Little
Tokyo celebrates Japanese New Year
By Yoshinori Okada
On-line Forty-Niner
As
the year 2003 nears, students at Cal State
Long Beach are beginning to think of what
to do on New Year’s Day.
Ways of celebrating the day differ from
person to person and culture to culture
yet some might be interested in how people
from different cultures celebrate the day.
Shogatu, the first week of January, is one
of the most important festivals in Japan.
People everywhere clear up matters from
the passing year to prepare for the coming
year with a pleasant mind on oomisoka, the
last day of the year. Joyanokane,
108-strokes of the temple’s bell at midnight,
marks the changing of the years.
New Year’s Day is designated a national
holiday to celebrate the beginning of the
new year. The day has traditionally been
the most important day in Japan as a fresh
start for everyone, with wishes for happiness
and prosperity in the course of the year.
Although only Jan. 1 is an official holiday,
the first three days of the year are recognized
as the New Year Holiday period. During the
period, a variety of traditional events
are carried out. Families, relatives and
friends get together to celebrate and exchange
New Year’s greetings, prayers are offered
at shrines and temples, and houses are decorated
with shimekazari, sacred straw tassels,
and kadomatsu, gate pine, both symbolic
of happiness and purity.
Just like turkeys on Thanksgiving in the
United States, Japan’s shogatu always goes
with special food and meals — osechi, special
meals prepared to celebrate the New Year,
and zoni, a soup during shogatu using locally-specialized
ingredients, or typical traditional food
served in every household throughout the
period. While they differ from region to
region and sometimes family to family, the
associated wish for health, happiness and
good harvest is the same everywhere.
Besides these special dishes, other symbolic
activities are performed. Mochitsuki
is the custom of making rice cakes, pounding
steamed glutinous rice many times with a
pestle in a big wooden mortar called usu
until it takes on a stick consistency. The
freshly-pounded mochi are served both on
the spot and later on with zoni.
Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles will
host a series of shogatu events presented
by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Southern
California to celebrate the coming new year
on Jan. 1, 4 and 5.
Tetsuo Takahashi, administrative director
of the chamber, said that this fifth annual
event has played an important role in entertaining
Japanese, everyone interested in the Japanese
culture and in preserving and further diffusing
the Japanese customs in American society.
Last year, more than 10,000 people visited
the event, Takahashi said.
Besides shogatu-food booths, the festival
will feature traditional Japanese performances
such as a taiko drum show, a lion dance
and a mochitsuki demonstration, according
to the event’s Web site.
“That sounds good,” said Masaru Kataoka,
a second year marketing student. “I may
be going, there’s nothing like Japan’s shogatu,
you know. I won’t be able to go back to
Japan because my winter class will start
on Jan. 2. I want to pound some mochi up
there.”
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