"元旦开笔"[1] The first writing of the New Year. Its a small ritual performed by ancient Chinese intellectuals on the first day of the New Year. It has a history of about 1,000 years. During the Qing Dynasty, the emperor's ceremony became more grand and lengthy, including writing words of blessing with ornate Chinese brushes, symbolically turning the pages of the New Year's calendar (in the early Qing Dynasty, European missionaries participated in the improvement of the traditional Chinese calendar) [2] and drinking from a golden cup symbolizing the eternal and unbreakable borders. Ironically, one of the golden cups was stolen by French invaders during the Second Opium War [3].
[1] https://imagepphcloud.thepaper.cn/pph/image/114/965/140.jpg [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Adam_Schall_von_Bell [3] https://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMP/eMuseumPlus?se...
Like most "ancient Japanese" customs, foods, etc
Few more fun facts:
Elementary school students all write kakizome at the end of December. Within the school, each grade will write the exact same thing. They're hung in the halls for all to see. Hundreds of the exact same kakizome.
Many people burn their kakizome mid-January during "Dondoyaki."
The posture, attention and care taken while writing Kakizome is one of the important points. Those, and the outcome of the characters themselves, are all taken into account.
Unrelated, but Japan's officaily chosen Kanji for the year 2024 was "金" which means gold, or money, or heck, even Friday.
金 : kin : gold
お金 : okane : money
金曜日 : kinyoubi : Friday (shortened to 金 on some calendars, kind of like how we do “Fri” sometimes in English)
金子 : kaneko : gold coin
金魚 : kingyo : goldfish
金子 is kinsu.
https://jisho.org/search/%E9%87%91%E5%AD%90
Kane is not a normal reading for 金 in compound words unless this is an esoteric word I haven’t seen.
You are correct. 金子 can be read as “kaneko”, but that’s actually a surname and place name. “Kinsu” is a gold coin. I got the two swapped.
Oof. The reading for names will always get me. Still worth knowing the name reading!
Google maps has it showing up in a bunch of business names, too.
Seems to have been a bit of confusion in several directions here, but just to clarify: in modern usage 金子 is read only as Kaneko, and is a very common surname. The "kinsu" reading is archaic; a typical native speaker may never have heard of it.
That one sounds like Chinese word with hallucinated Japanese usage. 子 is IIUC casually used to mean "little ___ things" in Chinese, but same isn't the case with Japanese; 金子 is used as a somewhat discrete way to refer to an envelope of cash.
--> 金 --> Venus --> Friday -->
Burning them during Dondoyaki feels like a meaningful way to let go and start fresh.
For some, the particular way it burns and how the ashes fly in the air has meaning, too.
Last year even though I didn’t have a theme, I made small changes in the way I live, tried to complete my 15 book goodreads challenge, started doing sports and improve myself professionally on my free time.
This year started with pretty fundamental questions in the way I live and uncertainties about my future so deciding on a theme is very difficult. I can’t answer those questions and don’t know what I really want. I will try to put an effort into keeping the good habits I gained last year though.
What I did this year was draft all the things I wanted to achieve, check roughly how long it takes to achieve them - some have deadlines, like driver license test, which has a specific date - split them by quarters (Q1,Q2, and so on), some are more about consistency and repeated practice that culminates into being able to perform something at a higher level of execution - e.g. bass guitar and music theory. During each quarter I focus on what is there and try to limit my time around those things. I adjusted my calendar, reminders, etc to help me stay on track. I thik focusing on a few things every 3 months and tracking time/sessions/effort put into can be helpful. I think something good happens regardless and you know for sure you did your best.
I am in a similar boat. I guess I am fortunate, in that there are many interesting paths forward. But I don't know which to take, and there are so many uncertainties in the fundamentals.
I am leaning toward taking Patton Oswald's advice, and executing any plan now, rather than the perfect plan later. But I am getting older, so it feels like I only get a few more "pivots" in life, especially with financial stability in mind.
Yeah, executing ANY plan is better than waiting to come up with the perfect plan, IMO. I had no idea it was tied to a single person.
There's a long list of historical quotes about planning, but I think this reference might be to a different Patton:
"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." - George S. Patton
* "Those who are victorious plan effectively and change decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its course but adjusts its flow." ~ Sun Tzu
* "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
* "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." ~ Abraham Lincoln
"No plan survives contact with the enemy". --Helmuth von Moltke
or, if you prefer,
"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" --Mike Tyson.
I don't always like the pressure of the "New Year" to come up with a "goal"... Maintaining the habits you already have isn't easy either! And I think a goal can emerge along the way.
Careful with this. I once did a kakizome for 水 (mizu, water), because it's a nice simple character to draw. That year the bathroom leaked, flooding the house.
Better choose wisely this year!
I saw someone on mastodon[0] mentioning the idea of using a bingo card for new year resolutions rather than a specific objective.
It aligns with the idea of having a new year theme rather than a specific goal, and I liked the idea. Sadly, I'm not one for resolutions either way.
I do this as well. Not only does it gamify the whole experience, it is a sort of reminder that I likely won't accomplish all of them and that's okay. Priorities change over the course of the year and I can still see progress and celebrate success early and often.
This is awesome.
I'm going with 多角経営 (takaku keiei) A four-character phrase (yojijukugo) literally translating to “managing multiple facets.” It carries a similar notion to “Portfolio Approach,” implying strategic diversification rather than a lack of focus.
The Chinese have a new-year’s calligraphy tradition, too, written on red paper and hung on your door. Of course, that’s done on the Lunar new year, not the Solar one.
Your description of New Year’s as “like Western Christmas” is apt - I remember visiting one year, shocked by how quiet everything was, and how many restaurants and attractions were closed. Everyone was at home with their family! The January First festival at Senso-ji Temple was a unique spectacle, though - the sound of people donating hundreds of one-yen coins at once is really unique.
That’s because Japanese new year is derived from Chinese (lunar) new year traditions. They moved the New Year’s celebration to align with the Western calendar as part of the Meiji restoration, but kept the festivities the same.
That’s interesting, thanks for sharing!
I usually take the opposite approach. My resolutions are usually a lot smaller, and their theme more practical. I don’t intend to stick with them all year, but I fully intend to make significant progress within a month, and thus set the course for the year.
Some examples from this year: improve my German, cook Indian food, travel with friends. For each of them I have already made a list of actionable first steps, and I have taken many of those steps.
I find a general theme to be both too broad and too narrow. I want many small things, not one big thing.
Fun fact: although rarely used, the very close word "kakiazomai" (κακιάζομαι) means "I am feeling/generating evil/bad/negative thoughts" in Greek.
If nothing else, the fact that many people write anything with ink and brush helps to sustain the calligraphy culture. Nowadays, to many (if not most) of them the new year kakizome ritual is the only occasion they practice brush calligraphy in an entire year.
This is what I find most interesting about Japanese culture. The Japanese do things for seemingly superficial reasons which can seem redundant to an outsider but the more I learn, the more I see utility in a lot of it.
They’ve seem so much come and go over the centuries they seem to just go their own way because it works for them. Almost feels like they’ve been burned enough times to know better than to just throw the baby out with the bath water.
The most efficient in the short term, certainly not always.
They do seem to understand ergonomics and user experience better than most.
My Sony Xperia has all its buttons on one side. Seems awfully unorthodox, as almost all the other brands put them on both sides.
Until of course you start using the phone with one hand or lay it on its side to watch a movie.
I'm not sure why but the Japanese seem to put a great emphasis on detail. If I ever find out why that is, I'll let you know ;)
Do not think it's a bad thing... Even if it's just once a year
This is my second year picking a theme and I picked "Revolution", many things are (probably) going to be different 360 days from now for me!
Fun read, it didn't occur to me that I could simply pick foreign words that are much more adept at explaining complex concepts briefly.
I have a theme song for you: https://youtu.be/PTc52teL4dc
I just spent the new year in Japan in a temple, and the way they do it compared to my country makes much more sense. They just wait until midnight to hear the bell 108 times, go to the temple pray and then wake up to see first sunrise, instead of watching the fireworks and partying all night.
I live in Japan and I find the Japanese new year celebration or it's lack thereof absolutely depressing, but to each their own.
I probably chose a nice place, because they lighted up a huge fire while the monks were chanting around it, also there were lots of food stalls and people lining up to the temple.
I also used to go see fireworks in Taiwan but it is usually like this -> wait for fireworks -> 10 minutes fireworks —> have some fun (hopefully) -> get stuck in traffic/public transportation.
My home country is more lively but it ends up being similar, except people get way drunker.
Shibuya usually has parties going all night, but it was all pushed back into clubs holding events, nothing on the streets.
The image caption is interesting: as a right-handed person myself, it had never occurred to me that handedness would matter so much in shodō. I wonder if Western calligraphy is this way too (maybe to a lesser degree, given that stroke order isn’t as crucial)?
Left-handed calligraphy is slightly harder in shodo. The two main thing I've struggled over the years is how to end a line in a beautiful way.
Usually, a line start with pressing slightly harder, then "drag" it while slowly lifting the pencil, making that end of the line more aesthetic by thinning it out. And at the end you move it swiftly.
It's much easier to control this end movement when you're dragging towards your body, rather than away from it. For left handed, it's essentially the opposite in the way that what for right handed is dragging towards you(r right hand) is away, so all the details become the opposite.
Apparently you can learn this as a lefthanded too, but in Japan it's quite common to "correct" lefthanded kids to learn to use both hands for writing, so not many people know the struggle or the remedy. (my mom used to point out that me and my younger brother wrote badly, and we are both left handed)
Not really sure about calligraphy specifically, but since western languages are written left to right, it's always harder as a left-handed person. Because you have to push instead of pulling, where the latter makes fluid shapes easier.
I like this idea of setting a theme. It gives you a compass for if an action is in accordance to the theme or not.
I still like to drill into the concrete quantitative details of how I’m going to achieve the theme though.
This year theme for me would be: Freedom.
What was a bit disappointing to me is the author decided to gloss over the parts like getting fresh water from a well and having it purified at the temple.
That's the parts I wanted more details on - it makes it interesting and more like a glance at a foreign and different culture.
Japan does really have a wells that has pure water than is drinkable
Should this read “Japan really does have wells that have pure water that is drinkable”? (Not trying to be annoying or anything, just want to understand your comment correctly :-) )
A visible reminder that quietly nudges you throughout the year... It always works for me. I have a whiteboard at home where I write down my goals for the quarter. It’s satisfying to erase a goal from the board after completing it and write a new one.
Have you ever considered setting an annual theme rather than quarterly goals?
> couple of years ago, CGP Grey made a point about replacing the New Year resolution with the New Year theme.
Yeah this year (really: mid December when the work year ended for us) we declared it the Year of Discovery. All it really is, is a thing my wife and I say to each other any time we’re humming and hawing on a purchase or decision or uncertainty on what menu item to pick. It’s kind of become a running joke, and yet it’s pretty effective.
