Setsubun!

Apparently, a couple of weeks ago it was risshun, the official beginning of spring in Japan. I think I've noticed the change - I now only wear two jumpers around the house instead of three. The day before risshun is setsubun, when people throw soybeans in order to drive away evil. The beans are thrown either out of one's front door, or at someone dressed as a demon (or oni - see last year's post on Oni Matsuri for more delicious oni-themed fun), all the while shouting "DEMONS, OUT! LUCK, IN!"

At my Monday morning Japanese class, we all had a chance to have a go with some setsubun activities. First, we drew out omikuji (fortunes) from a box at random, so we could get a glimpse of what luck we would have in the upcoming year. All the fortunes are labelled from "great luck" to "no luck whatsoever". Naturally, I ended up with the one labelled "no luck whatsoever", along with the rather gnomic advice "if you eat cold food, you will become cold." (If anyone figures out what this means, please tell me.) However, my teachers told me that if you get the worst fortune, you can reverse your fortune by volunteering to be the oni, and throwing out sweets to everyone. If you do this, apparently, your luck will turn from non-existent to great. Maybe this is good advice to live by - if you're finding life is not bringing you what you want, you should turn to doing things for others, and through that you will find satisfaction. Or maybe I should just throw things at people more.

After throwing sweets at my classmates and reversing my luck, I still felt I hadn't done enough to secure a good year. My nearby temple was doing a setsubun ceremony where people would throw beans at the crowd, who would hope to catch them for good luck. Said temple is also near an amazing Italian restaurant and I really wanted one of their mushroom and truffle-oil pizzas, so I was completely set for the afternoon. In front of the temple, I waited for ages for the crowds to disperse and to get a chance to be near enough to catch beans. I saw lots of well-prepared people who had brought massive bean-catching bags with them, but alas I had not been so thoughtful. I tried to use a tiny old plastic bag from the bottom of my handbag, but it was pretty much useless. I saw a few girls using their big snood-style scarves as receptacles, but my puny regular scarf was no good. Finally I settled on using my hat - too small for my liking, but it would do. I waited for about an hour as temple officials and enthusiastic volunteers got up on the big platform and threw beans out to their hopeful audience, but I didn't get one single bean. (I wasn't the only one - I shared a few soulful looks with fellow ill-fortuned crowd members, including an old man carrying a dachshund like a baby).

Any luck? Well, my patience was eventually rewarded, and I did catch one lone bean! I'm not sure about the exact bean-to-luck exchange rate but I decided to count it as a symbolic victory, and scampered off to get my prize (pizza).

When I got home, I found that my one-month-old laptop had broken. Ah well, better luck next year.