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Japanese New Year: Holidays
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In Japanese culture, it is a custom to send postcards for the New Year to friends and relatives. The original purpose of these traditional cards is to give far away friends and relatives tidings of yourself and of your immediate family. They are sent so they arrive on the first of January, no sooner or later. But it is customary not to send a card if one has had a death in the family that year. In this case, a simple postcard is sent instead, to show respect for the deceased. Cards have always been a good way to the spread holiday cheer, from here in Canada all the way to Japan.
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Seijin No Hi is the first holiday of the year after New Year's is all over. It is for all the women who have just become legal adults (age 20), and most families buy a kimono for their daughter. The typical kimono is 300-400 thousand yen, but much more extravagant kimono can be even as high as a million yen each. On the day the young lady will typically go to a nearby Shinto Shrine and pray for health, success, money, etc. It's one of the few times you will see anyone wear a kimono -- except for the grannies running around going to study or teach tea ceremony. The other occasions are graduation from a college, and once in a while at a wedding.
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For the first three days of the New Year, most businesses and schools are closed since this is considered a time of rest and celebration and no work should be done. Housewives are ... able to rest since all the New Years food which is consumed these first three days was prepared during the last few days of the previous year. This special food is called osechi ryori and it includes many exotic dishes which are only served during this holiday. Popular foods include omochi which are rice cakes, ozoni which is a clear soup with colorful vegetables, fish cake and broiled mochi and onishime which is a type of stew. The jubako (multi-tiered lacquer box) contains a variety of beautifully prepared delicacies which have special meanings. For example, black beans are eaten to symbolize the elimination of any bad things which might come in the New Year and fish roe called kazu-no-ko is eaten for fertility.
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In Japan the New Year is called Shogatsu or Genjitsu. Before the New Year's holidays. all school and office work must be finished and every house must be clean inside and out. Unlike many other Asian cultures, the Japanese celebrate New Year's Day on January 1. If fact the days before and after January 1 have become times of celebration, and the New Year's season often stretches from the last week in November to the first week in January. At midnight on December 31 a gong at each local shrine is struck by a monk.
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Food during the New Year's tends to be special as well. Traditionally, New Year's food is placed in nestable, laquered boxes. These boxes contain food which does not spoil easily and which can obviate the need for cooking for the holidays. Contents vary from region to region, but popular items include candied black beans, fish eggs attached to seaweed, dasheens, kelp, and fish. Another popular New Year's food with a regional flavor is the New Year's soup known as ozoni. In West Japan, it tends to be made with a soybean paste base giving it a whitish appearance, whereas in East Japan it tends to be made of fish stock making it more like a clear broth.
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Japanese New Year’s Eve is celebrated with much pomp and grandeur in Kyoto as the three-day New Year holiday is a special time in Japan. Japanese New Year’s Eve in Kyoto is a time for solemn prayers and joyous greetings. New Year’s Day is a holiday in most parts of the world but to the Japanese, the occasion has a unique significance.
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