After returning home from the Countdown at Zōjō-ji, we slept for a few hours before getting up early for the New Year's Day. We woke up early for Hatsuhinode (初日の出, はつひので), which is the first sunrise of the year. In Japan it is considered very good luck for the year to see the first sunrise. Many people will climb mountains or go to the beach to get a good view of the sunrise. During earlier times, people even formed climbing groups for Hatsufuji (初富士, はつふじ), where people would climb Mt. Fuji to see the sunrise on one of the first 3 days of the year. However, being outside of the climbing season and with extremely cold temperatures, snow and very strong winds it is a dangerous climb at this time and not really done in recent years. I have no idea how it would have been done in the Edo Period. We didn't do anything so exotic, but we went to the top of the hill near our house to see the sunrise that morning.
 |
| The first sunrise reflecting off the tall buildings in our area. |
 |
| Tokyo's Hatsuhinode. |
After seeing the first sunrise, we had Japan's traditional New Year's meal, Osechi (おせち). Osechi is a collection of different dishes served in Jubako (重箱, じゅうばこ) or black lacquered stackable boxes that each have a special significance for the New Year. The tradition of Osechi began in the Heian Period (794-1185) and has developed over time. Osechi is a meal shared with the god of the harvest, Toshigami (年神, としがみ). It also is a meal that gave women a holiday the first three days of the year as cooking wasn't to be done the first three days of the year so as not to disturb the gods (spirits) or kami (神, かみ) that would come to the home at this time. [1]
 |
| New Year's Osechi in the two boxes, along with Ozōni a Japanese soup with Mochi also eaten for New Year's. |
First, I'll go through and explain all of the dishes in the Osechi that we had for New Year's, along with their special significance and then I'll explain Ozōni. I'll be starting at the top-left and work left to right, top to bottom on explaining the foods in the picture. The yellow food in the top left is mashed sweet potatoes with chestnuts called kurikinton (栗きんとん, くりきんとん). Kinton means 'group of gold' and its golden color symbolizes gaining wealth in the New Year. To the right of it, the pink and white food are fish cakes called kamaboko (蒲鉾, かまぼこ). The alternating pink and white bands are supposed to represent a rising sun. [2] Also, red and white are good colors in Japan and are often used in celebrations. Red represents pleasure and white represents holiness or purity. [3] In the middle of the top tray are Salmon Roe, called ikura (いくら). The eggs represent fertility and also are red in color, which is one of the good colors. In the bottom left is datemaki (伊達巻, だてまき), which is egg and fishpaste rolled together having a sweet flavor. Datemaki represents good education, as well as giving the appearance of a shining sun. In the middle is namasu (なます), a mixture of carrots and radish. This dish has the red and white colors giving it a meaning of celebration. The last dish in the top tray are herring roe in soy sauce called kazunoko (数の子, かずのこ). The many eggs in this dish also represent fertility. [4]
The bottom tray starts with nishime (煮しめ, にしめ) which is a mix of a variety of vegetables. The variety of vegetables being cooked together is supposed to represent good familal relations for the year. Ours has burdock root (representing a solid foundation due to being a root), lotus root (giving the ability to look into the future of that year due to the holes found in this vegetable), taro potatoes (representing fertility due to many small taro coming from the base of a large one) and carrots. [5] To the right of it is salmon, not a traditional part of Osechi. In the middle are black soybeans cooked in sugar and soy sauce making a sweat taste called kuromame (黒豆, くろまめ). These are supposed to give a long and healthy life. [6] The bottom left is kobumaki (昆布巻き, こぶまき), salmon wrapped in kelp. Kobumaki sounds like yorokobu which is to be happy or express happiness. [7] The last dish is burdock root (gobo, ごぼ) wrapped in beef.
Japan's other popular New Year's food is Ozōni (お雑煮, おぞうに). Ozōni is a soup made in any variety of ways with all of its ingredients depending on the region, except for the main ingredient that is mochi (餅, もち). Mochi is a rice cake of cooked rice, that is then pounded by a large hammer into a paste and then shaped into the cake. Mochi has a slightly sweet rice taste and its texture is very sticky and chewy. Our first attempt at Ozōni really made a mochi soup instead of Ozōni. The mochi had melted completely into the soup making for very strange broth, but the 2nd time it turned out well. Mochi soup became our running joke for the week.
After breakfast, we got ready to participate in the festivities of the day. New Year's Day is when people participate in Hatsumōde (初詣, はつもうで). Hatsumōde is the first New Year's visit to a shrine. During this time, people go to shrines to make wishes for the New Year, buy charms or amulets for protection or fortune called Omamori (御守, おまもり) and get fortunes for the New Year called Omikuji (御神籤, おみくじ). The most popular shrines have millions of people visit during the first 3 days of the New Year's. In fact, our first planned visit was to the most popular shrine to visit of them all, Meiji Jingū (明治神宮, めいじじんぐう). During the first 3 days of 2010, Meiji Jingū had 3.2 million people visit its shrine. [8]
Meiji Jingū is located in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo next to Yoyogi Park. Meiji Jingū was founded November 1st, 1920, following the deaths of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken in 1912 and 1914 respectively. Besides the shrine buildings, most of the shrine's 175 acres are a forest of 170,000 trees numbering from 245 different species that were donated from all over Japan for the shrine. [9] Emperor Meiji was the emperor coinciding with the Meiji Restoration. This was when the Tokugawa Shogunate was driven from power and the Emperor was restored to his political seat of power, as in the past. This period of time saw great change and very rapid modernization of Japan, that placed Japan as one of the world's powers. Due to this, the Meiji Emperor has a lot of respect in Japan and many worked hard to note his contributions to the Meiji Restoration. Meiji Jingū being one of the main examples of this. Most of the shrine buildings were loss to fire due to air raids during World War II, but were rebuilt in November of 1958 from donations. Much of the building materials here are Japanese cypress and copper plates for roofing giving it a simple and plain, but unified and graceful look. [10]
 |
| The main shrine gate, Otorii near the entrance. It's 12 meters tall and has a 9.1 meter span in between the posts. The wood was used from 1500 year old trees on Mt. Tandai in Taiwan. It's the biggest wooden torii of this style in Japan. [11] |
 |
| The Torii leading up to the inner precincts of the shrine. On it are 3 of the Imperial Seal, which is a chrysanthemum with 16 front and rear petals. |
 |
| The gate leading from the front entrance of the shrine to the inner precinct. |
 |
| A picture of the courtyard inside the inner precinct. The main building is behind me perpendicular to the main gate. |
The previous pictures were taken during different visits, as our visit on New Year's Day was swarmed with people. I heard the line to get to the shrine was over an hour through the main entrance, but luckily for us we went through the back of the shrine and entered through the West Entrance and only had to wait 15 minutes.
 |
| This entrance and line was a lot better than... |
 |
| ... |
 |
| this one. |
 |
| Lots of police on hand to guide people traffic and hold signs like this one, with the 'only in Japan' police's cute / ridiculous mascot. |
 |
| The main shrine building during New Year's. |
 |
| Although due to the amount of people, the offertory box is swapped into an offertory tarp. Basically you just get close enough to chuck your coin into the tarp area before wishing / praying. (and yes, anything not white there is a multitude of coins) |
 |
| Another common New Year's sight at shrines and often seen throughout the year are food and drink offerings at the shrine. Besides the mochi (on the right) that is offered to the gods, companies will give their products to the shrine to be offered to the gods for business success in the coming year. Shrines often have sake at their shrines throughout the year, but on New Years you will also see Soy Sauce and even Coca-Cola products that look really out of place compared to the other goods. |
 |
| The shrine stands selling all sorts of New Year's objects. If you look closely in the top right, you can see some of the objects for sale on the sign. Many of the objects for sale relate to the zodiac animal for this year, the rabbit. |
 |
| One of the shrine stands closer up, with a wide variety of New Year items for sale. |
 |
| A stand just selling New Year's fortunes. |
We didn't buy any objects at Meiji Jingū, but we did get our Goshuin signed for the New Year.
Being able to experience Meiji Jingū on New Year's was an incredible experience, but we weren't able to linger too long as we had more to see and do for New Year's day. After finishing at Meiji Jingū, it was off to the next shrine to continue our New Year festivities at Hie Shrine.
References:
1. Ito Masami, "Osechi A New Year's Tradition That's Worth Celebrating," The Japan Times Online. November 23, 2003,
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fg20031121a1.html.
2. "Osechi Ryori (Japanese New Year's Food)," [No Recipes].
http://norecipes.com/blog/2010/01/02/osechi-ryori-japanese-new-years-food/.
3. Ito Masami, "Tales of New Year Tastes," The Japan Times Online. November 28, 2003,
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fg20031128a1.html.
4. "Osechi Ryori," [No Recipes].
5. Ito Masami, "Tales of New Year Tastes," The Japan Times Online.
6. Ibid.
7. "Osechi Ryori," [No Recipes].
8. "This Month's Highlights Previous Months," Meiji Jingu.
http://www.meijijingu.or.jp/english/highlights/2.html.
9. "About Meiji Jingu Meiji Jingu," Meiji Jingu.
http://www.meijijingu.or.jp/english/about/1.html.
10. Declan Murphy, "Meiji Jingu," The Yamasa Institute.
http://www.yamasa.org/japan/english/destinations/tokyo/meiji_jingu.html.
11. Ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment