Stealth Holiday

We damn near missed one of the coolest Japanese holidays ever!

Thankfully, my co-worker tipped me off at work, so we were able to salvage some of it.

Today is Setsubun! Setsubun is apparently the last day before Spring according to the Japanese lunar calendar. It can fall on February 3rd or 4th. This is a day to get rid of bad spirits and bring luck into the house.

So how do you do that? From what I hear:

1. Dads around the country come into the house wearing a demon mask and their children throw roasted soy beans at them until they leave the house.
2. While throwing soy beans, the chldren yell "Oni wa soto, Fuku wa uchi" or "Devil out, Good luck in!"
3. The children eat their age's worth of the beans (on the floor?) I think so...
4. Hang burned, dried sardine heads outside your house so the strong smell will drive away evil spirits (not largely practiced anymore).
5. Clean the house extra super good.
6. Various regional traditions. In Kansai, (where we are) someone offical announces what the lucky direction is for the year (as my co-worker pointed out, this seems not unlike Mr. Punxatawny Phil). Everyone then eats a futo-maki (long rolled sushi) facing that direction. They can't talk until they finish.

I didn't have a demon to throw beans at, unfortunately, but I did throw peanuts at my students. That was fun. It was their idea, by the way. Four of them took one bag of peanuts to the bottom floor of the school (outside) and the rest of us stayed upstairs on the deck and we threw peanuts at each other and yelled "Oni wa soto!" A couple of us threw a few peanuts at the school and yelled "Fuku wa uchi" for good measure.

Russell and I also ate our age in - well, not roasted soy beans but peanuts again. I thought I had found soy beans but I was lead astray.

We also ate our futo-maki facing West Southwest, which I was informed was the direction for this year. I made the mistake of assuming that I should eat it fast. My tummy kind of hurts now. In retrospect, I don't think there was anything about speed in the directions.

In the end, we are hopefully a bit better off for luck this year than we would have been otherwise. Hopefully if we did anything too grievously unlucky today we will get a few passes for being foreigners. Next year I will be better prepared!

I tried to take pictures, but they didn't turn out - and my computer is currently refusing to recognize my iphone when I try to transfer photos...