Name: How Japanese celebrate New Year! 日本のお正月 (2015年)
Uploaded: 2015-12-30T08:36:57.000Z
Duration: 3 min 11 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The superlative

"Oshogatsu," or the New Year, is the biggest holiday in Japan.

Future simple

We don't do much for Christmas, and in fact, we don't even get off of work for it, but we'll have between one to two weeks of vacation during the New Year.

This time of year, traditionally, we decorate with mochi, a sticky rice cake.

We stack two on top of each other, and then put a "daidai" orange or "mikan" on top.

This is called "kagami" mochi, and it's a traditional offering to Shinto gods.

The families who grow their own mochi rice, they often make the mochi for "kagami" mochi themselves.

Rachel and I made some with my uncle last year.

This holiday is important for families, and most people will spend it with their parents.

On New Year's morning we eat "zouni," which is a mochi soup, and "osechi."

"Osechi" is made of many small portions of various foods that are each considered good luck.

On New Year's Day, shrines and temples will be very busy.

We traditionally visit multiple shrines and temples to pray.

Large shrines may even have small festivals with "yatai," or foot stalls outside.

This year, our shrine was so busy that the line to pray curved around half the shrine's perimeter.

And since we were not religious enough to stand in line in the snow for 40 minutes, we gave up and went home.

Many people also travel and visit their relatives with their families.

This year, Rachel and I went with my family to visit my aunt and uncle where we had a feast with "sukiyaki" and "osechi," and watched New Year's television.

There is a famous TV program on New Year's Day that shows many famous people doing funny and ridiculous things every year.

For example, master chefs replicate daily life items with food and then place them in a room with real items, and people well call "tarento," or talent, have to guess which ones are food by trying to eat them.

These things aren't tradition, but they're an entertaining part of New Year's Day.

We also visited my grandpa and my aunt and uncles on the other side of my family the next night and had another feast; this time with sushi and fried foods.

Another part of the New Year is cards you buy at the post office called "nengajou."

These are special post cards that you send to your friends and acquaintances.

And the Japanese postal system works incredibly hard and attempts to deliver every single one on January 1.

These cards are extra special because each one has a lottery number on the bottom.

So for every "nengajou" you receive, you have a chance to win various prizes from the post office.

This used to be things like TVs or free trips, but these days it's cash.

This year they will announce the winners on January 18.

It may not sound as fun as Christmas since we don't get presents, but kids actually get something called "Otoshidama," which is money given to them by their relatives.

It can be anywhere from about $10 to $100 from each relative for families with a normal income.

I used to spend all my "otoshidama" on books, but now that I'm an adult, I don't get it anymore.

If my sister has kids one day, I'll have to give them "otoshidama," so I hope she never gets married.

Anyway, thank you for watching about our New Year's holiday!

What's the biggest holiday in your country?