New Year’s Traditional Games

Written by Caroll Hirose | Illustrations by @vege.pop

In a country with modern technology and smartphones everywhere, the customs in each occasion are a must, with no exception for New Year. New Year in Japan is a time of the year to spend with family, as most would travel hours to be in their hometown for the holidays than just be on their own. No matter if it is just to relax, eat the Osechi ryori on New Year's eve and the Soba(buckwheat noodles) on New Year's day, or just to see their beloved family. As a family reunion where you would have 2 or more families together, kids running around are also a lovely picture to enjoy, and as so of course the traditional games with them.

Hagoita or Hagoita paddles, originally from China. Hagoita paddles are used to hit shuttlecock(Hanetsuki game) , a racket game like badminton but without the net. This game was played specially in the New Year's as an action to drive away the evil spirits. Nowadays the game is commonly introduced in the Kindergartens for the kids to enjoy. Also you can find the Hagoita decorated with cloth or painted with Sumo wrestlers, Kabuki, etc. and used a decorative lucky charm for the New Year's.

Karuta word originally from portugues means card. Introduced by Portuguese traders during the mid-16th century. Is a card game where the cards are divided in two types, the cards that have a part of a poem or a context and the cards with the related pictures or the continuous part of the poem or context. To play the game one player reads the card and the others look for related cards. The player with the most cards wins. A very traditional and popular Karuta game is "Hyakunin Isshu" the name means 100 poets, 100 poem each, written in old style Japanese in a Tanka way (5 lines, 31 syllables), these 100 poems are a part of the Japanese educational system and well known and taught from elementary school through high school. Of course you will find some cute Karuta games as well with popular anime or manga characters and easy Japanese, next time you go to a bookstore look for the karuta section.

Fukuwarai (lucky laugh) is a game similar to Pin the tail on donkey, where instead of playing on the wall, it is done on the table, and instead of a donkey is a blank face where you locate parts of the facial parts blindfolded. The face commonly used for Fukuwarai is called Okame, a woman with puffy cheeks, in the old days considered the epitome of beauty but comical nowadays. Fukuwarai game is considered a lucky game because it is associated with the proverb "Warau kado niwa Fuku Kitaru'' means Luck comes to a house with lots of laughter, and so is a lucky game to play in the NewYear's with family.

We hid the okame and hyottoko separately throughout the magazine. There’s a total of 2 each. Can you find them? (Answer is on page 31.)

Okame Hyottoko

Osechi-ryori

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