Akemashite: New year, same traditions
In a conversation with my grandma, I’m learning how traditions evolve with every new year.

Tradition is sticky. It survives because each generation chooses to hold onto it. Every time traditions are carried out, it’s because someone decided they mattered enough to be kept.  

I am a fifth-generation American and have been lucky enough to be raised with New Year’s traditions that generations before me have lovingly passed down. My grandmother, Baabaa, chose to hold on and is gently teaching my generation to do the same. 

From Japan to Hawai’i

Baabaa is a third-generation American. Her grandparents immigrated from Japan to Hawai’i. She was born in 1946, a year after World War II ended. It was a time when her grandparents barely spoke English, but her generation was expected to assimilate into American culture. Hawai’i was admitted as a U.S. territory in 1898 and became a state in 1959. 

Baabaa said she noticed the changes in Hawai’i before statehood. Shoes became a school requirement when she was in second grade. “My mom bought us shoes, which I put on at the stoplight across the street from school and removed after crossing the street after school,” she said. 

“The Hawaiian language was forbidden (except for tourist-type music). Hawaiian lyric music was heard less, and speaking pidgin was frowned upon.” Change was everywhere, but the New Year’s traditions continued. 

Policies changed, but New Year’s traditions continued on

Baabaa grew up visiting a Shinto temple with her grandma on New Year’s to be blessed by the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu Ōmikami. Amaterasu is considered the mythical ancestress of Japan’s Imperial Family. Shinto is Japan’s indigenous spiritual tradition, centred on kami (deities). It features a detailed creation story and provides rituals and traditions rather than morals. Shinto has helped shape Japanese culture and is often practiced alongside Buddhism. 

This blend of Shinto and Buddhist ideas shaped Baabaa’s New Year’s celebrations. 

There was osoji (the great cleaning) of the house to freshen up for the new year and welcome kami, which would bring good fortune. She belongs to both temples of Honen and the Shinran schools of thought. Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu Buddhism were founded by a teacher and his student, respectively. Traditions similar to Baabaa’s are common, not just in Japan but throughout the entire Japanese diaspora, particularly in Hawai’i. 

Of all 50 US states, Hawai’i is the only one with an Asian American plurality, it has the largest proportion of multiracial people, and it is the state with the largest percentage of Buddhists. It is now customary for a Hawaiian New Year Celebration to incorporate Japanese traditions like mochitsuki (a mochi pounding ceremony), and Chinese ones, like fireworks, in addition to ancient Hawaiian rituals. 

Baabaa pointed out that mochitsuki is the most important of all the traditions. My uncle likes to warn us to chew slowly because, legend is, in Japan, the Emergency Room is full on New Year’s with all the people choking on mochi. Baabaa says that just like the sticky mochi, we will stick together. 

Food!

Mochi, like most other foods we eat around this time, is full of symbolism. 

The practice of making mochi itself is special. Rice is soaked overnight. Baabaa mentioned that at our family’s mochitsuki, we only pound about 15 pounds of rice. One year, we tried pounding 30 pounds, and it was way too much.

Baabaa grew up making about 100 pounds of rice each year. Her family would spend the whole day “washing the rice, steaming the rice, pounding the rice, shaping it. So it was like a continuous stream.”

People would stock their freezer with mochi and reheat it throughout the year in the oven or pan for yakimochi (toasted mochi). Alternatively, people would also make zenzai or ozōni (sweet or savoury mochi soup) in a pot of boiling water, or agedashi mochi (deep-fried mochi).

I was raised on freezers of mochi, restocked each year, but my generation would normally just reheat ours in the microwave. This New Year, I got to have zenzai for the first time. Mochi is most versatile if left plain, but I grew up filling about half of them with anko (sweet red bean paste). And if my mom allowed, some were filled with chocolate chips. 

Other symbolic New Year foods include toshikoshi soba (a long noodle soup for a long life), kuromame (sweet black beans for health, as the word ‘mame’ also means diligence, symbolizing health and hard work throughout the year), ozoni (mochi soup with veggies from the sea and the mountains, showing gratitude for the bounties of the earth), and more.

Tracing back New Year’s activities  

I grew up playing money games on New Year’s Day. According to Baabaa, “the tray game,” in which you put coins on a tray and see how many you can pick up in one fist, came from her grandmother. And “the bag game,” in which you choose a string from a bunch and hope it’s the one strand attached to a bag so you get a prize (more coins), came from her father’s grandmother. The tradition of shaking each other’s hands to transfer money also came from her father’s side. 

During our conversation, Baabaa recognized how much traditions had changed throughout her lifetime. “And it’ll change with you too,” she said to me. “And you’ll choose what’s important to you.” 

The choice to hold on

I received a text from Baabaa a few days before I got the idea to interview her for this article. She sent me a YouTube link to a documentary titled Japanese New Year Traditions in Hawai’i. It’s the kind of thing she does – softly sharing a piece of our history, a gentle reminder of where I come from. 

The documentary is broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Hawai’i, a locally owned, statewide television station that has been running since 1965. The video features interviews with local Japanese Hawaiians and people who study Japanese Hawaiian culture. 

My favourite quote from the documentary was said by Rocky Murakami in reflection of mochitsuki. He said, “Things like this, you cannot get out of your system, because it’s so wonderful.” Maybe that is what makes traditions sticky, not because they are obligations, but because they are wonderful activities that we just can’t let go of.