyui. (Try looking it up in a Japanese-English dictionary.) If you go to Tõkyõ and ask a bartender to make you a stiff drink, saying “make it koyui”, he’ll probably give you a funny look.[1]
Traditional foods, too, can vary from region to region in Japan, so much so that a simple dish like o-zōni—a soup eaten during New Year’s—can contain radically different ingredients and yet still be called o-zōni.
Customs, as I have mentioned before, also differ from prefecture to prefecture. The Bon Festival of the Dead, for example, can, depending on the region, be held as early as July 15th (in Shizuoka, for example) or in other parts on August 15th. Some regions, such as Okinawa, observe what is known as Kyū Bon (旧盆) which falls on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month. In 2019, Kyū Bon and “regular Bon” will take place at the same time, namely from the 13th to the 15th of August. Living all this time in Kyūshū, I used to assume that all Japanese celebrated the Bon in the middle of August and would pester everyone with the question: “Why isn’t this a national holiday like New Year’s?”
Stop pushing’!
Now only a few years ago, it finally dawned on me that something I had taken for two decades to be a widely-observed custom was actually a very local one: sansha mairi (三社参り).
In Japan, many people (and I would venture most) visit a Shintō shrine during the first few days of the new year, a custom known as hatsumōdé (初詣), to pray or make wishes. At the shrines, they buy good luck charms called o-mamori (お守り), drink a special kind of saké, and buy written oracles known as o-mikuji (おみくじ). It’s primarily in Fukuoka, though, that people visit (o-mairi, お参り) three shrines (三社) rather than one.
Live and learn.
God? You up there? Do you hear me, God?
This is a piece I wrote for GaijinPot last year.
My wife took down the shime kazari the other day.
Shime kazari are the decorations you find hanging on front doors and gates at o-Shōgatsu (お正月, or the Japanese New Year). Traditionally made with twisted rice straw, they are often festooned with a daidai (bitter orange), fern fronds and gohei or shide (zigzag strips of white paper), the ornaments serve to welcome Toshigami-sama, the Shintō deity who brings a bountiful harvest and blessings for the new year.
Modern designs, like ours (above and below), take great liberties with more traditional decorations, adding generous loops of red-and-white cords of twisted paper, known as mizuhiki, pine branches, colorful Japanese washi paper, auspicious doodads and occasionally fresh flowers.
I asked my wife what she was doing.
“Shōgatsu is over… ”
“Says who?”
“My parents already took down their shime kazari.”
“So? I paid ¥4,000 for that. Put it back. Please!”
“But… ”
There’s quite a bit of debate about when you should take your New Year’s decorations down. Regional variations have something to do with it — why, even the design of the shime kazari themselves can vary greatly from region to region — but so do different interpretations of when o-Shōgatsu is officially concluded.
I guess you could say a similar discussion exists in the West concerning when Christmas trees should be tossed out. Is it the Feast of the Epiphany, which falls on Jan. 6 (hence the 12 Days of Christmas)? Or should the tree and other holiday decorations remain until Candlemas, which falls on Feb. 2, i.e. 40 days after the nativity of Jesus? Thanks to Christmas tree recycling drives hosted by the Boy Scouts in early January, in America at least, trees are now being ground up into mulch before they can become a fire hazard.
As for the last day of o-Shōgatsu, many assert that it is Jan. 7. This day is widely considered to be the final day of matsunouchi, the week-long period starting with New Year’s Day during which the kadomatsu (New Year’s “gate” pine) and other decorations are displayed. New Year’s greeting cards, known as nengajō, should be received within the first week of the year. The seventh is also the day Japanese eat nanakusa gayu, a dishearteningly bland rice porridge dish made with seven different herbs. It was for these reasons, I suspect, that my wife’s mother and many others had already taken their own decorations down.
But, I still wasn’t sold on the idea.
During a quick walk around my neighborhood, I noticed several shops were still displaying their shime kazari. Perhaps because it was Seijin-no-hi, or Coming-of-Age Day, a national holiday that serves as a psychological bookend to New Year’s.
Whatever the shops’ motivations, some believe that it’s quite alright to keep the decorations up until Jan. 15, a date known as Ko-Shōgatsu (小正月, Little New Year), as was the custom up until the Edo Period (1603-1868). The first week of the new year was called Ō-Shōgatsu (大正月, lit. “Big New Year,” in this instance) while the rest of the month was considered just regular “Shōgatsu.”
Rice porridge with seven herbs and salt.
Ko-Shōgatsu is known by other names, too, such as Niban Shōgatsu (Second New Year’s), Onna Shōgatsu (女正月, Woman’s New Year) and so on. Before Japan adopted the Gregorian solar calendar, the 15th was the day on which the full moon appeared. As far back as the Heian period (794-1185), it was customary to eat rice porridge made with sweet, red azuki beans. A similar dish called o-shiruko (sweet red-bean soup), made with azuki beans and half-melted globs of mochi (sticky rice cake) is traditionally eaten around the 11th, the day kagami (mirror-shaped) mochi decorations are broken. Today, at shrines throughout Japan, you can find hi-matsuri (火祭り, fire festivals), known as sagicho or dondoyaki (burning of New Year’s gate and other decorations), held on the 15th when kadomatsu, shime kazari and the previous year’s talismans are set alight in a bonfire.
Despite that, others argue that it’s acceptable for New Year’s decorations to remain until Hatsuka (20th day of the month) Shōgatsu, which falls, not surprisingly, on the 20th of January. In the Kansai area, the head and bones of the buri (Japanese amberjack) are cooked with sake kasu (lees), vegetables and soy beans. Because of this, the day is also called Honé (bone) Shōgatsu.
My wife, following her mother’s example, had been deferring to tradition. I countered with the argument that if we were really going to stick to good ol’ “tradition,” we would have to keep the shime kazari up until March 2, which — in accordance with the Chinese lunar calendar — is actually Jan. 15.
“Let’s keep it up until Hatsuka Shōgatsu, then,” my wife suggested.
“The 15th will be fine,” I said. “We don’t want to get carried away.”
Kadomatsu (門松, literally “gate pine”) are traditional decorations of the Japanese New Year placed in pairs in front of buildings, and to a lesser extent homes, to welcome ancestral spirits or kami of the harvest. They are put out immediately after Christmas, sometimes as early as the evening of the 25th, and remain traditionally until the 15th of January (Matsunouchi, 松の内), but only until the 7th in recent years.
Designs for kadomatsu can vary depending on region but are typically made of pine, bamboo, and sometimes umé tree sprigs which represent longevity, prosperity and steadfastness, respectively.
The fundamental function of the New Year ceremonies is to honor and receive the toshigami (deities of the new year), who bring a bountiful harvest for farmers and bestow the ancestors' blessing on everyone. After January 15th the kadomatsu and other New Year’s decorations are burned in bonfires at Shintō shrines to appease the gods and release them, an event known as Dontoyaki (どんと焼き) or Sagichō (左義長).
At the Nishitetsu Grand Hotel
At Daimyō Elementary School
In front of Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tenjin
At the Seahawk Hilton Hotel in Momochi
In front of a popular Japanese restaurant called Chikae
Because my sons’ kindergarten is Buddhist, there are no Christmas decorations or Christmas-related events. None whatsoever.
(No worries there as we already do plenty at home.)
The kindergarten does, however, hold New Year’s related events, such as “mochi-tsuki”.
What’s “moji-zugi”, you ask?
Mochi-tsuki (moh-chee-tsoo-kee) is the making of mochi (rice cake) by pounding steamed sticky rice (もち米, mochi kome) with large wooden hammers for God knows how long. It is in the words of the esteemed Mr. Wiki very “labor intensive”. I think the only thing that we have remotely similar to mochi-tsuki in the US is handmade ice cream.
Now the thing with handmade ice cream is that your effort is rewarded with something that tastes pretty damn good. Mochi, on the other hand, is rather bland. Mixed with sweet beans or covered with syrup, it can be rather nice. But, again, alone it’s so hopelessly boring, it makes you wonder why people go to all the trouble.
My son has already left for school. He asked me to go, too, but as only the fathers of third-year students can attend—damn—I have been spared the forced labor demanded of tradition.
This evening I will be taking my boys to see the Christmas lights in Kego Park and ride the kiddie “Polar Express” train.
There are only five more days till Christmas. For some reason or another, this holiday season has just whizzed by. Last year, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. This year, though, . . .
I think it’s the realization that Christmas with young boys who believe all the stories of Santa Claus, no matter how far-fetched or contradictory, won’t last forever. We’ve got perhaps five or six more years of the season’s magic. And then? Well, we will just have to find a new way to enjoy the holiday. Perhaps with a mochi-tsuki party.
When you live as long as I have in only one part of a country, it's easy to assume that the way things are done in your region are the same nationwide. It took me two decades to realize that sansha mairi (visiting three shrines at New Year's) was a custom peculiar Kyūshū, and in particular to Fukuoka.
Similarly, the shimé kazari, a New Year's decoration placed above the entrance to homes and buildings, varies from region to region. Shime-kazari is said to originate from shime-nawa (twisted hemp and rice straw rope placed at the entrance of shrines to indicated a sacred space) and meant to keep misfortune and unclean spirits away and greet Toshigami (年神), the gods and ancestors brought with the new year.
Few end-of-the-year customs in Japan seem sillier to the casual observer than that of the mochū hagaki (喪中葉書, "mourning postcard"). Mochū hagaki (pictured above) are postcards sent out to friends, relatives, co-workers, and others in December or earlier, notifying them that due to the death of family member in the past year they are in mourning and will therefore be unable to send nengajō (年賀状), or New Year's greeting cards. It is as if people are saying, "FYI: I am sending this postcard to you now to inform you that I cannot send you that other postcard later."
To be fair, mochū hagaki do serve some useful purposes. For one, they inform others that they need not bother sending a nengajō to the family out of respect for their loss—even when the person who has died was 105 years old, as is the case in the postcard on the left, and "relief" rather than “sorrow” might be a better adjective describing the emotions felt when Great Grandpa finally kicked the bucket. And, probably more importantly, mochū hagaki preemptively assuage any misunderstandings that might occur when a nengajō goes unanswered.
