New Years in Japan
New Years in Japan is festival based predominantly on Shinto traditions. It’s a day full of customs and superstitions that nearly everyone observes from eating fish eggs in the morning so your children will thrive to sticking your head in the mouth of a health lion!
We have a Shinto shrine near the top of a mountain near our house. Many people climb the mountain in the night to pay their respects as soon after midnight as possible. Many more make the trip in the daytime on the first or second, either hiking up the mountain in the snow, or braving the inevitable long line of cars. Either way, Shinto traditions dictate that in order to have optimum luck and success in the new year you must visit not one, but three shrines.
I drove up to the Shinto shrine this afternoon to see if I could get some interesting photos of New Years in Japan, and learned several new things. This part time temple girl is putting out good luck arrows for the new year. Each family buys one of these and puts in next to the god shelf in their home to bring good luck and fortune throughout the year.
This stylized model of a lion was one of the many Shinto traditions that was entirely new to me. I heard a clapping noise – always in sets of two and went to see what it was. A priest person all dressed in a black and white checker pattern from head to toe, was holding this lion’s head at the entrance to the temple’s inner court. There were two of them, one at each side of the entrance. Hundreds of people were lined up waiting to ask for good favor for the coming year, as as they passed the lions, they would bend down and put their heads into one of the the lion’s mouths. Then after they took their head out, the lion’s jaws would be clapped shut twice.
I asked one of the temple worker’s standing nearby to explain the meaning of this strange ceremony. He said it was for health for the new year. The health lion was said to remove any bad karma that could cause sickness, and eat it so the worshiper could start the year in perfect health. He invited me to have all my sickness eaten away by a health lion as well, but I told him I am a Christian, and had no need for help from the health lion. I just wanted to take pictures.
New Years in Japan is a complicated affair, and even the Japanese learn something new about their deep Shinto traditions every year. Personally, I’m glad my life is much simpler. May each one of you reading this have a new year full of fulfillment, health and happiness, with or without the help of a Shinto health lion!