New Year’s Etiquette in Japan

Holidays – Parliament Day in Japan

“At the recent election for the House of Peers held under the newly adopted Japanese Constitution, forty-four members were returned – twenty-two, were farmers, fifteen were merchants, and only one a noble. When it is remembered that until recently Japan has been con- trolled by the nobility with their feudal ideas, the reaction of the present day will bring to pass great and wholesome changes. It is to be hoped the spirit of modern improvement will now animate the Japanese.” – 

From the back of this card. This collector card and others like it, were packed in Duke's Cigarette’s packages, from the Gilded Age to the early 1900’s

Holiday Etiquette in Japan:

How the Jovial Japanese Make Life Merry and Happy

Mrs. H. H. Thompson, writing in “The Cosmopolitan” of the holidays of the Japanese, says New Year’s day is not altogether a holiday. The national idea of justice is shown by the law requiring all debts to be adjusted at the beginning of the year. Therefore, no one gives himself up to unrestrained enjoyment of this day until his accounts are satisfactorily arranged.

On this day, for which we had been impatiently waiting, we prepared to go everywhere and see everything. Festive preparations had been going on for many days, such as thoroughly renovating and cleaning houses, planting evergreen and bamboo branches along the street and on either side of the vestibules or doorways. The bakeries were teeming with delicacies. Professional rice-pounders, with their immense mortars and pestles, were hurrying from house to house. Flowers and ornamental shrubs of exquisite varieties were sold on every street, and shops displayed their daintiest wares and toys.

An interesting custom prevails in preparing the home feast to provide a liberal supply of food for the poorer neighbor. Each house, too, must be decorated, which is not a difficult task in this ever-blooming land. Every house and street was brilliantly illuminated for the inauguration of the new year; in fact, the entire city, bay and adjoining country presented a brilliancy that we never saw equaled. During the morning a Sabbath-like stillness prevails while accounts are being adjusted. Indeed, it has been said that New Year's day is the only Sabbath of Japan. After that all is astir; every one in festive garments and with smiling face exchanging polite greetings.

The Japanese are well trained in the laws of good breeding, and, in their several grades, seldom offend the rules of etiquette. According to these rules, a joyous freedom is extended to everyone on this day of days. Various styles of reception cards are carried through the streets on elegant lacquered trays by obsequious servants. It is the custom of Japanese merchants to send as gifts to the families of their customers beautiful fans and toys of exquisite designs.

One of the most popular amusements of its day is masquerades, in which parents, children and servants delight in puzzling one another by personifying various families of rank. Here there are fathers, with the big and little boys, who are intent upon the use of the top, with which they are very expert, while groups of pretty girls and young women play merrily with battledore and shuttle-cock. 

At one time we were mystified by sweet, musical sounds in the air, resembling those proceeding from an aeolian harp, and discovered that these came from a great number of kites flying over the city. Our Japanese teacher and interpreter explained this mystery by showing us a strip of the bamboo stretched across the frame of the kite.

Banquets are spread in the streets for the police, and for the benefit of those that prefer this repast to the more private dinner at home. Buckets, barrels and porcelain jars are everywhere overflowing with new saki, which everybody drinks, and yet to the credit of these people be it said, there is little drunkenness. Far into the night some religious ceremony is enacted by the head of each household, and by the priests in their public temples, which all evil spirits brooding about on wrong intent are said to exorcise; and thus the day is ended.

The Japanese are determined to enjoy life as they go. All classes may be seen leaving their homes to go on short journeys into the country - where, under the rustic shade of blossoming fruit trees, or in one of the endless tea houses, they may rest, refresh and enjoy themselves. We often observed family groups visiting the suburbs, or temples, or statues on some high hill, with apparently no other object than to view the landscape under a light fall of snow, or to gather some of nature’s treasures to adorn the grottoed wall, or miniature lake in the bit of garden at home, or to amuse the children. - Los Angeles Herald, 1887

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia