Today Is Japan’s “Setsubun no hi” Celebration to Welcome Spring & Bring Good Luck… The Annual Bean-Throwing Festival (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 3, 2010
Throw out the demons by throwing beans for good luck… I had no idea.
Today is Japan’s annual bean-throwing festival to welcome in spring, Setsubun no hi. The video below of the festival is bizarre, with the crowd merrily throwing beans, but perhaps throwing bird seed at newly married couples following weddings in America (many people are no longer throwing the traditional rice) would seem bizarre in Japan.
Japanese celebrities and athletes are involved in the bean throwing — this is a really huge event. I had to share this with you. I love YouTube.
From Boing Boing, Video: Annual bean-throwing festival in Japan:
In Japan, February 3rd is Setsubun no hi. Technically the day symbolizes the first day of spring, but this year, with snow from Monday night still lingering on rooftops, it hardly felt like it. Most of us who grew up here think of Setsubun simply as the annual bean-throwing festival. It’s a sort of follow up to New Years — to bring good luck in and keep bad luck out, we throw roasted soybeans inside and out while reciting the mantra: “Oniwa soto! Fukuwa uchi!” or, Demons out! Good luck in! After the ceremony, everyone gets to eat the same number of soybeans as his or her own age.
This year, for the first time in at least a decade, I happened to be home in Tokyo for Setsubun so I took a short pilgrimage to a shrine in the city where celebrities gather every year to throw good luck soybeans at the crowds. That’s where I took this video just a few hours ago. The people in ceremonial coats on top of the balcony are TV stars, athletes, and singers who have been invited to partake in the festivities; the guy in the shiny cone hat is the head priest at the shrine; and the dozens of paper bags and hats being held up from below belong to those of us who went there in hopes of scoring some extra luck for the year 2010.
Setsubun festival 2010 at Toyokawa Inari Shrine in Akasaka, Japan
From Oishii Yo!: Mame Maki:
Setsubun no Hi is a Japanese Celebration to welcoming Spring. This celebration involves the custom of scattering soybean around called the Mame maki, in order to drive out any demons and to bring good fortune..
Papa bought the Oni mask with soybeans.
From Just Hungry, Ehoumaki (ehou maki): Lucky long sushi roll for Setsubun no hi:
This year, setsubun no hi falls on the 3rd of February (some years it’s on the 4th). It marks the start of the spring season or risshun in Japan according to the old lunar calendar. It’s not an official national holiday, but it is celebrated in ways all meant to drive away bad luck and bring in new, good luck. Most of the traditional rituals revolve around beans, because beans are considered to be very lucky. But there is another way of celebrating setsubun no hi, and that’s with a big, long, uncut sushi roll called ehou-maki.
I grew up in and around the Kanto region, which is the area around Tokyo, so I didn’t know about ehou-maki growing up, because it’s a Kansai region (the area around Osaka and Kyoto) custom for setsubun no hi. Nowadays though the ehou-maki tradition has become popular nationwide. They are sold everywhere, especially at convenience stores, who take this as an opportunity to get people to celebrate, buy and eat in that awkward gap in between New Year’s feasting and Valentine’s Day chocolate gorging.
[Edit: ehou is pronounced eh-hoe by the way, not ee-haw.]
This made me react in So, what makes an ehou-maki different from a regular sushi roll? There are basically three rules:
* It must contain seven ingredients, because seven is a lucky number.
* It must not be cut, because it might cut (off) your luck.
* You have to eat it while facing the lucky direction, which changes every year! This year’s lucky direction is hinoe (丙 (ひのえ)), which is a little bit to the south of south-south-east on a regular compass. If you can read kanji, this page has a good chart.
* Finally, you must eat the whole roll in total silence.
Ehou-maki... a long, fat sushi roll eaten for luck on Setsubun no hi
Japanese TV Reporter Eats Ehou-Maki in Times Square, New York
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Fantastic info!