Toshikoshi Soba, Joya No Kane On Ohmisoka

Toshikoshi-soba  (年越しそば)

Today is Ohmisoka(大晦日), last day of the year 2008.
Wondering what is japanese (must) eat dish of the day?

I would like to introduce you the meaningful and healthy Japanese dish for new year eve,  toshikoshi-soba (年越しそば), literally “year-passing” soba.  Japanese eat toshikoshi-soba with the family while listening to the ringing of joya-no-kane (除夜の鐘),  the New Year’s Eve bells which are struck at the same time at every temple throughout the country.

Toshikoshi-soba (年越しそば)

In Japan eating soba as the final item on the New Year’s Eve supper is a wide spread custom. Even people who do not eat soba often are tempted to eat soba during the last days of the year, based on the unique customary thoughts from the ancient times that we cannot finish up the old year without eating soba. There are some reasons why soba but not any other kind of food:

(1) Soba is narrow and long in shape,so it symbolizes a wish for long life.

(2) The oldest story, from the Kamakura period, is that in Hakata, Kyushu, a businessman from China distributed buckwheat dumpling to poor people on the last day of the year and the following year their fortune changed for the better. So eating soba on New Year’s Eve became a tradition.

(3) The most persuasive explanation is that in the Edo era, goldsmiths used to clean factory floors with soba dumplings to pick up any gold dust on the last day of the year. So merchants started to eat toshikoshi-soba to collect ‘money’, as gold or kin in Chinese characters means ‘money’. Eventually ordinary people ate soba wishing for good fortune in money.

In Japanese culture, soba noodles have always symbolized good fortune. On New Year’s Eve, Japanese eat toshikoshi-soba, recalling incidents of the past year and looking forward to the coming year.

Joya-no-kane (除夜の鐘)

What Japanese do in this important day to welcome the New Year?

Ya, listen to “Joya no kane”, visit to the temple.  Japanese will visit the temple, listen to the striking bell to see the old year out.

Joya-no-kane (The watch-night bell)

Joya-no-Kane, or midnight tooling of the temple bells. At the stroke of midnight on New year’s Eve, the entire nation listens to the tolling of the Tsuri-Gane, the great bells or gongs at Japan’s Buddhist temples. While it is bell-shaped, the Tsuri-gane is struck on the outside by a large wooden hammer suspended by ropes, so it may be thought of as a gong. At Chion-in Temple in Kyoto, many visitors are drawn every New Year’s Eve to watch the tolling of one of the largest bells in the world. It weighs 74 tons. The Joya-no-Kane consists of 108 solemn tolls on the temple bells. The meaning of 108 has various views, however in Buddhism, it’s basically said that we human being possess 108 worldly desires. The figure 108 is said to be derived from 5 basic human sensory organs (eye, ear, nose, mouth, skin) and a mind. These 6 feelings is further categorized into 3 colors of good, bad and flat, and therefore this amounts to total of 18 feelings. Then each of these 18 feelings has 2 sides of vice and purity. Furthermore they are divided into 3 tenses: past, present and future. Altogether, we see that 18 x 3 x 2 = 108.
It takes roughly one hour to strike the bell 108 times. A few minutes before the new year, the solemn sound of a bell can be heard from a neighboring temples in a quiet night. While cheerful countdown party may be fun and enjoyable, it may also be a unique and tasteful way to pass the year-end by listening closely to the sound of a bell as they linger over the quiet night.