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New Year is traditionally a big
festival in many countries around the world. On New Year’s Eve, what were you
doing, and who were you with? Were you sitting at home with your loved ones,
with a glass of champagne and watching the celebrations on TV? Or were you
actually there; hearing the big clock chime out midnight, hearing the cheers of
thousands of others and watching your breath freeze in the air as the snowflakes
fell?
In Japan it is a festival celebrated with even more effort than Christmas –
which seems strange to the majority of us in the Western world! The New Year
season begins on the 31st December and runs right through to the 3rd of January
each year.
 Preparations
for the New Year begin in mid-December with the making or buying of nengajo,
postcards made especially for the event. Nengajo are sent to anyone and everyone
you know in Japan! They often have drawings of the animal representing the
coming year on the front, and a message wishing the recipient a good new year,
and thanking them for all they have done for the sender in the past year.
Nengajo sent to family members or close friends are nearly always hand-made, and
ones sent to business associates (or sent by people who have a lot of friends) are
often specially ordered from copy shops. Care is made so that no one is missed out –
with the exception of those who have lost a loved one in the past year. Traditionally,
nengajo are not sent to the bereaved, and before the New Year season draws near, such
people send out postcards requesting no nengajo to be sent to them.
The cards are traditionally delivered on New Year’s Day by the Japanese Postal
Service. Students are employed at this time of year to deal with the vast amount
of mail being sent. The average Japanese person sends anywhere between 20 and
several hundred nengajo in one year!
 As
the year draws to a close, all Japanese families and businesses begin cleaning their
homes in time for the New Year. This is such a major custom that even the temples are
cleaned, and the Buddha are dusted. News programmes often show pictures of monks
climbing and cleaning the huge images at this time of year.
New Years’ Eve is an important day. It is common for the Japanese to eat
buckwheat noodles on this day, either at a sobaya (buckwheat noodle
shop) or at home. The eating of the noodles is said to ensure prosperity and
longevity in the coming year. Other food eaten at this time differs from region
to region in Japan, but favourites include candied black beans, dasheens, kelp
and fish eggs attached to seaweed.
 On
New Years’ Eve it is popular for families to gather to watch television shows such
as Kohaku uta gassen (“The Red and White Song Festival”), which celebrates the
most popular songs released that year. The show has run for over 50 years now, and has
become a national institution!
As the evening draws on, some people dress in traditional Japanese style – men,
women and children will put on kimono of various patterns and colours.
Families leave their houses to go to their local Shinto shrine, to continue their New Year
c elebration
there. Many leave before New Year's Eve to visit one of the more famous shrines, and
would be browsing the wares of the many stands set up along the walkways of the temple at
this time in the evening.
The climax of the evening is, of course, at midnight, when the temple bells ring
out 108 times to welcome in the New Year. People at the shrines try to come as
close as they can to the main altar and throw coins and paper money on the
doorsteps of the shrine. Then, once their offering has been made, they clap
their hands (to summon the gods) and pray. At the local shrines where it is not
so busy, people toss their offerings into a box specially provided for the
purpose, pull a cord which is attached to the bell hanging on the rafter above
their heads, then clap their hands and pray.
 A
particularly interesting New Year custom is to draw your fortune. Stalls are set
up inside the shrine grounds and are staffed by shrine maidens wearing a special
type of kimono, in white and red. A small sum is paid, then a box containing numbered
bamboo sticks is shaken, until the tip of a stick pokes its way through the hole
at the top of the box. The shrine maiden then looks at the number, and gives the
visitor a piece of paper with that number on it, which has their fortune written
on it. After reading the fortune, many people tie theirs onto a branch of a tree
either inside or close to the shrine grounds.
Before leaving the shrine, you might buy an amulet or charm for good luck. These
charms can be all shapes, but a popular example is an arrow. The charms are
meant to be good for one year, and they are kept until the time comes again to
visit the shrine at New Year. Old charms are deposited inside the shrine and
ceremoniously burned after the celebrations are over.
Once the visitor has
left the shrine, they go home and hope to dream of certain things which are
considered good omens for the coming year. These include but are not limited to
Mt. Fuji, hawks and eggplants.
It is considered a good start to the New Year to awaken before dawn, to watch
the first sunrise. The television networks, which have been broadcasting from
famous shrines all over the country, show footage of dawn breaking from
different parts of Japan.
New Year’s Day is a
quiet day, and is spent staying at home, watching television and writing nengajo.
Children often receive gifts of money from relatives and family friends on this
day, and their parents have to keep a record of the amounts given. This is so
they can keep track of obligations towards the person who gave the money.
This of course results in the mass exodus of children to toy and candy stores in
cities across Japan, which re-open on the 2nd or 3rd of January every year. Some
Japanese people visit teachers of traditional art forms such as flower
arranging, martial arts and origami during this time.
Visitors during New Year are often offered a Japanese alcoholic drink called
sake. As in other countries, lovers of alcohol are encouraged to drink as
much as they wish! Other ways of celebrating New Year include travelling abroad
(although the popularity of this has declined), going skiing or the ever popular
neshogatsu, which quite literally means “sleeping through New Year's”,
and involves spending most of the time sleeping or sitting around the house.
The pictures were taken from the anime “Cardcaptor Sakura” by CLAMP.
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