A Somewhat Belated New Year's Account

While thinking of how to write a recounting of my New Year's, I couldn't help but remember the following quote:
"Start at the beginning, and when you get to the end ... stop."
- The Mad Hatter (:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:)
Well, we're here at a new beginning, so I find I have to thwart the Hatter and, instead, start at the end.

I've been looking forward to New Year's ever since my lackluster Christmas. Now, Christmas was lackluster for me because it was so...minimal. I spent a lot of time playing up Christmas in class for my students; heck, that's all I taught about for the last week of the winter trimester. So, when my gifts for my teachers on Christmas were met with looks of confusion, and the most conversation I had about the holiday was whether Santa-san would bring presents to this teacher or that teacher, I have to admit that I felt a little let down. New Year's, though...that's a big one around here, arguably the holiday that best embodies everything I think about when I think of Christmas - traditional foods, activities, decorations, rituals, religion...all in one. There was no way I would pass as quietly.

During the week before Christmas, Saito-sensei (who you should all know by name, at this point) invited me to join his family in making mochi. This is sort of like being invited to make Christmas cookies; it's a family affair. I was happy to accept, and Sunday found me at the Saito residence.
Mochi is usually translated as "rice cake," but I find this to be a horrid accounting of it. "Rice cake" makes me think of Quaker Oats diet food, and that is at the polar opposite of the connotation spectrum from mochi. It is, instead, rice that has been pounded until it becomes a uniform sort of paste or dough, which is then made into little rounds or cut into squares and eaten in various ways, from being a part of appetizers to straight up desserts on their own. It's sticky and goey, often being the cause of many elderly and young person's deaths through choking. Perhaps it's the danger of it that makes it so delicious, as I must say that I love mochi beyond all logic and reason.
When I arrived, the first batches of rice were almost finished cooking. They were being steamed above two metal chimneys, which were carefully maintained so as to be constantly loaded to the brim with firewood. (I missed the smell of a good fire...) After this, the rice was thrown into a large, wooden stump what resembled a 3-foot-tall mortar bowl. Then came the "mochi dance," as I will now call it: Saito-sensei's son pounded the rice with a huge, wooden mallet, while the sensei himself reached in to "fold" the rice-paste-dough between the hits. Saito-sensei and his son were clearly very practiced, as there was only one near accident that I saw.
The paste/dough was then taken into the house, and my role as spectator quickly changed to Maker of Mochi. Sitting with Saito-sensei's daughter and mother, I made round mochi with sweet-bean paste centers, made roundmochi sans centers to be offered to the kami (nature spirits), and helped cut hardened slabs of mochi into rectangles to be stored for later recipes. Apparently, with one major exception, I did a good job. :D A few hours (and lots of food) later, the Saito family sent me home with mochi, a bottle of wine to start the new year, and a lot of fun memories.

The turning of the clock itself is a quiet affair in Japan. There are only a few sounds at the stroke of midnight: a few fireworks, and the literal ringing in of the year with large bells at temples. These are rung 108 times to drive away the 108 sins of man held to exist by the Buddhist tradition. Outside of these sounds, all is quiet, ensuring a peaceful year. Traditional foods are eaten for the first meal, and every one dresses up for the first visits of the year to the shrine and temple. The next three days are spent at home, enjoying time with the family...well, traditionally speaking. Now a days, more and more people spend less time at home and more time with their friends, traveling and enjoying the long span of national holidays.

Of course, it wouldn't be Japan if there weren't intense displays of politeness. Friends send one another New Year's cards, thanking each other for the past year and asking for continued good relations in the upcoming one. These have to be mutually received; if you get a card from someone to whom you did not send one, you had better hurry to the post office or risk giving offense.
It doesn't stop their, either. The first time you see someone in the new year, even if it's weeks after the year starts, has a set exchange of pleasantries along the same lines as the cards sent - thank you for last year, here's to this year. It makes the first day back at the office a rather complicated affair, especially for those of us clueless gaikokujin who haven't learned the proper forms. I muddled through, and no one seems to have shown offense.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience and, though I missed my friends and family during the holiday season, I'm glad I got to experience this holiday first-hand.