When Does the Fun Part Begin?

Today is Setsubun, my least favorite Japanese celebration by a wide margin. It marks the passage from winter to spring according to a calendar that is no longer actually in use in Japan, and usually falls on February 2nd or 3rd. If you want to know more about it, feel free to check the link above. I’ll tell you what really happens.

A week or two before Setsubun, the stores begin offering Setsubun packages. These consist of a box of roasted soybeans and a small paper demon mask. Setsubun is not a national holiday, so you have to go to work. At the end of a long, grueling Friday, you get on your bicycle and wend your cold and weary way home as snow anoints your bald head. When you get home, the women of the house make you put on the demon mask by looping two little rubber bands behind your frostbitten ears. Now (and there’s been no offer of coffee yet, or any loving inquiries after your wellbeing) you must snarl and stomp and gnash your teeth while wife and child scream, “Demon, out! Fortune, in!” and pelt you with handfuls of the aforementioned soybeans as you retreat from room to room, eventually to be driven from the house back out into the cold. Upon re-entering, you must pick up one bean for each year of your age from the floor and eat them. If you’re much above the age of twelve this will amount to more roasted soybeans than you really want to eat. Do your best to overlook the fact that one of the members of your household is a 72 year old with an absolutely mesmerizing case of toenail fungus who spends his days roaming barefoot across the floor you’re snacking from.

And now the traditional Setsubun feast! You’ll begin with an enormous makizushi, which is white rice and a disheartening assortment of other soggy bits rolled in seaweed. You must turn to face the lucky direction - which changes from year to year – then smile and take a huge bite. Experience will soon teach you that this isn’t generally regarded as a good time to make wisecracks. Then it’s on to the grilled, full-grown (and really surprisingly large) sardines, the stench of which fills the entire house. The heads have been removed and are being burnt at the local shrine to drive away other demons. Judging by the smell of the “good parts” left on your plate, this seems like a fairly solid strategy. In some homes the heads are impaled on sprigs of holly and hung on doors, as a sort of terrifying wreath to warn away still more demons and, presumably, any vagrant sardines looking for a handout. Your side dish is a bowl of fibrous root vegetables and mushrooms, boiled for too long and flavored with soy sauce. Dig in.

Finally, if you’ve been good, they’ll let you have a beer. Which is good, because by now your own inner demons will need a bit of chasing off.