10 Japanese New Year’s Traditions 2024

Japanese New Year’s Traditions: In Japan, New Year’s Eve has always been a significant holiday. It’s an opportunity for families to not just ponder the previous year and their fantasies for the future yet additionally to get to know each other, get up to speed, cook, eat, and mess around. Learn about both contemporary and traditional New Year’s celebrations in Japan.

Christmas and New Year’s Eve are the two biggest annual celebrations in Japan, and the average Japanese family celebrates them in a completely different way. Another year has flown by, and if you live there, you most likely have to deal with them simultaneously. The steps for how and why the Japanese celebrate the end of a year and the beginning of a new one are outlined below.

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Japanese New Year’s Traditions

Despite Japan’s reputation as the world’s overwork capital, the New Year’s holidays here provide an opportunity for everyone to unwind. However, the price is that, in contrast to the wild parties of the West, New Year’s is largely a quiet time spent with family. As a result, most of the country shuts down to take a break. This indicates that shops, restaurants, and even medical facilities will be closed for several days.

However, if you steer clear of the shutdowns, you’ll find that the holidays in Japan are filled to the brim with amazing traditional decorations, delectable food, and one-of-a-kind cultural ceremonies. Read on to learn more about how Japanese people welcome the new year in style so that you can have the best possible start to the year.

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Japanese New Year’s Traditions

Japanese New Year’s Traditions Details

Article Name10 Japanese New Year’s Traditions
CategoryNew Year
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Japanese New Year’s Traditions

Japanese New Year is one of the most celebrated holidays in the world. It’s a time to reflect on the past year and prepare for the future. Here are some of the most popular Japanese New Year’s traditions. Japanese New Year’s traditions are a big deal! Here are a few of the most important things to know about this annual celebration.

1. Sing along with Kohaku Uta Gassen

Most people celebrate New Year’s Day by spending a lot of time watching television and spending time with their families.  NHK makes a holiday special every year called Kohaku Uta Gassen, or simply Kohaku. Kohaku () is a kanji that means “red” and “white” in Japanese. During the special, the year’s most successful musicians divided into two teams: Men (on the white team) and women (on the red team) compete in a singing competition.

The judges and the audience cast votes to select the winning team at the conclusion of the show. Being invited to perform on Kohaku is a huge deal, despite the fact that it may appear to be just good fun. It is regarded as the high point of many Japanese singers’ careers. It’s a great way to relax and wind down before the new year for everyone else.

2. Watch the New Year Ekiden

During the New Year, viewers from all over Japan tune in to watch the annual collegiate relay race from Tokyo to Hakone known as the New Year Ekiden. It is the most watched marathon event on Japanese television, and professional runners consider the high viewership to be a significant motivator.

The two-day, full circle, 218 kilometer race is one more staple of New Year’s Television programs and as a rule causes some buzz and discussion focuses for these special seasons. The course is broken up into ten stages, each about half a marathon long. There is no better way to inspire yourself to get in shape for the upcoming year.

3. Gorge Yourself on Osechi

Osechi ryori is a collection of foods that are all categorized as “traditional Japanese New Year foods” and are packaged in square lacquerware containers. Osechi are made by some families themselves, while others charge astronomical prices for them. In any case, the objective is to avoid having to cook on New Year’s Day. For being lazy, congrats!

Osechi’s highlights include zoni, a mochi rice soup, and kohaku-namasu, or red-and-white vegetables (there’s that red-and-white theme again!). and common side dishes like kuro-mame (black soybeans) and konbu (seaweed). Yum!

4. Try Oshiruko

Oshiruko is a sweet porridge of azuki beans bubbled, squashed and served in a bowl with mochi (tacky beat rice). It’s likewise a sweet red bean drink that you can find in some candy machines in Japan. Some people enjoy it with dumplings or chestnuts. However, not everyone enjoys sweet azuki beans, so you might want to pair them with something sour like umeboshi (pickled plum), as the locals do.

5. Eat long Soba Noodles

A traditional bowl of plain noodles known as toshikoshi soba, or year-crossing noodle, is consumed by friends and family on New Year’s Eve. Toshi-koshi, which means “crossing from one year to the next” in Japanese, is the source of the concept.

During osechi, families almost always eat toshikoshi soba, and friends typically go out to celebrate and eat a few bowls together just one hour before the new year.

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6. Pray at a Shrine

One of the most popular ways to remember the New Year in Japan is to visit a shrine. Throughout the visit, people will pray for health, prosperity, angelic protection or even just good luck in a tradition called hatsumode

The huge shrines that attract the special visitors are Tokyo’s Meiji Jingu and Kyoto’s Fushimi Inari Shrine. Even so, if you’re not a audience of crowds, try visiting local shrines outside the big cities. The lines can obtain seriously long, and some people will wait for hours. 

7. Find Your Fortune

After your prayers at the shrine, you can buy an omikuji(fortune slip), normally for 100. The small pieces of paper are arbitrarily and tell you your luck in the new year. There are many tiers of luck, but it might look like this:

  • Daikichi (大吉): Best luck, Special blessing
  • Kichi (吉): Good luck, blessing
  • Daikyo (大凶): Terrible luck, certain disaster, Best curse

They can also tell you your yearly predict for everything from romance to work. If you don’t extract the good luck in omikuji, not all is lost! You can strap the bad omikuji to a wooden post in the shrine to undo the bad luck. You can also raise good luck glamours called omamori to help you overcome regardless bad luck the fortunes forecast for you. 

8. Interpret Your Dreams

In Japan, your luck for the coming year can also be predicted by your first dream. The dream you have when you fall asleep on January 1 and wake up on January 2 is called hatsuyume, or the first dream, and the main symbols of hatsuyume need to be kept in mind in order to correctly interpret it.

Mount Fuji, an eggplant, and a hawk are the luckiest symbols. The most common explanation is that Mount Fuji is the tallest mountain, hawks are clever and powerful, and the Japanese word for eggplant, nasu, means “achieving something great.” However, no one knows for sure why these three symbols are the best.

9. Try Kagami Mochi

Kagami mochi begins to be sold in supermarkets in front of the shopping aisles around the beginning of December. The striking confection is made by stacking two substantial mochi cakes on top of each other and embellishing them with ferns and decorative paper. While conventional kagami mochi utilizes unpleasant orange, current ones are finished off with Japanese mikan.

Kagami mochi has a long history, but the two mochi cakes are thought to represent a variety of things, like the beginning and end of the year, yin and yang, or the sun and moon. Kagami mochi are sprinkled all over the house to prevent fires and bring prosperity. They can be put anywhere, but most people put them in the family altar as well.

Additionally, it is believed that the mochi contains the power of kami, or God, so eating it is also beneficial! Even combining it with oshiruku is possible.

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10. Pick up a Lucky Bag

In keeping with luck, this is also the time of year when many stores try to get rid of excess inventory. During the holiday season, you can purchase a fukubukuro, or lucky bag, at almost any establishment. The kanji will be written on them, which is why they are sometimes referred to as “happy bags.” There are some enigmatic goodies inside. Well, as mysterious as clothes, gadgets, and other knickknacks that haven’t sold yet can be for about half off. You might get something that is actually a steal if you’re really lucky.

On the other hand, you might spend money on something that has no value at all. These are referred to as utsubukuro (depressing bags) or fukobukuro (misfortune bags). It might be in your best interest to have an idea of what you’re purchasing. However, not all of them are bad. especially if you enjoy coffee, tacoyaki, and donuts. In Japan, there are many different ways to celebrate the holidays. We hope it inspires you, and we wish you the best possible start to the year!

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