It's already in the second half of November and weather is getting cold day by day. Although there is still more than one month to see the new year in, some of the traditional Japanese customs to prepare for the end of the year and the new year has been started?
In Japanese traditional custom, people exchange postcards for New-Year-greetings. Even though young generation tend to use e-mails for the greetings nowadays, still many people send actual postcards. Of course it is still too early to send out postcards for New-Year-greetings, but some people already have a preparation related to New-Year-greetings in this month.
In Japanese culture, people hold back greetings and celebrating for the coming new year when they lost any close family members during the year because they are in mourning for the loss. In the case, they send out a special kind of postcards to let everybody know "we'll skip New Years's greetings for our loss...". These postcards are called "being-in-mourning cards".
The typical design for these "being-in-mourning cards" are sacred lotus flowers and chrysanthemum flowers in gray color or pale color as you can see in the left hand side photo. There are also special stamps for these "being-in-mourning cards", since stamps with cheerful designs or colors wouldn't fit the situation.
Then, those who received the "being-in-mourning card" take the sender's name out from their list of New-Year-greeting cards for the coming new year. With this process, people can avoid bothering each other's mourning and celebration during new year holidays.
Thus, to consider other people's preparation for their New Year's greeting cards, the "being-in-mourning cards" should be sent out by the middle of November, so I'm already receiving some "being-in-mourning cards". Therefore I think sending out "being-in-mourning cards" can be included in preparations for New Year.
In the connection I wrote about ginkgo in my previous post on November 15th and 17th, I'd like to introduce a connection between ginkgo and Sumo wrestling. Actually ginkgo is important for Sumo wrestlers although we don't see any actual ginkgo tree nor leaves at Sumo competition.
As I write in my previous post on November 17th, ginkgo is "Ichou" in Japanese language. Interestingly, the top part of Sumo wrestlers' traditional unique hair style, shown in the photo above, is called "O-ichou". "O-ichou" means "Big Ginkgo". The name came from the shape.
As you can see in the photos above, Sumo wrestlers have a traditional Japanese hair style called "Mage" which is one of the big features of their appearance. It looks almost same as the hair style of Samurai but slightly different. Sumo wrestlers spread the tip of their tied hair very wide just like the shape of a ginkgo leaf. That's why the part is called "O-ichou (Big Ginkgo)" and it is specific to Sumo wrestlers.
"Mage" hair style with "O-ichou (Big Ginkgo)" is considered as a formal hair style for high-rank Sumo wrestlers, so they only make their hair tip into the "O-ichou (Big Ginkgo)" shape at formal situations such as Sumo matches and ceremonies. "O-ichou (Big Ginkgo)" is very important showing their rank.
When young boys join a Sumo-beya (Sumo gym) to become a professional Sumo wrestler, they usually have a modern hair style. Then they let their hair long to make the "Mage" hair style with a hope to be a high-rank wrestler someday and get his tip of "Mage" into "O-ichou (Big Ginkgo)" style. So, it is a big moment for a wrestler when they get "O-ichou (Big Ginkgo)" with their "Mage" hair style for the first time in his career.
Sometimes, a young wrestler has a conspicuous talent and get promotion very quickly to reach the high-rank which he is allowed to make "O-ichou (Big Ginkgo)" shape before his hair get enough length. In the case people see a short pony tail or a bent ponytail on his head among wrestlers with "O-ichou (Big Ginkgo)" at competitions as shown in the upper right end photo and the lower photo. Sumo fans enjoy seeing such a young wrestler, too, since it means he has a possibility to become a great wrestler.
Japanese say fall is "The Season of Good Appetite". Surely it is probably the biggest harvest season in Japan since the first rice of the year comes out in addition to various fall vegetables, and it's also the season for most nuts and mushrooms.
Actually you can enjoy little harvest of fall even in town. When you see some people are roaming in parks and street-sides with plastic bags in this season, just like in the photos on the upper row, they may be doing ginkgo nuts picking. In Japan ginkgo trees are one of the very common kinds you can find at parks and street-sides. For example, in Hachioji City they are planted for 4.2 km (2.6 miles) along Koshu-kaido (Rd. 20), which is one of the oldest national roads, in Takao area.
Although ginkgo has male trees and female trees and only female trees get nuts, you can check it easily in this season since ginkgo nuts growing in the blanches is quite visible as you can see in the upper right end photo. Also the smell of them is very easy to recognize. Frankly, it's really stinky.
So, actually when you try ginkgo nuts picking, they looks like small brown fruits with wrinkles as shown in the lower left end photo. The nuts is still covered by the stinky pulp. Then you need to get rid of the stinky part from all the nuts and wash them before enjoying the taste. Well, it might sound too much trouble. Don't worry, of course supermarkets have ginkgo nuts which are already washed and they are not stinky at all.
For those who love ginkgo nuts a lot, probably the work to get rid of the stinky pulp doesn't matter. In fact many people enjoy ginkgo nuts picking in this season. As you can see in the photos, now the ginkgo leaves are still in green but a little later it will turn into gorgeous yellow, then people can enjoy the beautiful view, too, when they pick ginkgo nuts.
As for the photos of ginkgo nuts dishes above, the lower center photo shows roasted ginkgo nuts, and the lower right end photo is "ginkgo nuts rice" which I introduced in my post last year. To check the recipe of "ginkgo nuts rice", please click here!
Since tomorrow is Halloween, this sweets seems like a special sweets for Halloween, but it is a Japanese sweets called "Kasutera" which has a long history. The bat design is actually the trademark of one of the major Kasutera makers, "Fukusaya", although the orange and purple colors on the box are their new seasonal design for this Halloween season.
Then, why the "Fukusaya" is using a bat design as their trademark? Does it really have no connection with Halloween?
As you can see in the photos, the maker started their business in 1624, which is during Samurai time, precisely Tokugawa Shogunate era (1603-1867). Although in the beginning they use one of the Chinese characters for their name, "福（Fuku）" as their trademark, 12th president of Fukusaya changed it to a bat design in the beginning of Modern era and it was still too early time for Japanese people to know about Halloween.
However, apparently the bat design came from a foreign culture. Fukusaya's original trademark, "福（Fuku）" is a Chinese character means "Fortune/Luck" and Fukusaya had been trading with China to buy one of the main ingredients for Kasutera sweets, sugar, since the beginning. Thus the 12th president of Fukusaya got an idea of their new trademark using a symbol of fortune/luck in China. That was the bat design.
I'm sure nobody expected it in old times, but their fortune/lucky symbol got a lucky coincidence, and now the package with their trademark perfectly fits Halloween season!
In these years Halloween became really popular in Japan. Shopping malls and restaurants started to have Halloween events and many people enjoy wearing costumes and having Halloween parties although most people didn't know much about it 10 years ago.
Now towns are filled with lots of Halloween goods as you can see in the upper photos above and many companies are selling Halloween version sweets. Even some beer companies started selling pumpkin beer, but the taste is different from pumpkin beer in U.S.A.
Needless to say, but Halloween is originally an event with scary evil spirits. Therefore in U.S.A. I have seen many Halloween decorations which looks very scary. However Japanese people always tend to love "Kawaii (cute/lovely)" stuff, then it seems like they imported cute characteristics and fun feature of Halloween into Japan. Thus Halloween decorations and Halloween goods shops in Japan look just cute. As you can see in the lower right hand side photo, some sweets even have the words of "Lovely Halloween".
"Kawaii (cute/lovely)" is now becoming a big trend stream recognized world-widely. Since Japanese people had modified Christmas and Valentine's Day into Japanese style events, this cute and lovely Halloween is going to be "Japanese style Halloween"?
Today, on October 26th, I saw the top of Mt. Fuji over a sea of heavy fog was covered by snow first time for this fall! It was a fantastic view.
Apparently this was a date record equaling the latest first snow-cap in fall and 26 days later than the average.
Last year it happened on the October 14th, and I wrote a post on my another blog "Yuko Takayama".
More photos of Mt.Fuji view from West Tokyo area are here! (Please click here to see them!)
I'm writing about Japanese trains and how people enjoy trains in Japan lately in my posts on October 14th (Yuko's Japan Guide), also 18th and 19th (Yuko Takayama). Then there is one more factor which helps to increase the popularity of trains and I'd like to introduce it this time.
In these years, many of Japanese companies and even municipalities have some mascots like baseball teams and they help these companies by giving friendly feeling to people. What's more, actually these mascots can cause a situation that they get people's attention and make the company or municipality popular. Since Japanese people love mascots and it happens often, so companies and municipalities are nowadays very serious about having a cute or characteristic mascots.
Of course, train companies are not exception. Today, most companies have some characters for their train lines and they also sell many products featuring their mascots, such as pens, notes, and sweets. A good example of it would be "Suica Penguin" which is a mascot of JR East (East Japan Railroad Company).
You might have seen it already, since the mascot design is on their prepaid e-money card called "Suica". The penguin character was originally created for the Suica card because prepaid e-money card was a completely new way to pay train fees at that time. the company tried to get people's attention to push the big change from paying by cash to using prepaid e-money cards.
The penguin character became really popular quickly, probably more than the company expected. Some people got "Suica card", not to try the new system but to get a card with the cute penguin character. Today, the Suica penguin became the image character of JR East company and we can find many Suica Penguin goods at shops inside or beside stations of JR East company.
I guess to get a popular mascot brought a very strong advantage for the train company because the population of train lovers consists of mainly men and boys since old times, but with the character the company got many women and girls fans anew. Now you can see how important these mascots are, right?
