Japanese new year's event
We celebrate the New Year. Early in the morning we go to the beach and
watch the sunrise. We visit our grandparents. Girls and boys wear
kimono. We eat a lot of food. We eat special kinds of sushi and sashimi
and rice cakes called mochi. The shops all have special toys and candy
for
the children to buy. Aunts and uncles and grandparents give children
pocket money to spend at the shops. There are a lot of special TV programs.
We write with ink and special brushes. One is little bit fat and another
is thin. We write Happy New Year and poems on long thin papers.
Games of New Years day
These days Japanese children don't play with toys indigenous to Japan.
In old times, children played with traditional Japanese toys on the New
Year days. For example, those toys were tako (kilt-flying), hagoita
(game like a badminton played with wooden rackets), koma (spinning
top), sugoroku (game like backgammon) and karuta (Japanese playing
cards for word games). Today some children play with TV games with
relatives on the New Year's day. The way how children play on New Year's
day is changing.
TVprogramofNewYear
day
Kouhakuutagassen ( Red Vs. White Singing Contest ) is becoming a popular
TV program. Kouhakuutagassenn is a Japanese music show only
once a year. It is broadcasted on ohmisoka. Singers who were popular
among the Japanese people in the year can appear in the program. The
singers are separated into two groups to compete against each other.
The team of male singers is the white team, and the team of female singers
is the red team. Many Japanese people watch the TV program on the ohmisoka.
In old times almost all the people in Japan watched the
Kouhakuutagassen. However, nowadays there are various TV programs on
"ohmisoka". So people, especially young people, don't
necessarily watch the Kouhakuuagassen. In recent years young singers
and actors are chosen as the emcee of this program. Both young and old
people can enjoy watching Kouhakuutagassen now.
In Japan, the New Year's day is a special event in order to celebrate
the start of the year. During the New Year holiday, Japanese people eat
osechi, play with toys indigenous to Japan, and stay with their family
and relatives. But today we spend the New Year's day more freely than
the old days. Today Japanese people are very busy with their work,
study, housework, and so on. So I think Japanese people should relax their
body and mind on New Year days.
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