Setsubun

Today is 3rd of February.

It's Setsubun!

I purchased beans yesterday.

And I got a mask as a gift. It seems that this mask was made as an advertisement

for digital TV broadcasting system.

In Japan all TV broadcasting will be digitalized this July!

This is the package I bought. Every year I purchase beans at a supermarket for Setsubun. It is cheap, about $1.00. My children scatter them outside and inside our house. The beans are dry so if we step on them it will be messy. I don't like mess so I try to collect all the beans after the event every year but it is difficult to collect all of them.

For these several years a custom of eating Eho-maki, a kind of a sushi roll, has been popular everywhere in Japan. It was originally a custom in Osaka area I heard. When I was a child I had never heard about it because I grew up in Tokyo.

It is considered that it would be a successful year if we eat Eho-maki facing Eho, or the lucky direction, on the day of Setsubun.

I hear this year's Eho is south.

Recently many kinds of Eho-maki sold in a supermarket, but this year I am planning to make them with my children choosing their favorite foodstuff.

This is Eho-maki we made today.

My daughter put tuna, egg and cucumber.

By the way I forgot to prepare the full size sheet of nori so I called my husband and asked him to get some on the way home!

My son put tuna, salmon, cucumber and egg. He is eating Eho-maki facing south.

The point of Eho-maki eating is we should not cut the roll. We should eat the whole one!

You can see how we perform beans scattering. I dare show inside of our house. Please don't look at things in our house carefully since I am not good at housekeeping.

For the readers who want to know about Japanese culture;

Setsubun is a traditional festival in Japan which usually comes on February 3rd.

Setsubun literally means season's division.

According to a dictionary setsu is any of the 24 divisions of the solar year.

The day of Setsubun is the last day of Daikan, which is one of setsu, and it corresponds to the eve of Risshun, which means the first day of spring in the ancient calendar.

On this day we have a custom to scatter beans, roasted soybeans, to ward off evil spirits.

Sometimes one of a family plays a role of a goblin wearing a mask and children throw beans at him/her shouting "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" which means "Out with demons! In with good luck!" We also have a custom to eat the same number of beans as our age because it is believed that we could be healthy.