My favorite Japanese New Year custom was helping to make natural decorations. We would place the traditional shime kazari above the porch door. shime kazari. is a knitted rope made from rice straw with strips of folded white paper (shide) that zigzag across the straw and help to keep the bad spirits away. The shime kazari are also decorated with auspicious items: the daidai, a Japanese bitter orange is considered a good omen because if “daidai” 橙 is written with a different kanji 代々 can be translated as “from generation to generation. The lobster is also an auspicious item, being a symbol of extreme old age (because the lobster’s body is leaning like the body of an old man). The pine twigs are symbols of power and longevity, because they are green all the time, and the fern leaves are symbols of hope and desire to have a happy family. Living in Kansai we would climb Mt Rokko to gather necessary greens to create a kadomatsu 門松. The kadomatsu or gate pine is another traditional Japanese New Year decoration placed in pairs in front of homes to welcome ancestral spirits or kami of the harvest.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 03:10:14 +0000
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