Life in Tokyo - Spring Festival in Tokyo, Setsubun 節分

Описание: Setsubun (節分) is the day before the beginning of spring in the old calendar in Japan. We went to Zōjō-ji (増上寺) Temple to participate in the celebrations they hold there. It is close to where I lived. It was a beautiful day and there was a lot of people. https://www.zojoji.or.jp/en/

Towards the end priests, city officials and celebrities etc gets up on the podium and throw out snacks, towels and small bags of soy beans etc. People go crazy to catch these items.

Last year the fight for the soy beans got ugly and I cut my hand in a fight over a bag of beans with an old lady. I lost the fight I may add.

During Setsubun you throw out the bad things from the past year and welcome in good luck etc with the new year. You do this by throwing out those soy beans out of your door to get the daemons out of your house. This goes back to ancient times and there is a resemblance in writing of the word for bean, mame, and "devil's eyes" and similarities in pronunciation to "mametsu" which means "to destroy the devil".

When the dust had settled at Zōjō-ji, we had caught enough soy beans, snacks and towels, and we also got a lottery ticked and won a flower. This was a great experience.

When we got home we proceeded with the bean throwing to the best of our abilities. I'm not 100% sure I got it correctly. I did my best!