Hi! I’m Shane and I’m the secretary of Slow
Food Soc. I grew up in Japan so I decided to write about Christmas and New Year
in Japan.
When I was little, my family celebrated
Christmas in a traditional (or what I think is traditional) British way. Christmas tree, presents and of course, food; turkey, gravy, roasted potatoes
and veggies, white sauce, stuffing, and to finish it off, Christmas pudding and
custard. My mum (who is Japanese) cooks amazing dishes and the food is always delicious.
We don’t put up the tree anymore and I asked them why last week when we were Skyping and my dad (who is British) said it was because I’d grown up and Christmas
trees are for kids. That was rather upsetting to hear because I think Christmas
is for all ages! I’m not going to go back to Japan this winter but I’m sure the
feast will happen because my dad loves it.
I can understand why they don’t bother
putting up the Christmas tree or decorate the house though. Christmas isn’t
really a big thing in Japan. It’s just another working day and things are the
same as usual. Most shops, however, do decorate and put us in the festive mood.
But in general, Christmas isn’t celebrated very much. If people do celebrate,
it’s usually opening gifts on Christmas eve and eat a Christmas cake, which is
a strawberry shortcake.
What is more important during this time is
New Year’s Day, or Oshogatsu. I’d say it’s the biggest holiday in Japanese
culture. This is when all the family get together (whether they want to or
not!) and have a huge feast called Osechi. Osechi comes in a big square box,
usually two or three layers, and is filled with foods that have some kind of
special meaning.
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| Image credit |
Each component has some sort of meaning.
For example, sweet black beans is so that you can work well this year. It comes
from the phrase ‘mame ni hataraku’ where “mame” means beans. This is what those
black beans look like:
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| Image credit |
Another dish served in Osechi is Kobu-maki,
which is thick seaweed (kombu) rolled into a cylindrical shape and tied with dried
gourd shavings. This food is so that you have lots of joy this year. In
Japanese, joy is “yorokobu” and it’s similar to the name of the seaweed,
kombu. Am I making sense to you right now? Here’s what the Kobu-maki looks
like:
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| Image credit |
What I like more than Osechi is another New
Year food called Ozoni. It’s a soup that has rice cakes and chicken and veggies
in it. My grandmother who lives in Tokyo makes it and I like eating it before
the huge Osechi gets delivered to their house. It’s a really lovely warming
soup, but it’s not like miso soup.
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| Image credit |
Other than food, there’s a tradition in
Japan called Otoshi-dama. This is where kids receive money from their extended
family. I can’t say whether that’s a better idea than a Christmas present or
not, but I think it’s a pretty cool tradition!
Have a great Christmas and a New Year
everyone! :D
Shane
P.S. None of the pictures I used in this
post is mine. I got them all from google.