Setsubun

We celebrated Setsubun last week. It is a celebration of the arrival of Spring (here they celebrate it according to the Chinese calendar). I have read many friends blogs lately that stated how sad they were about the dreary, long winter....here, we don't even have a chance to enjoy winter, and then it is gone! Seriously, trees are blooming here. it is a bit different from Indy!

Back to Setsubun, according to Wikipedia (they say it better than I can!) Spring Setsubun can be thought of (and was previously thought of) as a sort of New Year's Eve, and so was accompanied by a special ritual to cleanse away all the evil of the former year and drive away disease-bringing evil spirits for the year to come. This special ritual is called mamemaki. This is when you scatter soybeans in and out of the house. First, you throw beans at the head of the household wearing a Demon mask while shouting in Japanese "Bad luck out, Good luck in!" Then you scatter more soybeans in the house to bring in the good luck. Next, you eat as many of the soybeans as you have years in age from the ones scattered on the floor. Finally, you eat a Sushi/rice roll wrapped in seaweed (the WHOLE thing) facing whatever direction is deemed to be the "lucky" direction of that year.

The Bowman family translation of Setsubun....we get to pelt Daddy with roasted soybeans! Of course, not being true Japanese, we were able to take a few things and make them our own "Bowmanized" version. Such as....1. we celebrated a day early. Hey, Daddy had to work late on Tues. night! 2. We don't like roasted soybeans so we used peanuts. 3. I have a problem with the whole throwing food in the house and then eating it off the floor. So, we made Daddy stand outside and pelted him outside and then we all ate the peanuts from the bag. 4. No sushi/rice rolls in this house so I found these long rolled cookies filled with creme. I must say MUCH better than sushi and rice rolls wrapped in seaweed!

The kids had fun and learned a little about Japanese culture at the same time....bonus!