Traditional Customs Need Practicality To Survive?

December 21^st was "Toji Day" which means a a winter solstice day. Since the day has the shortest daytime in the year, Japanese have traditional seasonal event for this day.

With traditional Japanese customs, people eat pumpkins and set Yuzu (one kind of Japanese citrus) afloat in the bath before they take a bath. Some say the reasons of these customs came from the facts that Yuzu is a kind of tree which has a long life span, and strong resistance against tree diseases, also pumpkins are good for preventing a cold because they contain good nutrition such as vitamins. Some other say the custom came from the round shape and the yellow color of pumpkin and Yuzu which remind of the shape and color of the sun. 

I heard many different countries all over the world have a seasonal event on the winter solstice day, too. It would be a natural consequence since this day seems like the end/start of the solar cycle and it must have been important for people since ancient times. Apparently Korean people eat red beans soup containing rice cakes for this day. One of my friends told me that in her hometown before people have the dish people spread cooked red beans in their room by throwing beans to the wall when she was in school. It was to avoid evils from home.

The Korean custom sounds familiar for Japanese people. In Japan red beans is also often considered as a lucky item which can avoid evils, so we have other seasonal event to eat red beans soup. Moreover Japanese eat "red beans rice" traditionally when they have something to celebrate. Even for the winter solstice day, people in Nara prefecture cook pumpkins with red beans. There are sometimes common customs between countries.

However, she told me that she doesn't think people still keep the old custom in Korea. actually, to make the beans ritual work and avoid bad lucks and evils from the house, it is said that people need to leave the scattered beans at least one whole day. Then, obviously cleaning work on the next day is hard. We can easily imagine sometimes the stains caused by red beans wouldn't be able to be removed. 

In Japan, still the traditional custom for the winter solstice day is practiced. Every year supermarkets have piled pumpkins and Yuzu on the day and people eat pumpkin dishes and set Yuzu in their bath at night. Perhaps it was because the custom happened to have enough practicality although people didn't know initially and also doesn't bring any troublesome afterwards?

There is a previous post about the winter solstice day!