Once you catch fly with chopsticks...: 2011

Oni VS Groundhog [February]

Groundhog VS Oni

Phil

Oni/demon

Setsubun ( 節分　"seasonal division") is a festival held on either February 3 or 4, depending on the year. It is always celebrated one day before the start of spring according to the Japanese lunar calendar. The day after Setsubun is considered the first spring day, called Risshun. Setsubun is not a national holiday, so I still attended school and taught regular classes. Some schools, especially Elementary Schools did some activities revolving around this festival day. Teaching at a High School, I actually wasn`t aware that Feb. 3 was a festival day until one of the English teachers I work with came up to me and explained about Setsubun. Then, after hearing all of the details, I must say I got very excited. I raced home all giddy…I could hardly hold in my anticipation….I wanted to tell someone about this special day and I was lucky that Brian was home.

I walked in the door and immediately spilled out all the information I had discovered about Setsubun:

“Today is a festival day in Japan. We must celebrate the start of spring by buying demon masks, peanuts or soy beans, and eho-maki sushi rolls at the supermarket. Then, we will return home. Next, we will take turns wearing the demon mask and pelting each other with peanuts in each room of the house. When we throw the peanuts at the demon(Oni in Japanese) we must shout ` Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!,` which means `Demons out, happiness in.` This is done to drive out evil spirits and to pray for well-being. After the peanut throwing, we should pick up and eat the number of beans equal to our age so that we will be healthy and happy during the year. We will buy the eho-maki sushi rolls to eat for dinner. It is a tradition to eat these rolls for good fortune. We must face the `lucky direction` while we eat the rolls and we must eat the entire roll in silence. This year`s lucky direction is North to North East. Soooo,….are you ready?”

Now, this was not quite the typicial get-home-from-work kind of conversation, but of course Brian was game. We had fun partaking in our first Setsubun together.