Christmas and New Year in Japan
One way to escape the post-Christmas blues is to jet off to Japan. It won’t help with the January credit card bill, but having enjoyed the emotional charge of carols, Christmas trees and all the rest at home, you can touch down in Tokyo for the build-up to New Year.
I’ve done it a couple of times, on planes full of families like mine: one parent from the UK and the other from Japan, both subject to a certain amount of familial pressure to be with them for the biggest festival of the season - Christmas in the UK, New Year in Japan.
If you can bear 12 hours of babies crying and toddlers taking guided walks up and down the aisles, knocking your drink into your lap, then you may find yourself rewarded by blue skies, crisp air and the prospect of some serious feasting.
It’s possible to feel Christmassy in Japan, of course: the department stores go all-out on music and decorations, there are light displays, and for young couples there’s plenty of romance to be had on Christmas Eve.
Illuminations in the upscale Roppongi Hills neighbourhood of Tokyo
But as a general rule, I think you can tell how deep the cultural value of a festival goes by the food that people eat. And for Christmas in Japan, I have three letters for you: KFC.
Until the early 1970s, Kentucky Fried Chicken was doing a modest trade in Japan. Then, one day, a restaurant manager by the name of Okawara Takeshi overheard two western customers talking about how much they were missing turkey, being so far from home at Christmas.
That night in bed, the idea occurred to Okawara of offering a special ‘party barrel’ for the festive season. He launched a campaign called Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii (‘Kentucky for Christmas’) and within a few short years it had gone country-wide. Children struggled to tell Colonel Sanders from Santa, KFC Christmas dinners had to be ordered weeks in advance, and Okawara had been promoted to President and CEO of KFC Japan.
Set that alongside some of the dishes currently being prepared in kitchens across Japan, and you get a sense of the difference there between Christmas and New Year.
Yes, it’s true that osechi ryōri - traditional New Year’s cuisine - is intended partly to give people time off from cooking over New Year, since it can be prepared in advance and served cold. But some of these dishes date back a thousand years, and are full of symbolism.
You might warm up by eating toshi-koshi soba on New Year’s Eve: ‘year-crossing’ buckwheat noodles, representing long life.
Then it’s onto the osechi ryōri itself, including herring roe: its name in Japanese, kazunoko, carries the sense of having lots of children or grandchildren - a fitting wish for a new year. Another favourite is red sea bream, or tai, linked to the word medetai: happy, or auspicious.
Tai (red sea bream)
Alongside osechi ryōri, rice cakes (mochi) are big business at New Year.
Back in the good old days - and still now at formal festivities - you could see the mochi being made by pounding rice with a wooden hammer:
Now, you’re as likely to stare, mesmerised, as a little labour-saving machine jiggles the rice around until it achieves the required consistency:
Thus fuelled, it’s off on a crunchy winter’s walk - at least in my ideal version of New Year’s day - through a forest for hatsumōde: the first shrine or temple visit of the new year:
Having started my fair share of new years in the UK with a hangover, a faint sense of disappointment and grey skies overhead, I really appreciate the effort that people go to in Japan: to wipe the slate clean from the year just gone and to hope and pray for good things over the twelve months to come.
However you’re celebrating this year - from ancient Japanese cuisine on lacquered trays to chicken and chips from a brown paper bag - I wish you a Happy New Year and all the very best for 2024.
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Images:
Roppongi Hills illuminations: Tokyo Cheapo (fair use).
Red sea bream: Tokyo Treat (fair use).
Traditional mochi makers: Creative Commons (public domain).
Modern mochi maker: Next Shark (fair use).
Togakushi Shrine in Nagano: Unsplash (public domain).