Explore everyday life in Japan
The Oni are coming. And they are coming today.
If you don’t know what Oni are, they are something of a traditional Japanese monster, a kind of cross between a demon and an ogre. They are the ‘bogeymen’ of Japanese folklore, and they come into your home on February 3, a day that is known as Setsubun in Japan, to terrorize your children and threaten your health.
If you are worried, don't be. Oni are fairly easy to scare away. Though they are big and strong, have fearsome appearances, and come bearing knives and axes, their major weakness, or kryptonite if you will, are fried soybeans. If an Oni enters your house, all you have to do is throw fried soybeans at its eyes and it will leave your house running and screaming in pain, leaving you and your children with an Oni-free house for another year.
Does this sound strange to you? If so, I can understand why. A day where monsters enter your house and are scared away by soybeans isn’t the most typical of holidays, but Setsubun has a long history in Japan.
The word Setsubun itself actually stands for the division of seasons and represents the last day of a season. According to the Lunar Calendar, a new year begins on the New Moon that occurs sometime between the end of January and the middle of February. This new year is also thought to represent the beginning of spring. Although there are four seasons in a year, and technically four days of Setsubun, the only one with real significance in Japan is the Setsubun that marks the last day of winter, which is also the last day of the old year. Though the first day of the traditional Lunar New Year changes from year to year, in Japan, the day of Setsubun has been set as February 3.
Since the Heian Period (794-1185), various rituals have been held in Japan to help eliminate the evils and calamities of the previous year so as to bless the new year with good fortune. These rituals have evolved over the years and spread from the palaces of emperors to the houses of ordinary people. While Oni, it seems, were once benevolent gods with fearsome appearances who pursued evil spirits, at some point they changed into malevolent manifestations of illness that entered one’s home and threatened one’s health. These days, Oni continue to be malevolent, and driving them from one’s home is still connected to the idea of ridding one’s house for the year of bad luck and disease.
In addition to driving the Oni from one’s home, it is also considered good luck and a guarantee of good health to eat one fried soybean on this day for every year that you have been alive. So if you hear a strange scratching at your door tonight, or if you are feeling a little under the weather, be sure to have a bowl full of fried soybeans on hand.
If you don’t, and most likely you won't, don’t worry. A bowl full of candy, or even peanuts, will probably suffice. As times change, customs change too. These days, it is just as likely to find children and adults armed with a variety of chocolates and snacks as it is to find children and adults waiting with their pockets full of the traditionally used fried soybeans.
Either way, on February 3, beware. The Oni are coming!
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.