[ NIHON BUNKA KENKYUU ] BUNKEN 101: Reviews, comments, and insights on Japanese pop culture.
Japan is a country that celebrates the New Year like no other. Here we introduce briefly some of the most well-known traditional activities that accompany the start of the New Year in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Oseibo
Oseibo is a key part of Japanese New YearIn Japan people give some gift in a lot of occasion. Oseibo is the most common issue as a year-end gift. They give it to their superiors, customers and teachers to express appreciation for the special services they have extended to them.
Bonenkai
Bonenkai is party for office colleaguesBonenkai is a party usually held among office colleagues and bosses. Bonenkai litarelly means a "Forget-the-year Party" to forget the unpleasant memories of the passing year and to welcome the New Year with a fresh and serene mind. At the party, bosses usually tell their stuff to be Breiko (to forget their position and be impolite!), because the relationship in the workplace in Japan is a bit strict. For example, Japanese language has various expression for each word. One is called a polite word and another is called a modest word. People use these words in formal
situation such as in a workplace.
Omisoka
Omisoka is the day of New Year's Eve. Since the New Year is the biggest event in Japan, people celebrate the Eve as well. People work so hard to prepare the New Year around one or two weeks such as cleaning (like spring cleaning in here) and shopping. The reason people do the cleaning in the middle of winter is to get rid of the dirty of the passing year and to welcome the New Year with a fresh and serene mind.
And on Omisoka, with preparing the New Year's special dishes called Osechi-ryori, people finish up all the work of the year. People eat Toshikoshi-soba at night and stay up till midnight to listen to the 108 chimes of a nearby temple bell. Toshikoshi-soba is a bowl of hot brown noodles in broth. The noodle is a homophone for a word that means "being close" and therefore signifies the approach of the New Year. The 108 chimes called Joya-no-kane, rings out the old year and rings in the New Year. It is supposed to release people from the 108 worldly sins.
Shogatsu
Shogatsu is the celebration of the New Year and is the most important holiday in Japan. Entrances are decorated with a Shimekezari. A Shimekazari is a twisted straw rope with fern leaves, an orange and other items of good omen. Family gather to their hometown and spend the time together. People celebrate the New Year with sweet sake called Toso, a soup called Zoni and Osechi-ryori during the holiday.
Otoshidama
During the holiday, people give special allowances to their children, nephews and nieces called Otoshidama. It is the busiest season for toy shops to attract children to spend their Otoshidama.
Nengajo
People send a lot of greeting cards to their relatives, friends, business acquaintances and customers to wish them a happy New Year. Post offices in Japan collect and keep them then deliver them on the New Year day all at once. This is a good opportunity to keep in touch with old friends and acquaintances.
Hatsumoude
The shrines all over Japan are packed with people from the New year's day to January 3rd. People go to shrine to pray for safety, happiness and long lives of the family. A lot of people are dressed up with their Kimono and buy a good luck talisman called Omamori. It is kept as a protection from illness, accidents and disasters.
from JAPANESE LIFESTYLE
Fortunetelling
From ancient times, there have been many types of fortune telling all over the world without exception. Do you know how much Japanese depend on fortune telling? It seems to me that over 90% of the population of Japan believe or have experienced any kind of divination. At midnight, many fortunetellers appear on the street near the Shinjuku station of Tokyo. As soon as they set up their desk, with lanterns as a billboard, a lot of clients stop at their favorite ffortunetellers and make a long line.
These clients want any advice for their many kinds of problems such as relationship with a partner, their future, and difficult decisions. Fortunetellers use their different methods like name divination, palmistry, tarots, inspiration, etc. Moreover, a zoological fortune telling book was published a few years ago, and sold 1.5 million copies in its first six weeks. Traditional Japanese fortune telling, omikuji, seimeihandan, teso, might be influential on Japanese people's life and Japanese economy.
Seimeihandan
Seimeihandan, which means name divination, is one of the popular fortune telling methods in Japan. It can be seen everywhere such as on the street, fortunetellers�f houses, Internet, and so on. Recently, a lot of Internet sites provide name divination through their sites; it is an easy way, which we just type our name in kanji, to look at our personality or our future. The fortunetellers find out a client�'s fortune based on the number of stroke counts in a person's name in kanji. Many people believe a person�'s name decides his/her future. Therefore, many parents refer to special books for advice of names or
ask fortunetellers to decide a child's name.
Teso
Teso, which is palmistry, is the other popular fortune telling technique in Japan. Like seimeihandan, it can be seen everywhere, too. The fortunetellers read lines of a person's palm to look at client's personality or the possibility of their future. Everyone has unique lines, and each line has meanings such as life, brain, marriage, and so on. When the people want to talk about their worries to fortunetellers, they seem to choose teso because the fortunetellers
can provide much advice to help people regain their composure.
In conclusion, many Japanese rely on fortune telling when they want to know their future, to make decisions, to prevent bad luck, or to talk to each other. They have many methods of fortune telling to choose from, such as omikuji, seimeihandan, teso, and so on. Although the cost for fortune telling depends on the time length of the session and a fortuneteller's name value, fortune telling in Japan is a little expensive (about $30 per session). So fortune telling is a big business in Japan, but it's also the mother of the human heart, like a navigator. Unfortunately, we can't prove that these divination are right or wrong because we live in the real world, and our exact destiny can't be known.
from ESL PROJECTS
Omikuji
Omikuji are another form of good luck charm used in Japan. These written fortunes are obtained by drawing lots in the form of sticks from a container; the sticks are then exchanged for long, narrow pieces of paper upon which good or bad fortunes are indicated. These containers can be found at Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples. Your fortune will range from outstanding to average to bad and will cover various aspects of life such as school, business, marriage proposals and successes or failures.
The word kichi means luck, and there are three omikuji that can be drawn with this word written on them: Daikichi, or a lot of luck; chuukichi, which is some luck; and shoukichi, meaning little luck. Kyou is the word for bad luck, and there are two omikuji with this word: Daikyou is a lot of bad luck, and kyou is just regular bad luck. However, just because you draw a kyou omikuji doesn't mean your life is about to change drastically for the worse; it just means that some things are likely to change drastically soon. Likewise, a bad omikuji may also be a gateway to something new.
During the New Year holiday festivities, most people visit shrines and enjoy drawing omikuji. However, rather than using them as a means to learn more about their future, people seem to draw them with a sense of playfulness. Unfavorable omikuji are tied to trees on the temple or shrine grounds in hopes that it will not come true. The closest place to draw omikuji is the Futenma-gu shrine, which also has them written in English.
from JAPAN UPDATE
If you want to know your own fortunes, check out this link. It's a cyber omikuji site in English, but it's run by asahi-net so you know you're getting the real thing ^^v Have fun and have a Happy New Year from us at OngakuSociety!