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Japanese New Year: People
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On New Year's Day, Japanese people have a custom of giving pocket money to children, which is a custom from China. This is known as otoshidama (お年玉). It is handed out in small decorated envelopes called 'pochibukuro', descendants of the Chinese red packets. In the Edo period, large stores and wealthy families gave out a small bag of mochi and a Mandarin orange to spread happiness all around. The amount of money given depends on the age of the child but is usually the same if there is more than one child so that no one feels slighted.
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This New Year festival has an interesting history. In the 17th century, King Jamyang Namgyal decided to lead an expedition against the Balti forces during winter. He was advised that any expedition before the New Year would be inauspicious. Like Alexander's solution to the Gordion Knot, his solution was direct and simple. He advanced the New Year celebrations by two months, establishing a tradition that people still follow- celebrating Losar on the first day of the eleventh month of every year....
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Making New Year's resolutions is a modern approach to keeping evil away during the New Year. People decide to improve their lives by making promises to do good things or not to do bad things. New Year's Resolutions are one way to promise yourself, your family or friends that you will do one or more things differently. Resolutions can be the beginning of setting goals for the new year. Of course it's always easier to make a resolution than keep it. Keeping it is hard work.
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New Year's eve in Korean and on that night nobody is supposed to sleep. It's the so called "je yah". There was a belief that if someone slept on that night, the eyebrows would turn white. That was the reason why the light was on at every room, the "maru" and even in the kitchen. This was done to receive the brand new year's day with awaken eyes and brightness. During the New Year's eve day people perform an overall cleaning, brushing off old dust. At the evening they heat water and take a bath.
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Japanese New Year's food is called osechi-ryori, and consists many different kinds of dishes. It's a Japanese tradition to eat osechi-ryori throughout the New Year's holidays (until Jan. 3.) Traditionally, people finish cooking osechi dishes by New Year's Eve so they have food for a couple days without cooking. Most of the dishes can last a few days in the refrigerator or at cool room temperature. Colorful osechi-ryori dishes are packed in layers of lacquer boxes, called jubako.
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In Japan "shogatsu (New Year's holidays)" is a time when everybody takes a few days off to celebrate the arrival of the new year. It is often called "oshogatsu" with the prefix "o" to make it sound polite. Many people who are away from home, return to spend time with their family. Just like Christmas in West, the Japanese are looking forward to "oshogatsu." Here is the song titled "Oshogatsu."
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