More Japanese Winter Fun: Coming of Age Day and the Bean-throwing Festival

It seems that the New Year celebration in the first days of January is just the beginning of festivities in the winter in Japan.

In mid-January, Coming of Age Day gives everyone a reason to not go to work, eat street food, and watch all the 20 year olds stroll the streets wearing their gorgeous kimonos. They actually wear what is called a furisode, which is a type of kimono with very long sleeves (reminiscent of sleeves on the graduation gowns of master’s degree recipients). An English teaching book I have says that the long sleeves can be used as pockets and were often used to hide love letters. Therefore, once a woman is married she wears kimono with just normal length sleeves. Ha. Anyway, what I most enjoyed of the day was seeing all the 20 year olds in their finery. Apparently they often rent the furisode and hairpieces. (Often when a woman dresses up in a fancy kimono, she’ll wear a wig that has hair pulled back and piled on the top.) The girls also have their makeup done and then go out with friends to drink that night. Actually, Coming of Age day really reminded me of a Japanese version of American proms minus the dancing and limos.

In the weekend closest to Coming of Age day we headed to the Sanjusangen-do temple (the one with the 1001 statues of Kanon) to see the annual archery competition. The archery competition is for 20 year old men and woman from all over the country. I believe that this is their one shot (literally) at this tournament, but there were some older competitors in a different category, so I’m not quite sure about that. Anyway, despite the big crowd we managed to squeeze a peek at the competition a few rounds before it ended (for this I can thank our far-above-average height as a tremendous advantage in crowds). The archers were impressive, though most missed the mark (again literally) by quite a lot. To be fair, the targets were very far away and, if I had tried, I would have certainly been a danger to all the spectators.


In the first three days of February is Setsubun or the “Bean-Throwing Festival”. This festival is supposed to follow the lunar calendar’s beginning of spring, but the lunar calendar moves around compared to the Western calendar and apparently this is a little too flexible for Japan, so this “beginning of spring” ceremony is always celebrated on Feb 2,3,4 here. (Did I mention that February is the coldest month in Kyoto. Brrrr. We even had snow flurries yesterday…so spring is not exactly around the corner!)

Nonetheless, Setsubun is perhaps my favorite Japanese celebration so far since it involves evil spirits, bean throwing, bonfires and sushi rolls! Wheee. As it happens when you don’t really speak the language, I had been noticing lots displays in the supermarkets with pictures funny monster-looking characters, special food and masks, but I really had no idea what this stuff was about. Ah, marketing and holidays are keen partners in Japan! I finally figured out that the monster-men were supposed to be demons or oni and on Feb 2, people dressed as oni get thousands of roasted soybeans thrown at them at certain shrines. The soybeans are considered good luck beans and they are thrown at the oni to “cleanse the evil from the past year” and to rid people of bad health (according to Wikipedia anyway). Apparently people may do this in their own homes as well, though I’m sure not everyone does. In the Kansai region of Japan where we currently reside, it is thought to be lucky to eat your age plus one in roasted soybeans, too, on this day.

Also for Setsubun, sushi rolls (makizushi) are eaten while facing the “lucky direction” which is based on the Chinese zodiac and changes yearly. While eating them you must be silent. This is said to bring good luck in the upcoming year. One of my English students who works in the sushi export business said that you must not cut the makizushi because it is supposed to represent good health and cutting it would be really bad luck. Ouch. This year the direction was Southwest and on Feb 3rd, Jim made makizushi with his labmates and ate it for lunch and then we made it for dinner and he and I dutifully faced Southwest and ate our rolls in silence.

Also, on Feb 3rd at one shrine in Kyoto at 11pm, a huge bonfire is lit. The bonfire, composed of people’s good luck ornaments from last year, was the biggest bonfire I’ve ever seen. As luck (ha) would have it, the shrine in question was just down our street, so we walked there, took in the street food scene, and stared at the fire with some friends.

So now that we’ve rung in the New Year at the temple, prayed for luck in the shrines, eaten lucky sushi rolls in the lucky direction and eaten our age in soybeans we should be having really good luck this year! Only time will tell… ;)