| Festivals |
Shougatsu and Bon
For the Japanese, shougatsu serves to punctuate life with an annual beginning and end. Shougatsu is a time when government offices, private companies, schools, and everyone else takes a few days off to celebrate the arrival of the new year. The Japanese word for January, Ichigatsu (first moon), reflects shougatsu's original significance as the beginning of the lunar year, a time when families paid their respects to their ancestors and prayed for successful crops. Nowadays, however, the first week of January is generally referred to as IshougatsuI and is celebrated as simply the start of the new year.
Come late December and Japanese homes are abuzz with activity as housewives clean the house and garden, set traditional pine ornaments calld kado-matsu outside the front door to welcome ancestral spirits, and prepare holiday foods such as o-sechi-ryouri, zouni, and mochi. Just prior to the new year's arrival is the big urban exodus--a period of several days during which every transportation artery is clogged with people leaving the city to return to their ancestral village or to take a vacation trip. On New Year's Eve it is common to eat soba noodles to symbolize long lives and continuity across the years.
Many special events take place during the first week of the new year, and especially during the first three days. The two most typical are the first visit to a shrine or temple where people gather to pray for good fortune during the year ahead and the formal New Year's calls paid on relatives, company superiors, and anyone elso to whom you have become indebted during the past year. It is also during this week that Japanese women, most of whom ordinarily wear Western clothing, take the trouble to put their hair up and wear traditional kimono. New Year's calls have to some extent been replaced by nengajou (New Year's cards), an indispensable part of shougatsu if only because receiving large numbers of nengajou is an indication of high social status. Some children spend shougatsu flying kites, spinning tops, playing Japanese battledore, and enjoying other traditional pastimes. Another treat for the children is otoshidama--small gifts of money from parents and relatives.
Bon
After shougatsu, the other big holiday of the year is bon, based on the Buddhist legend describing how, on the 15th day of the seventh month, one of Buddha's 16 disciples made a generous offering to save his mother from torment in hell. Today bon is observed between July 13 and 15 in Toukyou (Tokyo) (and one month later in most other parts of Japan) by placing offerings on butsudan (small Buddhist altars) and by otherwise seeking to pleasse the ancestral spirits. Communities all over Japan erect stages in the squares for musicians playing flutes, and drums to accompany everyone in special bon-odori dances.
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Hina Matsuri, Tango no Sekku, and Shichi-go-san are all annual events celebrating children and praying for their sound development.
Hina Matsuri
Celebrated
on March 3, Hina Matsuri (Doll Festival), formally known as Momo
no Sekku (Peach Festival), is for girls. It is a time when girls pray
for a good marriage, set out tiered platforms decorated with hina-ningyou
(hina dolls usually including emperor and empress, three court
ladies, and five musicians), and enjoy treats such as shirozake (sweet
sake with rice malt) and red and white candies. Leaving the hina
dolls out too long is said to delay marriage, and it is customary to put
them away soon after March 3. Traditionally the hina doll collection
has been part of a new bride's dowry. Momo no Sekku's popularization
as Hina Matsuri occurred only since the Meiji period; earlier
it had been a picnic festival for both boys and girls. The Doll Festival
has its roots in the ceremonies and rituals involving dolls performed
by the daughters of the Heian nobility, and it was only later,
during the Edo period, that these dolls came back into fashion
and gradually evolved into a Girl's Day tradition connected with Momo
no Sekku.
Tango no Sekku
May 5 is a day for boys. Long the Tango no Sekku, it has been officially renamed Children's Day and made a national holiday. Families with sons buy armored samurai dolls and miniature helmets, hang out koi-nobori, buy irises and kashiwa-mochi, and pray for their sons' success in life. Tango no Sekku used to be a day for hunting game and gathering medicinal herbs, such as iris leaves. Shoubu in Japanese, the iris has a homonym meaning "military spirit," from whence came the Muromachi custom of decorating paper helmets with iris leves. Samurai dolls and koi-nobori first appeared in the Edo period, but it was not until the Meiji period that these customs became popular nationwide.
Shichi-go-san
Literally, 7-5-3, this celebration falls on November 15 and is a time for boys who have reached their third or fifth birthday and girls who have reached their third or seventh to dress up and pay their respects at the local shrine. A popularization of various rituals observed by the Edo-period samurai class, Shichi-go-san originally included various rites of passage: boys and girls aged three were permitted to begin growing their hair long, boys aged five could start wearing hakama (a divided skirt worn by men), and girls aged seven were given obi instead of rope to tie their kimono.
As doll manufactures, department stores, and other merchants vie for profits, these celebrations are becoming more lavish every year, and some people now say they should be abandoned or at least purged of this ostentation. Yet the festivities are likely to continue as outlets for parental affection and the desire to see their children succeed.
The Tanabata Festival came to Japan from China during the Nara period and is based on the folk legend of the Cowherd Star (Altair) and Weaver Star (Vega), two lovers whose celestial paths cross but once a year--on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. In ancient China, Tanabata was a time when women prayed to the Weaver Star for sewing skills and this custom was transformed in Japan into one in which prayers for academic proficiency and such cultural arts as shuuji are written on multicolored streamers of paper attached to bamboo poles along with origami cranes and other decorations for display in the family garden.
The Japanese name Tanabata, written with the characters for "seven" and "evening," is a phonetic writing of Tanabatatsume--the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters for "the Woman Weaver"--and reflects the timing of the festival on the seventh day of the seventh month. For most Japanese, this day is July 7 on the Julian calendar, although in some areas Tanabata is observed on August 7 in keeping with the older traditions.
In either case, Tanabata used to be a time when people gathered at home or at terakoya schools to enjoy a warm midsummer evening. This custom eventually yielded to the lavish, commercialized Tanabata Festivals held in shopping districts. Festival sponsors draw crowds of potential customers with parades of oversized prayer poles, dolls resembling popular singers and actors, and other displays conductive to a festive mood. The Tanabata Festivals held in Sendai and Hiratsuka have won national fame for their gaudiness and attract tourists from ar and wide.
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