Tag Archives: new years

Burning the Past Year

Nationality: Ecuadorian
Age: 19
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/1/16
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

“So, in Ecuador, around New Year’s Eve, around the holidays really, we have this tradition of burning el año viejo. And what that is is that artists from around the country will each work on, uhhh, these piñata-type things, uhh, and they’ll be different characters, and the characters will range from Kung Fu Panda, Bugs Bunny to Donald Trump, Obama, uhh, like political figures to cartoon characters like they cover the whole spectrum,and their life-size and little and and they cost, they cost money to get these. And inside they have explosives. Umm… *laughs* And on New Year’s Eve, ummm, what everyone will do was, is that you’ll gather around el año viejo, umm, and at midnight you burn it, uhh, so you light a match and the thing will go off. Umm, and it’s supposed to be like quemando like burning all of your grievances from the past year and like starting anew from like the ashes. So that’s what we do. It’s fun.”

Burning el año viejo or burning the old year is a tradition that I’ve heard of in another societies, as well. In Cuba, for example, people will make effigies out of straw that represent the past year, and they will burn them on New Year’s Eve. Ecuador seems to take it a step further, though, by bringing in artists to make special effigies. It seems the burning has become less rigid in their culture, since they’re burning even cartoon characters or whatnot. The symbolism has been lost. It sounds more like a celebration, something to do out of habit, than something that’s supposed to be symbolic. In fact, it almost seems like a joke, especially if they’re burning effigies in the shape of political figures such as Trump or Obama.

Yet nonetheless, the source acknowledges the sense of burning away “grievances” and whatnot. So while the tradition may not look the same as it maybe did in the past, it still holds the same meaning. It reminds me of the phoenix when it bursts into flames and is born again from the ashes. Perhaps it has some kind of connection to there.

Japanese New Years Day

Nationality: japanese-american
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/27/16
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

Information about the Informant: The informant is a 23 year old USC student named Eddie Roche. Eddie is a business major and is half Japanese half American. His father is from Chicago while his mother is from Japan. Growing up, Eddie lived in both Japan and China so he was immersed to numerous holiday traditions that both countries practiced. He has lots of family in Japan so he spent all of his holidays with family and learned about his culture.

Informant: “After the oosoji on New Year’s Eve where everyone in Japan cleans everything, the day of New Years is equally as important. This day is all about giving and sharing good fortune. Pretty much everyone just gives everyone money throughout the whole day. Lots of the young kids receive money from the parents, relatives, and friends as a sign of good fortune for the rest of the year. In order to receive money you have to be under 22 years old. The tradition is called Otoshidama and the closer you are to 22 years old the more money you receive. Typically really going kids don’t get much money but its more about the idea of giving money to the kids as opposed to the exact amount they get. Another tradition on New Year’s Day is that most people, religious or not, travel to the temples in order to give money to the temples and receive good fortune. At the temple we walk around through these pillars and then throw money into a basket. Also, there is a tradition where you shake a brown box with a small hole on it and a bunch of sticks in it. You shake the box until a stick comes out and once the stick comes out you make the number on the stick to a corresponding piece of paper. Whatever the paper says determines your fortune for the new year. It can range from saying you will have really good luck to having very bad luck for the whole year.”

Analysis: Although he is Japanese, my informant wasn’t necessarily the most fond of these traditions. He enjoys them but he doesn’t really believe what they say. This is mostly because he is not full Japanese and did these traditions with his family more just because he had to than anything else. Japanese culture is very fond of fortune telling and it makes sense that these traditions are so heavily practiced on New Years Day, a day that is seen as a blank slate from what happened in the previous year.

Japanese New Year Eve

Nationality: Japanese-American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/27/16
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

Information about the Informant: The informant is a 23 year old USC student named Eddie Roche. Eddie is a business major and is half Japanese half American. His father is from Chicago while his mother is from Japan. Growing up, Eddie lived in both Japan and China so he was immersed to numerous holiday traditions that both countries practiced. He has lots of family in Japan so he spent all of his holidays with family and learned about his culture.

Informant: “So basically every new years eve, all of the Japanese people clean everything in their house. It’s something that the Japanese people call Oosoji. It may take hours upon hours but it is a tradition that always occurs among Japanese people. Whether its making beds perfectly, re-cleaning every dish, or dustin all the furniture, the tradition is to cleanse everything in the house. People also clean out their cars and other forms of property that can require cleaning. They do this in order to begin the new year off on a blank page. If anything is dirty on new years, it means that some of the previous years’ bad habits are leaking into the new year.  After the cleaning is done, its tradition to put up numerous New Years decorations like Kadomatsu which are made up of pine and bamboo. Japanese people really like Bamboo. They all believe it is a symbol of longevity and good luck.”

Analysis: I found this Japanese New year eve tradition to be a tradition that makes a lot of sense practically and symbolically. From the perspective of an outsider who had never practiced such a tradition, I can easily understand how cleaning houses and property to perfection before the new years starts makes sense. It is as if the Japanese people are beginning the new year on a completely blank slate. What happened in the past is the past and there is nothing they can do about it once the next year comes along.

New Years Tradition

Nationality: American - (Greek Cypriot/German/Argentinian)
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: Friday April 22nd, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Greek, Mandarin

A is an 18-year-old woman. She is currently studying Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California. She considers her nationality to be American, but more specifically she is one quarter Greek Cypriote, one quarter German and half Argentinian. that being said, she strongly identifies with her Greek roots. She is fluent in both English and Greek, and is currently learning Mandarin.

A: For the New Year, and this is a pretty common thing in a lot of Eastern European countries, but for the New Year we bake like a special like New Years bread/cake thing, um, which is called, um “vasilopita.”

Me: Sorry, could you spell that?

A: Yeah. um, in English, it’s spelled, v-a-s-i-l-o-p-i-t-a.

Me: Perfect.

A: It’s a, direct translation is like King’s bread. Um, there are two different stories I’ve heard. This one, one of them, is that, um, there was like a ransom, like a town was under siege, the robbers demanded a ransom, and like they had to collect like all these family jewels and gold and stuff, and a priest was trying to return it to the family like Ayios (saint) Vassilis, that’s why it’s named after him, um and what he did to smuggle it under the noses of the robbers is he baked all of their goods into a, like, cake. And he was like, this is a cake, like don’t mind me taking this out of the palace. And like the story goes that he like cut all the cake and magically every family like got the right stuff returned to them. So whoever gets the coin in the cake, like their part of the vasilopita, gets good luck for the year.

Me: What’s the other story then?

A: The other one is a very similar story, except it wasn’t he snuck it out from the robbers, the robbers were so like amazed by how like the town came together to give them all the bounty that they like let them have it and then it got baked into a cake. So one of them’s much nicer and the other one’s like funny and sneaky. But that’s like a common myth, ’cause like a lot of greek families do it, um and something, like I don’t know if evryone does this, but like when you cut the cake, first you cut a piece for God, then you cut a piece for Jesus, then you cut a piece for the house, then you start cutting pieces in order of who’s oldest who’s at that New Years celebration.

Me: What happens to the other pieces?

A: You search through them to see if there’s a coin in there. ‘Cause Jesus needs the good luck apparently. Yeah, so you just leave them uneaten, or like you eat them afterwords.

Me: So if God or Jesus or the house gets the coin, then?

A: Then they have the luck. Actually I have yet to ever, well, I had the house get the coin once. Which is fine, ’cause you’re like yay, everyone in the house is going to be lucky.

Me: Oh, okay. I thought it was like the actual foundation of the house.

A: Oh, that would be really funny.

Me: Like the house is lucky. It will not fall victim to any floods…

A: Actually that could be a thing too, like no floods, no earthquakes, like…

Me: Your house will not burn down this year.

A: Yay. Gosh, that’s been just been happening to me so frequently, I could really use the coin. Um, and like sometimes it’s in the uneaten part of the cake, and so you just work though it for the next few days, but it’s yummy. It’s a good cake.

Me: It’s kind of like Mardi Gras and the little baby.

A: Yeah.

Informant A talks about a New Years tradition that she and her family along with many other greek families do on the holiday. She talks about the history of the cake which is called vasilopita and how there is a coin baked into the cake. Whoever finds the coin in their piece of cake gets good luck for the following year. Respect for religion and age are shown in this tradition with the order in which the pieces of cake are cut and distributed. God, Jesus, and the house are included in the tradition and are given priority over the people at the party, pieces are cut for them in the order listed above. The older people at the party are also given priority as the piece are then distributed by age from oldest to youngest. This is much like the tradition of baking a baby into the cake at Mardi Gras and was likely the basis of the Mardi Gras tradition. The priest, Ayios Vassilis, in the story is also the same person that the Greeks use to represent Santa Claus.

A Tree for the New Year

Nationality: Russian / American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: LA, CA
Performance Date: 04/28/15
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English, French, some hebrew

The informant is a 21-year old student attending the University of California Berkeley. She is majoring in Media Studies and Journalism with a minor in Hebrew. She grew up in West Los Angeles with her two parents, immigrants from the Soviet Union. The following is what she shared with me about the Soviet way of celebrating New Year’s Eve.

 

Informant: “The Soviets made New Years the new holiday. They weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas anymore, so they went around the rules and celebrated the secular holiday instead. They had a pine tree and Father snow (he was instead of Santa Claus). My family celebrates Soviet New Years still. A lot of us immigrated here—my mom and dad and both of their siblings and all of their kids. And my grandparents. So every New Year’s when I was growing up we would have a big family gathering with a tree—even though we are Jewish, I know it’s weird, but it’s not religious at all. It’s really just like a holdover from the Soviet Union. I got presents and my dad and grandpa always sang these long, hard-to-understand Russian songs.”

 

Thoughts:

This reminds me of Santeria, a syncretic religion in the Americas, centered around Yoruba-mythology and belief. When those who believed in Yoruba mythology were forced to convert to Catholocism, they began worshipping the Catholic Saints instead of the Yoruba Gods, at least in appearance. Rather, it seemed as though they were following along with the new rules imposed on them, but instead they were practicing their religion in disguise. The syncrasy of the religion came about, but the religion seems far more blended to outsiders than it is in practice.

People in the Soviet Union being prohibited from celebrating Christmas of other Christian holidays was a part of the Soviet anti religious campaign for state atheism. Given how much weight belief holds for many people and how so many customs, practices, and rituals are grounded in belief, it is unrealistic to extricate it from people.