I’ve talked about New Years in Japan before and the traditional four hour long singing competition between the girls and boys on NHK, Kouhaku Uta Gassen 紅白歌合戦, but this was a little bit special as the girls had a ringer on their team…someone who could sing!
Ms Susan Boyle.
(Apologies for any j-pop fans, but lets face it the girls team are generally awful but very cute, whereas the boys team tend to pull in a few singers along the way).

Susan Boyle and Kimutaku (from SMAP)

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Post tags: Monkey Magic, New Years, NHK, Shingo Katori, SMAP, Susan Boyle, Takuya Kimura

So, I’ve covered Christmas in Japan, now on to the big holiday here, New Years. On Christmas Day, no-one said “Merry Christmas” or anything but there’s a whole range of phrases and rules with New Years!

It’s a big holiday, and everyone gets at least 3 days off, though most companies give a week, even Nova when I worked there would close down for a week (they never closed for any other National Hoidays, not even Golden Week).

Leading up to New Years companies have “Bonenkai” which is forget the year parties.
Involving much food and drinking.
As with most celebrations and holidays in Japan there are special foods you should eat. On New Years Eve itself you have soba.

New Years Soba

Mochi

© Silentjim for Balloon Shapes By Cops, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AKB48, Gackt, Morning Musume, New Years, SMAP, Tokyo Tower