Don’t forget this Friday, February 3rd is a Japanese holiday called Setsubun. I posted about Setsubun last year HERE and HERE (click to see lots of fun activities and printables!). It is a great way to chase out evil and invite happiness into your home for 2012! (If you are eating eho-maki, the direction to face this year is north-north-west).
New for this year: Enjoytokyo.jp has cute printable oni masks HERE. I especially like this disco-oni!
image from enjoytokyo.jp
Who usually ends up playing the part of “oni” in your family? In ours, we all take turns. And instead of throwing beans, we throw mini marshmallows… less chance of someone getting hurt!
Thank you very much for the wonderful information on Setsubun! The links with colouring pages and the different activities are great!
I know that a lot of the boys (at the school I help out with) love monsters. One boy in particular loves to draw pictures of them from a book on mythical monsters. I’ve been trying to find more Asian monsters since it is unlikely that the children would know about them (since we live in North America). I think it is neat that there is an event centred around monsters in Japan.
Thank you for your visit and comment! There are lots of Japanese monsters :) I bet the boys at your school would love this website: http://www.bakebake.com/index.html It has a lot of monsters.
Hi there! I took this video of Setsubun, 2/3/2012, Sendagaya, Hatomari-Shrine, Tokyo Japan, Mame-Make, Ehou-Maki
Cordially, Joe Quinn, Tokyo
How fun! What are they throwing?
Beans! Lots of beans, loose and in bags. Plus… lots of Candy, and also many mikka oranges. The kids in the mixed crowd of adult and children really had a lot of fun, me included! My friend Yoko-chan who lives full time nearby, was surprised at all the “professionals” in the crowd who were well prepared, with shopping bags from Takashimaya etc and even large cardboard boxes held overhead to catch as much of the candies, etc as possible, probably to bring home to more kids in waiting. Reminded of my younger days growing up on Long Island going out on Halloween night with “professional strength” bags to get as much candy as humanly possible. I’m really glad we went. Ok, have a nice evening (we are going for a day trip to Kamakura tomorrow…) — Joe Q/Sendagaya
Sounds fun! Hope I can participate someday :)
Thanks for the Setsubun mask link! Going to be celebrating for the first time this year with our 10 month old. Why do I always have to be the oni…. :-)