Year of the Boar

My sainted trousers, this porcine year is in full swing and there has not even been an oink from my end (although my telephonic blue pig has given the occasional squeak)! My days have been devoted to snuggling under the kotatsu, reading the myriad books received from far-flung friends, and swotting over the Nihongo. Pictured is the New Year arrow that I purchased in Kyoto at the Heian Shrine in early January. It is now mounted in our hallway. During 2008's New Year celebrations, we must take the arrow to a shrine, where it will be burned, and buy a new arrow for that year.



The decorations used for New Year are most cheerful and jolly. The above picture shows a rope decoration at Ryoanji in Kyoto. Many householders adorn their front door with a wreath of twisted rope, draped with pine or other branches, and usually an orange is placed in the centre of the arrangement (or an ornament of the New Year animal or creature). Cars are blessed by Shinto priests to protect them and their occupants on the roads during the new year. So it is that small wreaths or festive branches are often hung upon the front grill of cars. At first it can be a puzzling sight to see a squashed orange on the road, its innards smushed into a pine branch and rope, then it dawns on one that a blessed car has dropped its wreath in its hurried transport to its destination. Back in Oz, hubcaps lay abandoned kerbside, but here, at the beginning of January, it is oranges and rope.



These bamboo arrangements are also a common sight at New Year. They flank the entrance of shrines, hotels, gardens and shoppes. Cut bamboo, pine branches and bright red berries are the main components. They evoke feelings of winter cheer, and whenever I see them, I hope for snow.