thanks to some of my JET friends who’d been posting Setsubun wishes on their facebook profiles, i realised that Setsubun coincides with the Lunar New Year. It makes sense anyway, since Setsubun marks the beginning of spring, but somehow – despite calling my parents and grandparents every Chinese New Year while I was in Japan – I never realised they coincided.
Perhaps it’s cos Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year has a whole set of cooler traditions than throwing beans while shouting “Oni wa uchi, fuku wa soto!” (out with the devil, in with the fortune) and eating uncut makizushi at one go...
….but anyway. So this got me thinking – the Japanese celebrated the Lunar New Year on the same day as the Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese all the way till 1873 (five years after the Meji Restoration) when they adopted the Gregorian calendar. Since then, the Japanese New Year – or Oshogatsu – has been celebrated on 1st January, just like the Western world.
What happened then, before 1873? Since Setsubun and Oshogatsu have their own set of customs – including prayers at shrines – what rites and rituals did the Japanese conduct when Setsubun and Oshogatsu were essentially the same day? a mixture of both?
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