Happy New Year!

While most of you were busy sleeping, we rang in 2019 early.

The new year is a pretty big deal over here, but I’d argue the 1st of the year is actually a bigger deal than New Year’s Eve, unless you’re a rabid music fan. Having said that, we start on December 31st.

New Year’s Eve

Uncle Toshi and Yoko-nechan arrived at our place at around 6:30pm. I was told we’d be having sukiyaki, a hot pot-style dish similar to nabe, but mainly featuring thinly sliced beef as opposed to other meats (like pork and lamb). It also has a different, heavier sauce, and is common at year-end parties.

What I hadn’t anticipated was Uncle Toshi searching for the TV remote almost immediately after arriving. Sure, Times Square is sort of a tradition in the US, but I didn’t think the ball-dropping was a universal event. It turns out, what happens instead is much more enjoyable, in my opinion.

Kouhaku Uta Gassen

It’s often called, simply, “Kouhaku": red and white. NHK — Japan’s answer to the BBC — has hosted this event for 69 years, pitting female musical artists and groups (the “red” team) against male artists and groups (the “white” team). Each team has at least 25 performers, and judges vote on who delivered the best performances to determine the overall winner of the evening. Viewers at home even get a chance to cast a vote by pressing a button on their TV remotes. Battle of the sexes! Interactivity! Fun!

Artists range from the long-standing, career musicians to newer pop and idol groups. Think of it like The Grammys, without any awards getting in the way of the performances. I knew almost no one, but there were a few who stood out.

Yoshiki

This guy is wild to me. He started his rise as a drummer with a group called X Japan, a heavy metal band formed in 1982. He tends to cross his arms a lot in TV appearances, apparently a gesture related to the band name. It also looks like the move Japanese people do when you’re being a terrible foreigner and they’d like you to stop doing whatever it is that you’re doing. This gesture gives me PTSD. Since being a part of X Japan, Yoshiki’s done solo work on the piano, but also performs with a guy named Gackt (more on him in another post) in a duo called S.K.I.N. (Japanese bands love punctuation, ‘x’s, and mixed case for whatever reason).

Uncle Toshi told me that Yoshiki generally performs shirtless, and even though he had a suit jacket on (sans shirt) that evening, midway through his performance, the jacket came off. The audience went wild. The guy’s got bravado. He reminds me a bit of a Japanese Marilyn Manson for some reason. It might be the makeup.

Perfume

Anyhow, Perfume’s great. They’re a lot more poppy than Capsule, but they’ve got a sound that strikes a balance between pop and electronic and really digs its claws into me. They were having a concert of their own on New Year’s Eve, so they weren’t in NHK’s studio like most of the other bands, but I thought they killed it. Best performance of the night. You heard it here first, folks.

I actually went to a Perfume concert in San Francisco a while ago with my sister-in-law, Karen, and it was amazing. I felt like a total foreign outsider/weirdo (true), but I had a blast. Their set design — which was amazing — reminds me of Daft Punk’s, and their music is just fun.

DA PUMP

So, these guys sang a song called USA which was… interesting. It sounded like something that would be included in a version of Dance Dance Revolution, but as much as I used to love playing that game, I can’t imagine picking this song if it were included. Mostly, it felt like what I’d imagine Japanese people feel when American artists try to assume parts of Japanese culture in their music: awkward.

Guinness World Record

I like kendama. It’s a kid’s game that’s deceptively simple looking but, like yo-yos, is incredibly difficult to master. My friends Kirk and Matt introduced me to it almost 20 years ago (ugh, that’s math I didn’t enjoy doing), and it’s just fascinating. Last year, an enka singer named Hiroshi Miyama had a bunch of people, each with kendama, on stage with him to try and break the Guinness World Record for most successful catches (124?) while singing a song or something (honestly I’m not entirely sure, but the overall record for consecutive people catching the ball on the spike is 568 — which seems insane — so clearly it was something different). Anyhow, a single person screwed up and dropped the ball (literally) so they tried again this year. Friends, I am so happy to report they achieved success this year. Wow, what a relief…

Honorable mentions

The Olympics

The Olympics played a pretty prominent role in this year’s event. It seems like in the US, we don’t really start thinking about The Olympics, or the athletes who will be competing in it, until about a month before they start. Things are different over here. You get blasted with Olympic-related news on a near daily basis, to the point where people end up knowing athletes in even somewhat obscure events, like curling (with apologies to Canada). There were a few artists whose songs played against Olympic-themed backdrops as tribute, which was interesting. I really can’t see that happening back home, even if it were during The Olympics.

Sekai No Owari

The DJ for Sekai No Owari is a clown. A literal clown. Their Wikipedia article lists him as responsible for DJing, bass, “sound choice” (sure, whatever), and “comedic talk” (what?). You’re better than this, Japan. I think.

Hatsumoude

The singing event ended around 11:00pm, and the guys ended up winning. I was rooting for the ladies, but there’s always next year I suppose. Uncle Toshi and Yoko-nechan left to head to bed, but Seri and I stayed up until midnight to participate in Hatsumoude, the first shrine visit of the year.

Fortunately for us, we live about a 10-minute walk away from the Hachimangu Shrine, which is a common shrine to visit for this event. Sure enough, the police had blocked off the roads leading to the shrine, and a number of people had gathered to pay respects.

The gist is that you walk up the stairs, throw a coin into the shrine, clap your hands, and offer a prayer for the new year. Then you wander around the shrine a bit, maybe buy some food and drink from the vendors stationed there, and often buy a note called an omikuji. It’s sorta like the fortune inside a fortune cookie (sorta-not-sorta), and it can range from great luck to a super bad curse (like most things in life, omikuji exist on a spectrum). Seri’s was a small fortune, while mine was a better (but not the best) blessing. In my case, I kept my blessing, but apparently I could have tied it up to a nearby post. In Seri’s case, she tied the her note to the nearby post that shared other so-so blessings and cursed notes — as is tradition.

Anyhow, we stayed around a bit, but it was really cold and late — much past my usual bed time — so we trekked back to the house. I immediately passed out so I could wake up at my usual 6:30ish in the morning, but Seri stayed up a bit longer — as is tradition.

New Year’s Day

The first few days of the new year are basically family time. I liken them to the Thanksgiving break in the states. On the first, you usually eat ozouni, a soup made with mochi and vegetables. To our surprise, Yoko-nechan had made it for us, and brought it over with some other dishes for us to enjoy. How nice of her!

Additionally, people generally receive postcards from family and friends (called nengajyo) wishing them a happy new year. Postal employees work overtime to deliver them to everyone as quickly as possible (even though the post office itself remains closed this week). It’s basically the same as Christmas/holiday cards back home, but I really enjoy seeing everyone’s handwriting (surprise, surprise).

You’ll also generally receive visits from family members with children, to whom you hand otoshidama. These are small envelopes filled with money, much like hóngbāo at Chinese New Year. We didn’t get any visitors on the 1st, but Seri’s cousin Satoshi came by with his family yesterday and we chatted a bit and gave the kids their gifts. I wrote their names on the envelopes to practice my kanji, which I enjoyed thoroughly.

The rest of the week

The first week of January is basically a dead week over here. A few shops are open, though — most notably clothing and department stores — some that offer sizeable sales and something called “fukubukuro,” or “lucky bags.” We went to a department store yesterday to pick up some random things, and every floor had different bags. The gist with these guys is that you pay a flat fee (sometimes $100 or more), and you get a bag that’s been packed with random… stuff. Sometimes it’s clothes, sometimes it’s household goods. It really depends on the store or department you’re visiting, but you’re generally not allowed to see what’s inside the bag. It’s kinda appealing in that you never really know what you’re going to get, but the promise of random “stuff” isn’t really enough to grab me, even if it could contain something great. Marie Kondo would be proud (until she saw the rest of our house).

So that’s where we’re at. Next week we head to Taiwan for a day to satisfy our visas, drink boba, and eat xiaolongbao, then we come back through Tokyo to meet up with our friends Yoko and Kayoko who own Umamimart, an amazing Japanese goods store in downtown Oakland. They’re here (mostly) on business, with their partners, and we’ll be happy to see them before heading back up to the snowy north.