January 20 Celebration (hatsuka iwai)

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January 20 Celebration (hatsuka iwai)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: New Year
***** Category: Observance

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Explanation

hatsuka iwai 二十日祝い celebrating on January 20

January 20 is also a special "New Years Day" (hatsuka shoogatsu 二十日正月) in Japan. The Samurai class took this as a special ritual and prepared special food for this day. The ladies of the house where allowed for the first time now to take the cover off the mirror and look at their faces. They also could eat the rice cakes that had been put as offerings before the mirror boxes (kyoodai　鏡台).

Officially this was the last day of New Years celebrations, where folks would cook rice with red soy beans (sekihan 赤飯) and eat the last New Year cakes to celebrate.

It was also the day when the God of Good Luck, Ebisu, had his first festival.

In the area of Kyoto and Osaka, the leftover bones of yellowtail (buri) offered during the New Year celebrations were cooked and eaten (New Year bones, hone shoogatsu　骨正月).


. Ebisu えびす　恵比寿　 .


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More kigo for this day

"sword handle" celebration, ha tsuka iwai 刃柄祝（はつかいわい）

Celebration of the mirror box, kyoodai iwai 鏡台祝（きょうだいいわい）

Celebration of the "first face", hatsu kao iwai 初顔祝（はつかおいわい）

Celebration of the Mirror, kagami no iwai 鏡の祝（かがみのいわい）


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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU



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Related words

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Festivals and Ceremonies of Japan



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