Out with the old; In with the new!

Soba setu

As I said before, Japan celebrates New Year's more than Christmas.  It's usually spent at home with family.  You travel to your hometown, or where your parents live, settle in on the 31st eat some soba (a noodle made from buckwheat, the darker colored noodles) and drink tea.  Soba noodles are eaten because the word "soba" has two meanings (Homonyms for 1000 please, Alex).  One is the noodle and the other means "closeness".

I asked a student what "closeness" had to do with New Year's Eve, but she wasn't sure.  She was able to tell me the traditional way that New Year's is spent in Japan.  Pop a mini bag of corn and gather round, cause here we go:

example of bell.

While we countdown from 10 to 1 on New Year's Eve at midnight, Japanese people are also counting.  (Please refrain from Asian number jokes).  They listen with their family for a bell to be struck (called "joya no kane") at the closest temple.  The bell is struck 108 times, once for each of the "bonnou", or evil passions that we humans possess.  It is a Buddhist belief akin to the idea of the seven deadly sins and original sin mixed together. 

People take turns ringing the bell for the entire 108 times.  Each tone "erases" or absolves us of one bonnou, so that by the time the bell has been struck 108 times and the date has changed, we will all be starting the new year with a clean slate.  So here, you are literally "ringing in the New Year"!  Also, the first few days of the New Year are meant to be a rest for women.  Normally, a Japanese women cooks dinner each night, and I don't mean like whips up something really fast.  Japanese housewives (working world or not) are expected to make elaborate dinners each night for their husband or family.  The first few days of the New Year give them a little break from this task.  They traditionally would cook three or four days worth of food in advance, but like modern times is known to do, it is slowly destroying tradition and much of the food is now bought from the store.

Actual sign in Tokyo Metro. White and yellow people, interesting.

I chose to pay tribute to my Americaness, and went out to several bars until 6am.  I was fortunate enough to end up at JoyJoy Karaoke with a few poor souls who had the misfortune of listening to me singing nonstop for hours.  If you are interested in what it is like to go out in Japan, I'll be posting something on what I've experienced with that soon.  Depending on who you are, it might be more interesting to you than my history lessons on Japan.

I will say this: Asian people are alcoholics.  They drink more than anyone I know and get about 30 sheets to the wind every time.  So while they don't have "Christmas" or "New Year's" parties, they do celebrate the end of the year in two ways.

1.  The do have a custom called "Osoji" which is like a year-end cleaning thing.  I'm a firm believer that this made my thrift store hunting (which is frowned upon) a total score!  It's like spring cleaning but they do it at the end of the year.  And I'm not with them on that because its freaking cold, but hey, tomorrow I get a couch delivered with some other awesome furniture, so I'm not complaining.

2.  They have another custom: Bonnenkai.  This is basically their version of holiday parties.  They are usually held at Izakayas or restaurants and feature a shitload of food and even more booze.  They have them throughout the entire month of Decemeber, and if you get on the evening trains you can smell the booze leaking out of the pores of those who attended, which is usually everyone so the whole car smells like high balls and beer.  I only went to two.  The first one I was fed two beers, a bottle of red wine, two high balls and some plum wine drink within an hour.  I was working on 3 drinks at one time.  There was an INSANELY drunk man at our table who would freak out every time someone said anything.  Like FREAK OUT.  His hand would immediately fly towards his head and he would shriek loudly in disbelief.  By the time I left, he was head down-passed out on the table.

The other bonnenkai I went to was for work.  It was an nomihodai, which is "all you can drink" and also featured a shit ton of AMAZING food.  We were served homemade food until our ears fell off and two hours of nomihodai for 2,000 yen (about $23 dollars).  

sooooo gooooood

We had about 18 people in the side-section of Ren in Fujigaoka. You can't start drinking until everyone has a drink and has kampai'ed (cheers'd)!  The food was a big sashimi plate with tuna, salmon, other fish, crab and prosciutto wrapped asaparagus.  We also had three types of pasta (they love Italian food here), miso katsu on sticks, cheese balls, and some other fried thing.  And we finished with the green tea jelly.  Carrie, Chao and I stayed after to finish our drinks, then made our way to Chao's to play some guitar before racing to the station to make last train.  Hey, at least we weren't running from hail this time. 

Kampai!