Shogatsu

In Japan, there are many events the people enjoy. “Shogatsu” is one example of them. I have memories that I’ve been enjoying talking with my families and eating delicious food during Shogatsu. In Shogastu, people feel happy, smile, and laugh very much.

Shogatsu, Japanese New Year, is important days for Japanese culture. Though there are differences among areas, we generally celebrate it for the first three days or the first week of January. During those days many people living away from their families return home, and their families get together. In Shogatsu, Japanese people eat special dishes, for example, sushi, "osechi-ryori," which looks colorful and splendid, and "ozoni," which is soup including rice cakes and some vegetables, enjoying talking with their families. We make it a custom to send New Year's postcards called "Nengajo" to our friends and relatives as greetings for the new year so that they arrive on New Year's Day. Nowadays many young people send them as e-mails. We enjoy writing and reading them. In Shogatsu children get money called "otoshidama" from parents and relatives, so children are looking forward to coming Shogatsu and meeting relatives. When children meet relatives, they can learn good manners, too.

Sushi is vinegar rice topped with raw fish, or rolled in “nori”, which is translated as “laver” in English, with various ingredients. Japanese people have developed the food culture of eating sushi because we tend to like eating fish since Japan is surrounded by sea. Now it is known as a famous Japanese food all over the world, you know. When we eat it, it is always dipped in soy sauce. However, it often tastes not only lightly salty owing to soy sauce, but also spicy because sushi generally contains “wasabi,” Japanese horseradish. When we are children, most of us don’t like the taste of wasabi, but the older we become, the more delicious sushi with wasabi tastes for us. Sushi is expensive, so it seems that we don’t have much opportunity to eat it, but since Shogatsu is special days, we can often eat it, which makes us feel happy.

A kotatsu is a low table frame covered with a futon or blanket on which a table is put, and its underneath is a heat source. We use it by putting our legs into it in winter, of course, in Shogatsu, too, and we warm up from its heat. It is a familiar scene for us that there are some mandarin oranges on the table of the kotatsu, and a family put their legs into it, watching TV together and laughing. The kotatsu makes us relaxed and gives us much opportunity to communicate with our families.

There are many other things we do and scenes we can see in Shogatsu. From young to elderly people, all enjoy Shogatsu, so it is important days for Japanese culture and people. We need to cherish those days.