Date of Performance: 04/30/2025

Nationality: American

Primary Language: English

Residence: Los Angeles, California

My informant, who is half-Japanese, tells me of the traditional New Year’s celebration her and her family would follow every year. She didn’t grow up in Japan, but her grandparents still lived in Tokyo, so around the new year, they would visit and stay with them for about a week. The week would be spent watching reruns of 80s television, and then on the 31st, her grandmother would prepare a traditional wintertime stew called Oden, which consists of fish cakes, radish, and other vegetables. They would stay up until midnight, and then celebrate with the annual airing of a New Year’s concert attended by various important figures in the Japanese political and entertainment world. The following day, they would eat something called Osechi Ryori, an assortment of traditional dishes that is eaten every new year’s day, each of which have symbolic meaning for good luck and fortune. Then, they would all go to the shrine near her grandmother’s house, where they would make their first prayer of the year, draw cards that symbolized their incoming fortunes, and eat from traditional food stalls. Sometimes she would go in traditional kimono attire, but for the most part she describes this experience as pretty casual. 

Kind of like the Christmas celebrations described by my other informant, while this practice has its roots in religion, my informant has treated it as more of an informal, familial celebration than one related to its Shinto foundation. They related this experience more to their memories of their grandparents than to its cultural and religious significance, but stated that its yearly practice helped to link my informant with her Japanese side.