Seijin no hi!!

Today is a national holiday in Japan because of what's known as Seijin no hi 成人の日「せいじんのひ」 (literally "Adult Day"), the coming of age day. It's held on the second Monday of January and on this day, all those who have turned 20 years old between April 1st of the previous year and March 31st of the current one are invited to join in the festivities! Those who attend usually dress up in formal attire when they go to celebrate their new maturity. For girls, this means a furisode, a kind of kimono with long sleeves that drape down and traditional zori sandals. Men used to wear a kimono and hakama (sort of like loose fabric resembling pants that goes over the kimono) but I'm told by my friend that nowadays men usually dress up in a Western suit and tie. (I think the kimono's cooler personally ;))

Having turned 20 just last July I was invited this year! Talk about good timing for my study abroad! I was originally not going to go though because my host mom told me the ceremony is kind of boring. But when I was finishing breakfast my host mom was like, "Have you ever worn a kimono?" and I answered no, and she said "You should wear one today!" and I was like, ".....WHAT?! SERIOUSLY?! o_O" So later she brought out all the pieces of the kimono (that she had hand made!) and started dressing me up! Kimonos really are a complicated process! First there's the white tabi socks which have to go first (it would be difficult to put on socks when you have all those layers on you and you're tightly strapped in!), the underdress (at one point she looked down and saw I was still wearing my pajama pants and laughed herself hoarse haha) which has long sleeves to fit into the long sleeves of the top layer, an underbelt to hold it up, a colored piece to show through the top color, the top layer which has to be adjusted to the right length at the obi (belt) which comes next and has to be wrapped around your waist a couple of times, then some more decorative pieces on top! （あぁ疲れた! "Ah, I'm tired!") Nowadays, girls dress up their kimonos a lot adding color ropes and even modern belts! Then my host mom helped me do my hair which I curled in the front, and she braided on the sides.

After all that this was the final product: =)

You can't see my feet in this picture but host mom kept having to tell me to put them angled at a certain way (one kind of pointing into the middle of the other) because that's how they used to walk. Weird, eh? Anyway, we're going to have a peek at the festivities today so hope you enjoyed this small bit!

Word of the day: 巻く、まく or maku。This is the verb you use when you talk about rolling or curling your hair!

UPDATE:

Okay so I just got back from the Seijinshiki (coming of age festival) and it was really fun! But there were SO many people!! I could barely move! The first thing we did was walk to the temple which had a ridiculous line and took forever to get through, as it usually does. As we were lining up I noticed a bunch of twigs that everyone was holding. I asked my host mom and she told me these are fukuzasa (remember fukubukuro?). Well I found out fuku means "lucky" so the fukubukuro is literally "lucky bag" and fukuzasa is "lucky bamboo leaves." Zasa is from sasa, bamboo leaves, but it becomes voiced (s -> z) when put with the first bit (thank you Linguistics...). So every year families buy fukuzasa and keep it for the rest of the year so it can gather your bad luck. Then when the next year turns, you bring the fukuzasa from last year to the shrine, put it in a big pile which is burned later, and then you buy a new fukuzasa for the next year which is supposed to bring luck and success.

Fukuzasa looks like this!

Unlike other times when I've been to temples, this time when we entered there were four priests holding long sticks with a bunch of strips of paper in a kind of pom pom type shape. When you step through, they shake it over your head which is supposed to rid you of all the bad things that happened in the past year. This is called おはらい、or oharai which means Shinto purification. Interestingly, there was another entrance on the side that said 「まぐろ」maguro. We weren't really sure what they were referring to but when we went in we saw that it was talking about a giant tuna! Lined up there was the tuna, vegetables, candy, etc. My host mom told me that this is an おそなえ, Osonae which means an offering to the gods. So everyone threw coins at the offerings (kind of like a wishing well); some people even stuffed coins INTO the open flesh of the tuna! It was a strange sight.

After that we got おみくじ omikuji, written fortunes. I got the same one that I got at New Year's! Highest luck with the God Yebisu! Coincidence? =3 It said things up until now have been bad (burns, surgery, swollen feet... lol) but from here on the gods will lend me power and give me very good luck and health. =) They also came in a really cute fish holder so, totally worth it haha.

We stopped to have some あまざけ amazake which literally means sweet sake or alcohol but it was non-alcoholic (go figure). It was outrageously delicious! It may have just become one of my favorite Japanese drinks! It's made from fermented rice and just has a great, sweet flavour to it. It was also really warm which felt great considering how cold it was outside. When we were done we wandered around the festival shops (there were loads everywhere!). They were selling lots of matsuri (festival) food: cotton candy, chocolate bananas, yakisoba, takoyaki,  candy apples, even candy strawberries and oranges! I bought a candy apple since I had wanted one the last festival I went to and never got it. *うれしい^^* Then we grabbed some yakisoba and headed home with the masses. Fun!

Word of the day: りんごアメ, ringoame which means candy apple! Yum! =)

それではまた次回！^-^