“Setsubun” ,the traditional end of winter falling on Feb.3rd
A Feb.3rd of a year is a special day on which “Setsubun”, our “traditional end of winter” or “the day before calendric beginning of spring” falls.
On this day, it is customary to throw beans at our houses, cars, buildings,and properties , shouting, “Fuku wa uchi, oni wa soto !”(Fortune in and demons out !) in order to ward off evil and bless our home and things. People say evils come out to bring bad luck on Setsubun, so we need to dispel them by throwing beans, and this custom has more than 1,300- year-old history in Japan.
A picture of a man throwing beans at an evil in the Edo Period
In addition to the practice at housholds,schools, and corporations, every year, at temples and shrines priests and monks host this “Setsubun-sai ” of a ward-off evil ceremony and some celebrities join them.
Usually, at a big ceremony of this, a “Toshi-otoko”(/年男) or a “Toshi-onna” （/年女）, “a man or woman who was born in a year of the same Chinese Zodic as the current year” are appointed in charge of throwing the beans.
We also eat Ehoumaki(/恵方巻き, an auspicious direction hand-rolled sushi), which is believed to have a magic power to make your wishes come true when you eat it standing and facing the auspicious direction of the year (this year it is south-southeast) ,keeping eating it and wishing without uttering anything while you eat. Actually, a lot of shoppers stood in line at supermarkets and sushi stores to buy ehoumaki and I ate it taking a few minutes wishing and without saying anything this year.
ehoumaki
beans for Setsubun and ehoumaki
On this Feb.3rd ,at Naritasan Shinshoji Temple(/成田山新勝寺) http://www.naritasan.or.jp/e-index.html , Jyuri Ueno(/上野樹里), the actor starring at “Gou”(/「江」), NHK Taiga drama this year, Kensaku Morita(/森田健作), the Chiba Governor, Baruto(/把瑠都), Kisenosato(/稀勢の里), the popular sumo wrestlers, and others joined the annual Setsubun-e(/節分会) and threw beans at the stage there.
Jyuri Ueno and others throwing beans
把瑠都 and 稀勢の里
And at Kasama Inari-jinja(/笠間稲荷神社) in Kasama City Ibaraki Pref. http://www.kasama.or.jp/english/index.html, one of the top three Inari-jinja shrines in Japan, Michiko Hada(/羽田美智子),a popular actor from that prefecture joined the setsubun-sai and threw beans in the ceremony.
Michiko Hada throwing beans to ward off evil
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