February 3rd, Setsubun Day in Japan - Make a Demon Mask

Today is Setsubun Day, a Japanese holiday marking the first day of Spring, according to the lunisolar calendar. Japanese people all over the world celebrate this day by opening the doors of their houses and driving out the demons (and thereby driving out bad luck).

The way they do this typically involves the father (in this case my husband), wearing a demon mask and running around the house while the rest of the family throws a special type of dried soy beans at him and shouting "Demon out!" in Japanese. Eventually, the demon (father) goes out the door and the family throws more beans at him. This symbolizes driving out the demons. You can see a picture of the soybeans at the very bottom of this posting.

Next, each person in the house eats the same number of the beans as their age. So a 10 year old would eat 10, a 40 year old would eat 40 and by the time you get to 80, your entire day would be spent eating beans, I guess. I ate fresh beans. I made my husband eat the ones off the floor. That is proper.

Some pictures of this event around my house.

Yamaha Motors has put up instructions on how to make your own mask. They are kind, aren't they? If you want to try some other types of Japanese crafts, buy some origami paper and try some of these origami projects like this box.

Below are pictures of the making of the mask.

Cut it out (20 minutes and harder than it looks). They say to glue it. I used tape on the inside as well because it was too hard to hold together otherwise. It came out great this way. More scary than any mask you can buy, I think.

Nose, eyes and mouth.

Forehead.

Setsubun beans.

Enjoy other cultures.

Demons out! Happiness in!

Setsubun this year was 2/3. In Japan Setsubun (literally means "seasonal division") is a festival held one day before the start of official spring according to the Japanese calendar. It is not a national holiday but we do a little ceremony on this day. We celebrate Setsubun by throwing roasted soybeans to the outside and throwing at Oni (demon) saying "Oni wa soto!" (means "Demons out!"), and throwing beans inside the house saying "Fukuwa uchi!" (means "Happiness in!").
As you might already understand, we want demons to go outside of the house and happiness to come in :)

On the real Setsubun day, my husband (role of demon) was out for a business trip. My good friend and I went to a Sushi restaurant that night and had a great time and good sushi. Her husband was also on a business trip that day. It was a mom's night out with kids. I enjoyed my favorite uni (sea urchin) at the sushi place. When the cat's away, the mice will eat uni! Because if the cat's with me, he always tells me "don't keep eating expensive sushi only". I eat them anyways, though.
After the demon (husband) came back, we did a belated Setsubun performance today.

"Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!"
While screaming "Oni wa soto!" my daughter and I were throwing beans at my husband who was wearing a mask of demon. Fun fun fun! There are not many opportunities you can throw hard beans at your husband happily. I told them that we are supposed to eat the number of beans corresponding to your age.

When I was in Japan I was living without thinking about this kind of small traditional events and sometimes tended to dismiss it. But now here in the United States if I don't do it, my daughter doesn't get to know traditional things which my family told me as I grew up. I am a Japanese mother now!

a husband who is into Mochi

My husband is into mochi now. Mochi is not a hot girl.
Mochi is a traditional Japanese food (see the picture). It is a sticky rice cake and very yummy :)
In the past I made mochi dish enough number of times. I wonder why he gets into mochi so much this year....

His mochi boom started after one of my friends gave us freshly made mochi at the end of last year. The friend owns a mochi maker. We enjoyed mochi during the new year holidays like most of Japanese people do in Japan. Mochi is usually eaten in wintertime especially during new year's holidays. There is one dish called zoni which is a mochi soup and also a traditional new year food for the Japanese. There are many other ways to eat mochi. Fresh mochi is really soft and soon becomes hard. You can eat fresh mochi as is and you toast hard mochi. If you toast mochi it becomes soft inside and crispy outside. You eat it with anko (sweet red bean paste), kinako (yellow soy flower with sugar) or sugary soy sauce. My husband loves to eat with anko and kinako very much. After finishing all of the mochi from my friend, he said "Let's buy a mochi maker!". Wait a second. Our kitchen counter is already full of other kitchen stuff and barely has enough space for cooking. Our shelves are full too. Also, new year's holiday is over. I said "You like it now. But you might get tired of it soon and stop using it."

I went to Mitsuwa (Japanese grocery store) and bought a 1kg mochi pack. He ate it all within few days. Then I went to Nijiya (another Japanese grocery store) and bought a mochi pack. He finished it quickly. I went to Mitsuwa again and noticed that the mochi selling section was reduced. Hummmm... I guess Japanese new year stuff is over. I bought another 1kg pack there and asked the casher about mochi stock in the future. They said after all mochi is sold, they don't sell it until around the end of this year. I told my husband about it. Then he said "Then, we have to buy a mochi maker." hummm... He is still saying, isn't he? He keeps checking amazon.com and bringing up a mochi maker picture and dreaming.

I have wanted to have a toaster oven for quite awhile and the idea had been always rejected by him. BTW, toaster oven is a must item for the Japanese. We do have a toaster but it is different. If you think I don't need a toaster oven, that simply means you are not Japanese :) Anyway, I said "I don't want to buy a mochi maker unless we buy a toaster oven." The idea was suddenly approved after many years. Now the crowded kitchen counter is even more crowded because of the new toaster oven. That night I said "There is no space for a mochi maker anymore, honey." He goes "No problem". No problem about what?
Next morning I woke up and went to the kitchen. His (only he uses) espresso machine and grinder were gone from the counter. He was always saying they should not be put away because he uses them every single day. Where did they go then? They were moved to the garage! Since then, every morning he grinds coffee beans in the garage and makes espresso or coffee stuff there. Whenever he disappears in the house, that means he is in the garage. The last mochi pack I got was finished again. I went to Mitsuwa again and bought another 1kg pack few days ago. Only few packs were left there. It will be sold out soon.

Now we have a little more space on the kitchen counter. But I still have a little bit of resistance to purchase a mochi maker now because it is already the end of January. I also wonder if a mochi maker would go the way of our bread maker which was put away long time ago not being used.

Livedoor employees are at a loss to what to do after Takafumi Horie's arrest

CEO of Japanese Internet portal website Livedoor, Takafumi Horie, was arrested Monday evening for violations of Japan's Securities and Exchange Law. The picture was taken on 1/23 at night inside the livedoor office. The employees looked so worried and were carefully listening to leftover executives explaining CEO's arrest. According to the latest news Horie-mon is denying all the allegations while all other 3 executives arrested admit.
When I first heard of his arrest news, it reminded me of Martha Stewart. I think both Horie-mon (his nickname) and Martha have such charisma. I have just checked Horie's blog which he last updated on 1/22 the day before his arrest. There were already 6797 comments on his last post and 351 track backs. Surprisingly there are a lot more cheering and supporting messages than I thought there would.One of his fun's comment was "I was hoping you would run away by your private jet". (he owns a private jet, of course!) Lots said "come back!". He is still very popular. He might have wanted to become Japanese Bill Gates. So far he failed once. But I don't know the future. I don't know if he is guilty or not. He probably is. I'm not his fan or anything, but I am interested in his future and hoping him to come back soon. Because he is unusual enough for that country and there are not so many interesting CEOs in Japan.
I'd like to succeed in business and become a millionaire someday too :) But I want to do it somehow quietly with nobody noticing. Because If you become famous like Martha and Horie-mon, you get marked and attacked constantly.

USB Sushi Disk for sushi lovers

Here is another neat USB product from Japan. Aren't they really cute? I want to collect all of them. Depends on the type of sushi the disk sizes are different. For instance, Kappa maki (cucumber roll) is only 32MB and it is an inexpensive sushi. Otoro (fatty tuna) is 1GB and it is an expensive sushi and my favorite! Hungry......

USB slippers

These days in order to save energy (and money mostly) I started setting the heater temperature low especially during the day. I used to set to 77 degree or so. But now instead I put on a cardigan or something first before turning the heat up when I feel cold. Currently the room temperature is set to 73 and my toesies are very cold! Can't stand it.
I started searching on the internet. It took me less than a minute to find this. There it is! It is a very useful (?) product from Japan. USB slippers.
Oh, they even have USB gloves and coffee cups! You can enjoy browsing internet comfortably in wintertime!

Home of Ninja

Are Ninja spies or assassins or both? Only thing I know for sure is that they are not turtles. That's pretty much of what an ordinary young Japanese person knows.
Anyway, I just read Japanese Yahoo news and they said the number of foreign travelers visited Japan in 2005 was the highest ever in the history. 6.73 million people went to Japan last year! Japanese government just started "the visit Japan campaign" (http://www.vjc.jp/) to bring more travelers. Their goal is to increase the number of visitors to 10 million people within the next 10 years. BTW, although the website is meant for foreigners, they have information more in Japanese than in English. This is actually typical for that country. When a Japanese website has an English page, they almost always have a lot less contents in English compare to the original Japanese one.

In my blog whenever I feel like, I want to give Japan travel guide for those who are interested in visiting Japan someday. However, I am not planning to introduce typical tourist spots such as Tokyo down town, Kyoto temples and so on... Because those are already well covered by real guide books.
Here is Today's recommended spot!

Iga-ryu Ninja Museum http://www.iganinja.jp/
This interesting Ninja museum consist of a Virtual Ninja House with hidden stairs, secret passages and revolving doors, virtual Ninja experience area where you can use weapons and learn Ninja skills. They have exciting Ninja shows too. Fun fun fun!