About New Year

Hi I'm Mayako!

I promised Manish to talk about Japanese New Year,
so now I'm writing the blog =)

In Japan, there are many tradition on New years day.
I'll introduce them.
I hope we can do some of them in new year
with Manish, Monika, and other EPs, if possible.

In Japan, we welcome a god of the year.
(The god is animal, and differ from year to year. Monika, you may know. Do you remember?)
So we decorate our living room or the entrance with pine branches or
kagami-mochi, a large, round rice cake offered to the gods, etc.

And we send new years card to friends and teachers.
We often draw the picture of the animal of the year.
The animal of the next year is tiger!

And there are many many play for new year.
Hanetsuki, Takoage, Iroha-Karuta, Fukuwarai, Sugoroku, Kakizome..
Do you know any of them?
Hanetsuki is a kind of sport.
Takoage is to fly a kite(Tako).
Iroha-Karuta is card game,
and Fukuwarai, I like the best, someone with his eyes closed
places parts of human face on a sheet of paper.
It's very fun. The word "Fuku" means happiness, and "Warai" means laughing.
Sugoroku is like a backgammon.
and Kakizome is wrinting Kanji character with Sumi, a chinese ink.

We do these play wishing the happiness of the year.

And we eat Osechi-Ryori, a special dishes on new year's day.
Woman cook it on the last day of the year and
she can relax in new year.

I think there are other many things I can't write about New Year!

How is your country's new year?