Rather than making (often overly) ambitious resolutions for the new year, why not try your luck with the array of auspicious Japanese new year practices? The propitious schedule lasts around a couple of weeks, so here’s the timeline.
Before New Year’s Eve
Place a kagami mochi in your house
Kagami mochi (pictured top) is the snowman-like figure topped with a daidai (a native Japanese mandarin) and it’s sold in shops from early December across Japan. The name translates to ‘mirror mochi’, while the round shape is a homage to the sun goddess Amaterasu and symbolises renewed light and energy. The mochi is double-decked to double your luck, obviously. Daidai roughly translates to ‘generation after generation’, thus representing health and prosperity to your descendants.
Put a kadomatsu at your door
Kadomatsu are the snazzy bamboo-and-pine decorations that adorn entrances of buildings during the new year period. They’re considered as yorishiro – objects capable of collecting spirits, and in this case, Toshigami-sama, the new year deity. The pine and ume tree sprigs represent longevity, prosperity and steadfastness.
New Year’s Eve (Omisoka)
Eat toshikoshi soba
Toshikoshi soba (or ‘year-crossing’ buckwheat noodles) is the tradition of eating soba noodles on New Year's Eve to mark the passing of one year to the next. The length of the noodles is said to represent longevity; the hardiness of the buckwheat plant represents resilience; and the biting of the noodles symbolises the severing of woes from the previous year. Historically, goldsmiths used a ball of soba dough to gather up leftover gold dust, thus imbuing soba with an association with gold and therefore prosperity.
Listen to the 108 bells of Joya no Kane
Joya no Kane is one of the most important rituals for Buddhist temples in Japan. Around midnight on New Year’s Eve, for one to two hours, temples sound their bells exactly 108 times to relieve listeners from the 108 types of bonnou – earthly desires and feelings (such as anger, jealousy...) that are believed to plague humans. It’s done on New Year’s Eve in order to start the year afresh.
Photo: Nuttawut Parasert/Dreamstime
New Year’s Day (Ganjitsu)
Watch hatsuhinode
Finding a scenic spot – beach, rooftop, observatory tower or other tall buildings – to watch the hatsu (new) hinode (sunrise) is regarded as a symbolic move to welcome the new year god. This is important to usher in a bountiful harvest, ample food and blessings from the family's ancestors.
Make a wish at hatsumode
Good things come to those who wait: this wise saying couldn’t be more true when it comes to hatsumode, the Japanese custom of visiting a shrine or temple at the beginning of the new year. The famously long queues at the temples will surely test your patience. But keep this in mind: it is believed that your first prayer of the year at the temple will come true.
Eat osechi ryori
These elaborate bento-style boxes are either prepared in the days leading up to New Year’s Day or bought premade from a supermarket. They’re packed with compartments of luck-bringing bounty like kuri kinton (sweet chestnut paste; ‘kin’ means gold, so these are eaten for wealth and prosperity); datemaki (the rolled omelette resembles a scroll and so is lucky for those in academic pursuits); shrimp (the bent shape of the shrimp’s back represents old age and therefore longevity); and renkon (lotus root, which represents a future without obstacles as the holes allow an unobstructed view to the other side).
Drink otosu
Japan’s version of mulled wine, otosu is believed to help harness the potential of good health and longevity, rather than giving you a hangover. It is a brew of equal parts sake and hon-mirin (authentic mirin) plus a concoction of medicinal flowers, herbs and roots which has been steeped in the liquor overnight. Otosu is poured from the right side of the drinker, drunk facing the eastern direction, and the order of consumption is from young to old.
January 7
Nanakusa-no-sekku
Known as the ‘Feast of Seven Herbs’, the seventh day of the new year is the day to feast on a rice porridge made with seven herbs (nanakusa-gayu) to ward off evil spirits and illness, and promote good health for the year. These herbs are seri (water dropwort), nazuna (shepherd’s purse), gogyo (cudweed), hakobera (chickweed), hotokenoza (nipplewort), suzuna (turnip) and suzushiro (daikon radish). By Jessica Thompson
Now that you're all prepped for the new year, head to one of the New Year's Eve countdown parties in Tokyo and celebrate.