Ring out the old, sing in the new

I don't have a lot of memories of New Year celebrations in Japan.

New year's ozoni soup.

I was only 8 when we moved to the States, so I was never allowed to - or able to - stay up until midnight and see what all the whoopee was about.

But then, in Japan, New Year's Eve isn't the main event - New Year's Day is. That's when Japanese start the new year with a sparkling clean house and a feast of food. In fact, it's the most important holiday of the year in Japan.

New Year's Eve, which is called "omisoka," isn't an excuse for partying, but a day of staying home and cleaning. Just before midnight, families settle down to eat special "toshi koshi soba" noodles. Temple bells literally start ringing in the New Year at 11:45 pm with 108 rings to banish the 108 evil passions of tradition. At midnight, everyone toasts "akemashite omedetou gozaimasu" to welcome the New Year, which is called "Oshogatsu."

After midnight and into New Year's Day people visit Shinto shrines pay their respects and burn the previous year's good luck charms and buy new ones. The first visit to the shrine every year is so special it has its own name: "Hatsu moh de."

On New Year's morning, instead of tuning in football games, Japanese start feasting on a variety of traditional cold foods that are only made for this time of year, called "osechi ryori" (most prepared in advance so the mothers don't have to cook for several days) including "kuromame," black beans for good luck, and "ozoni," a clear broth with vegetables and sticky "mochi" rice cakes or (my favorite) "oshiruko," a thick soup of sweet "azuki" bean paste with sticky mochi floating in it. Traditional decorations for the house include pine branches and bamboo for doorways and displays of "kagamimochi," stacks of Japanese oranges and flat round mochi cakes at the home altars, and origami cranes - a symbol of longevity and happiness.

Beginning the next day, January 2 and lasting three or four more days, Japanese make a point of visiting relatives and friends, settling old scores and catching up with everyone's lives. It's all part of the effort to begin the new year with a clean slate, a fresh start. Children are given "otoshi-dama" envelopes filled with money as gifts.

Sadly, I don't remember getting any loot for New Year's. Nor do I remember a lot of New Year's Day feasts and a lot of visiting going on. I was too young. Or maybe it's because we were a US military family living off-base in suburban Tokyo, and didn't have a lot of family close by. I do remember eating a lot of mochi, though, both grilled and dunked into sugar and soy sauce and all gooey in the sweet oshiruko soup.

Except for the food, many of the traditions of New Year in Japan are similar to traditions throughout Asia, which are influenced by Chinese culture and the lunar calendar that marks the arrival of Chinese New Year (which is Feb. 1 in 2003, the year of the goat). In many Asian countries it's important to clean house as the new year approaches, and traditions include eating special foods for good luck, paying homage to ancestors and handing out gifts of money.

But unlike most Asian countries, New Year in Japan is celebrated not by the lunar calendar but by the solar, or Roman, calendar that we use in America. That's why New Year in Japan takes place on Jan. 1 of every year. One of the great benefits of being Asian American is that I get to celebrate New Year twice annually - once on Jan. 1 and again when the Chinese New Year falls a few weeks later.

By the time I became old enough to stay up to ring in the New Year with noisemakers, I was in the US, and celebrating American-style. Most clearly, I remember doing it at home to the accompaniment of TV shows featuring a variety of nostalgic music, mostly the music of my parents' generation like Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, a big band most famous for the hit version of "Auld Lang Syne" that everyone sings for New Year. The band played for decades at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City and were broadcast on New Year's Eve.

Everything changed, though, when rock and roll "matured" enough for its generation to have its own music on New Year's Eve. Dick Clark began broadcasting his "Rockin' New Year" programs in 1972, when I was 14 years old. (It's scary to think he's still "rockin'" today….)

That's in the United States. In Japan, Guy Lombardo and Dick Clark are nothing compared to "Kohaku Utagassen," the annual New Year's Eve special that for decades was equal to the Super Bowl in ratings.

Kohaku Utagassen is a simple concept - it's a singing contest between teams of women (red team) and men (white team) who take turns singing popular music, kind of like a karaoke contest on steroids. Their performances are rated by invited judges and the audience (and also the TV viewers, which gives them even more reason to tune in), and the winning team is announced at the end of the three-hour program.

The show is a post-war phenomenon - the first Kohaku Utagassen was broadcast in 1951 nationwide on the radio, and it became a staple of television programming in 1953, at a time when very few Japanese owned TV sets. Along with sports programming such as wrestling and baseball, the popularity of Kohaku Utagassen helped accelerate the acceptance of television by Japanese.

Over the years, the show has evolved to include the currently popular pop music style, and now features a variety of music from traditional folk music and old-fashioned "enka" (the sort of adult pop that my parents listened to) sung by men and women in kimonos to the hard-edged and high-tech J-pop of today's younger performers who look like rock stars here in the US. The country's biggest music stars have graced the Utagassen stage.

The show has also inspired imitations Stateside, with a Los Angeles Buddhist temple hosting annual Kohaku Utagassen contests for lmaost 40 years. And the Denver Buddhist Temple hosts its annual Kohaku Utagassen every January.

I've been a judge for the contest even though I don't speak much Japanese (the entire show is performed and emceed in Japaese), and I was honored to help to sing in the New Year with this modern-day tradition of Japan!