Since the first dawn, man has marked the passage  of time, by the hour, by the day or by the season.

There is a beginning and an ending.

A time  to cast away the old and a time to renew.

Narrator: Such is the time of the New Year.

Oshogatsu.

December the Japanese call it shiwasu,  the month of man running.

An appropriate description of the time when life speeds  up with shopping for the perfect gift, planning family gatherings  and holiday celebrations.

Christmas decorations hang overhead in a Honolulu  shopping center, as people look for presents.

But tucked here and there are other signs of another  season yet to come, New Year oshogatsu, as celebrated by Americans of Japanese ancestry.

For  the western culture, Christmas is a special time.

Barbara Stephan: Christmas is a family holiday where the most important thing is  for the family to get together.

There's a lot of intimacy and shared experiences.

Whereas  in this country, our Christmas is that way, but our new year is just a party with  drinking and having a good time.

In Japan, it's the opposite.

Christmas has become rather  popular as a party, but it's New Year's that has the important family feeling people want to get  together and be together restarting the new year.

(mochi pounding) George Tanabe, Jr.

: So here is renewal.

We've gone through the whole cycle of four seasons.

We've gone through the whole cycle of one whole year.

We're a year older now.

We're a year  closer to the end of our lives.

It's time for rest.

It's time for reflection.

It's  time for making different commitments, or renewed commitments, to do the New  Years better than we did the last year.

(temple blessing) Reiko Mochinaga Brandon: My grandmother used to say, the New Year  is actually the time to get together with the gods and our ancestor’s spirit.

She said,  she used to say, lure them in and feed them, entertain them and keep them happy until  they depart, and hope they will come back next year.

Otherwise, we're going to have a  problem.

I remember my mother used to say, we've got to clean our house from top to  bottom, otherwise the God wouldn't descend.

So, we have to clean our house, really very  hard.

And I used to hate that period, but I tell a lot of people now, I remember that  the feeling when you finish cleaning the house, you know the fresh air in the house, sparkling  shoji screens and fresh tatami mat smelling like spring flowers.

It's just wonderful.

You can't  help thinking that something wonderful will come.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: But then, of course, so much of it depends upon many factors that are out of our  control, and therefore New Year's becomes a time for giving us reasons for expecting that things  will happen well, things will come out well.

And New Year's is really a time which we we engage  in all kinds of actions to give us good luck.

(Speaking in Japanese) Narrator: The removal of the collected debris  of one year is more than a physical housecleaning.

It is the eradication of the  old, the mistakes, the regrets and evil.

Rev.

Daiya Amano: When the month of December begins as concluding the previous year.

That is the beginning of the preparation for the new year.

The first of such preparation is what we  call susu harai, year and dusting.

At this event, with dust off our house and the shrine, the  dust that has accumulated without notice.

Narrator: The priests at the Izumo Taisha Mission, a Shinto shrine in Downtown Honolulu, use  brooms of bamboo, revered for its green color in the winter and its flexibility.

The Izumo Taisha  Mission was established in Honolulu when the first Shinto priest, Reverend Katsuyoshi Miao, was sent  in 1906 to care for the immigrant worshippers.

This present building was built in 1923.

The  shrine was rebuilt and rededicated in 1968.

Rev.

Daiya Amano: Among the things done as preparation for the new year is to change the shimenawa,  or sacred robes, and to put up the kadomatsu.

Rev.

Daiya Amano: Shimenawa is the marker of the sacred place.

Changing the shimenawa that has  been used throughout the year means to cleanse the area and renew the sacred power.

It also allows  us to cleanse our souls to receive the new year.

Narrator: The Japanese word for paper, kami, also means God.

As a play on words the white paper hanging  from the shimenawa declare this a place of God.

Rev.

Daiya Amano: In order for us to go close to the God, we must begin the preparation early and live  our days differently from usual.

We make the preparations so that on the day of celebration,  we do not have to think the worldly or vulgar thought.

It's important that we receive the  god properly.

That's the day of abstinence.

By separating our spirit from the mundane  world, we are able to receive a good new year.

Rev.

Daiya Amano: So, every year the ceremony is repeated, but it doesn't mean that  the same things are done in the same way every year.

Ceremonies may look the same, but the  soul inside ourselves are renewed each year.

Narrator: While the priests prepare their shrine, shoppers  jam the Japanese owned department store in the Honolulu shopping center.

Decorated with mochi  flower branches, the store offers counters filled with toys and good luck charms for the new year.

In Japan, shoppers would find these things in the street market lined with small booths.

They seek  out the ceremonial foods for the first meal of the year.

Many of these foods have special meanings,  and consuming them will bring good fortune for the following year.

One could have fish cakes colored  in auspicious plum red and bamboo green, or cooked bamboo shoots and lotus roots.

Bean cakes are  offered at home altars, and can imitate sea bream and cherries to please the gods.

Traditionally,  many of these foods would be prepared fresh by the families.

However, one can now purchase ahead,  making the New Year preparations a bit easier.

The shoppers also come to purchase kadomatsu pine  and bamboo arrangements for their doorways.

The kadomatsu, ancient beginning dates from the  11th century, when farmers and families would tie pine boughs to their gates.

Called the gate  pine, the kadomatsu beckons to the gods or kami to come to the household and rest among the needles  during the New Year season, then the kadomatsu would be burned and the god departs, leaving  behind its blessing on the family for another year.

Once simple, pine boughs lashed to gates,  the kadomatsu can now be elaborate arrangements placed in front of businesses in hopes that good  fortune will usher in good trade for the new year.

Narrator: Regardless of the final arrangement, kadomatsu are traditionally made from take or bamboo of  three uneven lengths, matsu, pine boughs and ume, the plum branch.

It is made in proportion to  the gate or doorway.

Called the three friends of winter, these plants are revered by the Japanese  as they symbolize new life coming in the new year.

The bamboo is prized because of its flexibility.

The pine boughs are green all year long,and the plum branch is the first fruit blossom of the  year.

At Temari Center for Asian and Pacific Arts in Kaimukī, people gather in a class to learn  how to make the traditional New Year decoration.

Grace Zukeran: When we were young, the kind of kadomatsu we used to see with  just these bamboo and these pine that you just put it together and just tie it with a  string and against every doorway.

That's kind of but this is really nice that we can  see something different, more artistic.

Narrator: Grace will take back what she has learned to her church  school to teach a younger generation.

Grace Zukeran: We read about it in class and things like that, but I thought we can show a visual demonstration,  or maybe even hands on, it will help them to you know, continue this cultural tradition among  their themselves, or to their future children.

Narrator: Many of these students have seen kadomatsu at craft fairs or in front of local  businesses, but have never made one of their own.

Frani Okamoto: Every New Year's, I personally go through this, you know, kind of  a spiritual cleansing time.

And I just thought, you know, it would be real.

I  think I uh,supportive, you know, for me to learn how to do this and  sort of bless our house as well.

Bud Morrison: If you make one or two runs of tape around the bottom, and that'll hold the hold the  arrangement together so that it'll stand nicely.

Narrator: Bud Morrison has taught the kadomatsu class  for 10 years at the Temari Center.

Bud Morrison: You want to leave one inner node at the bottom so that the rope  won't slide off.

You also want to leave at least one open so that when you make  a puka for your rope, you can reach it, because if you leave the if you leave the  inner node in, you won't be able to get to it.

Narrator: He now sells arrangements to local department stores for their  customers and to local hotels for their lobbies.

Bud Morrison: I think most of the people take the class because they're Japanese  ancestry, and they really want to connect to that tradition.

They want to actually, many, many years  they've had kadomatsu in the house.

You know like, papa said, have kadomatsu, or mama said,  have kadomatsu.

But they didn't exactly know what it was.

So, they want to find out.

They want to put their hands on it themselves.

Narrator: As Morrison shows his students how to make an arrangement,  he gives them a tradition for their very own.

David De Witt: We've been buying kadomatsu for the last 20 years or so, since I've been married to my wife.

And so, we finally said, let's go make our own.

(natural sound) (speaking in Japanese) Kadomatsu wa medo no tabino ichirizu ka.

(instrumental music) Narrator: Waves of foreign workers populated the  islands in the latter part of the 19th century as the sugar industry demanded  more and more workers in its fields.

The planters went to other countries to hire  able bodied men.

Japan was one such country.

Franklin Odo: So, the Japanese get recruited.

There's a small group  that comes in 1868 but the main body of immigrants start arriving in 1885 with a group  that's called the kan yaku I mean the official contract labor groups.

So that group begins to  arrive in sizable numbers, until by 1900 the Japanese are about 40% of the population  in the territory.

What becomes a territory.

Narrator: When the Japanese came to work the fields, they brought  their willingness to work and their families.

Franklin Odo: What happens with the Japanese that's different from, say, the Filipinos  or Chinese who arrive in Hawaiʻi to work in sugar.

There are really couple of unique things about  them.

One is the fact that the Japanese government mandates that a certain minimum percentage be  women, and that generally was one out of five.

So, they had a built-in core group  of people who would be doing foods, dances, you know, that sort of thing, that  the men as a completely male community, you would not necessarily find.

That's one.

The  second is that they come from a country that is rapidly modernizing and militarizing.

Even by  the 1880s Japan is a fairly powerful for a third world country, it's a fairly powerful country.

So, they come with, I guess, what you'd call a great deal of sense of national chauvinism, or  a sense that they are not simply helpless.

So, the customs, I think, are more likely to be  highly regarded and treasured and maintained.

Narrator: Major holidays were celebrated in the Japanese  plantation homes.

Fortunately, Japanese New Year coincided with the Western  New Year Day, and traditions could continue.

It was a day of rest and family.

The fields  would have to wait until the following day.

(natural sound) Narrator: Rice is basic to agricultural Japan.

It means nourishment, wealth and good fortune.

At the time of the year when all good fortune is sought, it is not surprising that sweet mochi  rice is intrinsic to the New Year festivities.

Originally, the new year was a celebration of  spring, the beginning of the planting season, and occurred in February.

In those  days, Japan followed two calendars.

Barbara Stephan: The government or official New Years fell at the new moon, and two weeks after that was the agricultural  New Year's at the time of the full moon.

Narrator: Later, when the Meiji government adopted the Gregorian calendar, New Year fell on the first of  January.

The little New Year, or farmers New Year, koshogatsu, was recognized on January 15.

Although  snows covered the ground, the Japanese experienced a transformation.

Winter was banished, and  thoughts turned to new life and planting rice.

Reiko Mochinaga Brandon: For the Japanese people, the New Year is not really a simple seasonal marker, but  more importantly, that is the psychological and physical transition from an old, polluted, dark,  godless winter to a bright, hopeful spring.

Willa Tanabe: Because these customs come out of a rice culture, an agricultural society  in which we're beginning the cycle.

And New Year's used to be around February, so it was just  about the time when you begin planting the rice, and you produce that whole cycle  right back to the beginning.

So, it's a very good omen to have that rice  right at the very beginning of the year.

Narrator: From the New Year mochi come the makings of a special soup, ozoni and the decorative  Kagami mochi for the home and business.

Families will place these decorations on their cars,  their cash registers and even their computers.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: Because that's the object or the machine that is most important for my  profession.

So, all of this is to recognize the different objects and the different things  that are important in for one's livelihood.

Narrator: Today, people make their mochi in a machine, or by microwave or simply buy it in the store.

But  for a growing number of island families, tradition is honored at this time of year.

(mochi pounding)  As the rice grains come together, so do the extended families of Japanese Americans as they  gather in the yards and driveways to pound mochi.

For a few hours on the Saturday before New Year's  members of the Murakami and Araki family will share stories, eat and make mochi.

The mothers  of Mrs.

Shizue Kawashima and her cousin Rocky Murakami were sisters.

They remember how pounding  mochi became a 60-year-old family tradition.

Takeshi Murakami: When our parents were children in Japan, their parents pound mochi.

And  you know, things like this you cannot get get it out of your system, because it's so wonderful.

So, when they came to Hawaiʻi, and there's lots of people from Japan, you know, they used to  work in a sugar cane plantation, and I guess they must have pounded mochi there too.

I think  it was picture bride, yeah, already got married.

Shizue Kawashima: Your mother was a picture bride.

Yeah?

My mother was cousins.

Narrator: After the Matsui sisters married, they stayed  close.

One way was to bring their families together to pound mochi for the new year.

Murakami  and Kawashima remember their first impressions.

Takeshi Murakami: And I just remember a little bit.

But, you know, we used to have a good time, because  then we could run all over the place.

You know, we were young, yeah, really enjoyed  the older people pounding the mochi.

Shizue Kawashima: Well, there were only five or six of us.

They let us try and make the mochi and taste the  mochi, and that was a very happy memory then.

Takeshi Murakami: Then we're doing it now, and pretty soon we will be advisors, because  all the young people are coming up.

Gotta have coaches around to teach them what's going  on.

Every year they're waiting for this day, this day that we want to pound mochi.

And  all these three-year-olds and four-year-olds, they come around, they're  happy.

They're really happy.

Shizue Kawashima: We have eight in our family, and they have about seven or eight too, and they're all  grown up, and now they have their own family.

So, their families come and pound mochi too.

It used  to be just the family and just the Japanese, and then as the family grew and the next generation  came up, and they have other nationality, spouses.

Takeshi Murakami: Chinese, Filipinos, Haole and Hawaiian, especially Hawaii anyway, all pound mochi.

Every  one of them.

Even the ladies pound mochi too.

Narrator: Clifford Araki, brother to Shizue and cousin to Rocky, has  been supervising the pounding for years.

Clifford Araki: It was always a tradition that it be held at the home of where my mother stayed.

So it was  at our home that we had the mochi pounding before.

This is the day.

Everybody's here.

Shizue Kawashima: Talking to my sister-in-law.

There’s about  40 great grands for my mother.

Narrator: Each family will bring their own rice from home after soaking  it overnight.

When it is the family's turn, their rice will be put into a wooden box  over a hot fire to be softened by steaming.

Although Darryl Kaninau is Hawaiian.

He  is married to Mrs.

Kawashima's daughter, Susie, and has adopted the family  tradition of mochi pounding as his own.

Darryl Kaninau: I'm three-quarter Hawaiian.

I'm a traditionalist.

I like to do things  in old fashioned, traditional way.

And one of the factors that I've done this every year is  because I enjoy seeing people come together, and it's something that we need to keep the  tradition going.

And if I can do that by having this every year at my house and  keep it going, then I know it'll never die.

Narrator: Darryl has taken on the responsibility as host and keeper  of the pounding tools.

He repairs the mallets made from guava wood throughout the day  as people smash them into the stone usu, rather than into the soft rice.

Once the pounding  has done its work and the rice is soft and smooth, it is carried to the carport, where the  ladies wait to shape it.

It is still very hot.

You have to work fast, otherwise it's going to get hard and cold and you won't  be able to manipulate it.

Narrator: The children watch their elders work and learn, thus continuing  this tradition for another generation.

Suzan Kawashima Kaninau: We learn mainly by just observing first my grandmother.

When they used to do all of  this, and it would be that generation that would start.

And as we started, my grandmother would let  us do it.

She would give us pointers.

Because the mochi is real hot, it'll start to it'll work on  your hand right here, where it starts to get red, and after a while, some of the mochi will get  caught on your hand.

And we used to, my sister and I would go and peel it off between batches, just  go ahead and peel it off.

And then we found out from my grandma, don't peel it off, because what  that does is, it's protecting your hand.

And if you peel it off, every time you get a new batch,  what you're doing is burning into your skin even more.

Toward the end of the day, you've got a big  blister and you can't handle the mochi any longer.

(instrumental music) Narrator: Some of the mochi will be placed on  altars.

Others will be filled with sweetened azuki beans for eating, and  others left plain.

After a full day, one important tradition concludes  as the New Year approaches.

Who wants to eat mochi?

(instrumental music) (speaking in Japanese) Shōgatsu juu go nichi no tondo de yaita mochi o taberu to.

Genki ni naru.

Narrator: It is now New Year's Eve.

The houses and  temples have been cleaned, the mochi is made, and the spirituality of the evening takes over.

Rev.

Tetsuo Muneto: Joya-e is New Year's Eve service.

Traditionally, joya-e service, or  New Year's Eve service, is a Buddhist service.

Narrator: During the service, the congregation will chant the sutra, listen to the  messages and prepare themselves for the new year.

Rev.

Tetsuo Muneto: The temple altar is decorated with special clothes, so the altar will look very elaborated.

Then we have flower arrangement.

We use bamboo, pine and plum.

Those three plants signify  good luck, long life and perseverance.

So, these plants are always used for New Year's  Eve service and New Year's Day service, and we also offer mochi, rice cake,  which signify essence of life.

(singing) Narrator: Outside, fireworks mark midnight.

Inside the Honpa Hongwanji Betsuin, the worshippers conclude their service with a  solemn version of Auld Lang Syne sung in Japanese.

Rev.

Tetsuo Muneto: The New Year's Eve service is held so that we are able  to eradicate or get rid of blind desires.

So, in the in the year, nobody is able to live perfectly  without doing anything wrong.

Therefore, Buddhists end of the year try to get rid of the blind  desires or blind passions.

So, we strike temple bell 108 times.

So, 108 signifies a number of the  evils or holes that one might have accumulated.

Narrator: Thousands of miles and hours away in the snowy countryside or crowded  cities, temple bells throughout Japan also ring out the evils of the old year, purifying  the new days to come.

After the service, members of the congregation eat soba, a soup  with buckwheat noodles to ensure good health and longevity in the new year.

Everything done  from midnight of the new year will be done with intention.

The past evils have been dealt  with.

Now it is time to do only the things that will bring good luck.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: In order to understand the religious significance  of all of this, it's necessary to understand that so much of Japanese religion has to do  with the elimination of any kind of chance occurrence.

Chance is frightening.

Chance is  by nature, unpredictable.

Chance occurrence we can define as something that happens for no  reason at all.

What Japanese religion tries to do is to create reasons that will yield  good events, and only good events, and we can call that good luck.

And so much of Japanese  religion is focused upon the making of good luck.

(speaking in Japanese) Narrator: But the night is not yet over.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: Starting the new year on the right foot, free of defilements,  welcoming now a new year that is clean, that is fresh, that is new, is perfectly  expressed by visiting the Shinto shrine.

Narrator: As soon as midnight has struck people line up to make their first visit of  the year to Shinto shrines throughout the islands.

This is called Hatsumōde the New Year's visit to  the shrine.

The worshiper now can express his or her gratitude and ask for protection and blessing  for the new year.

The shimenawa hang over the long lines of visitors.

Banners with new year  greetings fly on the side.

Hands are washed to purify the visitor, physically and spiritually  before climbing the stairs to the altar.

A tug on the bell calls attention to kami and  an offering can be made.

The head is bowed to receive the blessing, the priest uses a gohei,  a wooden wand with special sheets of white paper to purify and bless.

After the blessing, the  worshipers take a cup of sake wine.

In Japan, this would be toso, a rice wine with eight  kinds of medicinal herbs.

Either drink is believed to destroy evil and rejuvenate good  spirits.

Along the stairs are booths filled with ofuda good luck talismans for the  protection of home, family and business.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: And here again, what we're doing is establishing a whole world of causes and reasons  for avoiding the bad and welcoming the good.

Narrator: A wooden arrow placed in the northwest corner of one's home  will ward off the evils.

A safety sticker will protect a car and its occupants.

Small,  colorful amulets, or omamori can be worn or placed in important locations.

Every year, these  charms are purchased and the old ones are burned.

The hatsumori will continue through  the first three days of the new year.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: And I suppose if there's any area of human experience that is  most chancy, it's human relationships.

(instrumental music) George Tanabe, Jr.

: And therefore, New Year's is a  time for renewing relationships, for getting together with people in your family.

(instrumental music) George Tanabe, Jr.

: There is also a very strong sense of gratitude, whether you  like your parents or not, they gave you, life.

They raised you, and it is time to pay your  respects to them, to go to their home, to have the traditional New Year's food, to reassert the basic  fundamental importance of family relationships.

George Tanabe: Start of a new year, you feel that  you're doing something to start the New Year's right, and bring back  some of the traditional doings.

Narrator: George Tanabe and his wife Ethel, prepare foods for the traditional New Year's breakfast for  their family.

Featured dish is ozoni.

Mr.

Tanabe's father immigrated from Japan in the late 1890s  to work in the sugar fields.

Later, he opened a hardware store.

It was Mr.

Tanabe's father  who taught him how to make the special soup.

George Tanabe: In the Japanese family, the parents teach their sons  and daughters, you know.

Narrator: Mrs.

Tanabe's father also came from Japan to farm on Oʻahu.

Ethel met George when she worked as  a hairdresser across the street from his father's hardware store.

The soup has a broth base to  which Mr.

Tanabe adds vegetables and later mochi.

George Tanabe: The mochi is very sticky.

They teach you to  be tenacious.

Don't give up.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: My mother is very quick to point out, of course, that it is  she the night before on New Year's Eve, who has spent a great deal of time chopping  the vegetables, getting everything ready.

Nevertheless, he is the cook, and he is the  one who puts the ingredients into the pot.

Narrator: Other special foods await on the table.

Ethel Tanabe: Every new year, this is what I'm always doing.

The same thing, you know.

This was simple,  you know, very simple food that I prepare.

This is umani.

We call it, you know.

And there's bamboo  shoots, carrots and konbu, you know, all that mixed up.

And then we just put in sugar and shoyu  for aji.

And this is called morimono.

And then this is the sweet potato tempura.

And this is ring  sausage, and this is chikuwa with stuffing that cucumber into the whole there.

And that one is  the sausage.

And this is a black beans, which they say every year.

I mean, the first day we have to  eat the black beans to be healthy.

And you know.

Narrator: Their son, George Junior and his wife Willa arrive with  their son Gen, a visitor from the mainland.

They pass by the kadomatsu and the Kagami  mochi set on the family car.

George's father used to put one on the cash register in the  hardware store.

As this is a day of tradition, even the entrance of George's family into his  father's home is prescribed by his mother.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: Men have preference over women, and age has preference over youth.

And so,  I go in first as the head of my family, and then the question becomes, who follows?

Is it  my wife who is older than my son, or is it my son, who is male?

My mother has determined that  in this case, gender has precedence over age, and therefore my son should enter  second and my wife enters last.

Alright, so we should go offer incense.

Before we  go to the kitchen to sit down and eat, we must go and visit the Buddhist altar to offer  incense and to say a little prayer to all of those members of the family who have passed away.

It's  not that you're worshiping the ancestors as if they're somehow deities.

It really is a matter of  gratitude that because of them, we are here now.

Narrator: At the table, the order of the family's age and gender is  again observed as the sake and ozoni are served.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: Very few families, or very few people that I've asked say that in their families,  the men cook, but in my family, the men cook.

Normally, we think of tradition as something  which we inherit from someone else, or which is widely practiced by other people.

If it's just something that you do yourself, can it be a tradition, or is that just something  that you happen to do by yourself?

My son, therefore has come to the conclusion that we  can define tradition, at least in our family, as being anything that you've done for two  years in a row.

And in a certain sense, it's the creation of a fixed order, the  elimination of any kind of ambiguity as to what it is that we should do.

We know exactly what we should do.

Willa Tanabe: For an outsider at first, it's, of course, very strange and awkward,  because as a sort of ordinary West Coast Haole, all we did at New Year's was sometimes have  a party and then make all these resolutions.

And so, to see New Year's being celebrated  so carefully and with so many complicated rituals seemed to me rather surprising.

George Tanabe, Jr.

: And the way how things should be, of course, is sometimes arbitrarily defined,  but nevertheless, the important point is that it's defined.

Nothing is haphazard.

You know,  nothing is left to chance.

It is all established.

Willa Tanabe: I didn't have that much trouble, but it is somewhat disturbing to know that you're  participating.

You're sort of reaffirming the family, but you're reaffirming a traditional  sense of the family.

So, the grandfather drinks the sake first, and all the men and then all the  women.

And of course, as the daughter in law, I'm always the last one to drink sake.

And  I suppose, as a modern, educated woman, you should say, why am I doing this?

Shouldn't  I be a feminist at this point?

But I think that illusions are very important, and what you  have working here is this illusion of a long, uninterrupted history and the emphasis on  the fact that the family is so important.

And because I believe the family is very important,  I'm willing, on that day to drink sake last.

Did they ever do nana kusa?

You know,  the seventh day have the rice grow, and then seven herbs.

They used to do that?

George Tanabe: They used to up to the time of the war.

Then after that, they during  the war, everything Japanese was prohibited.

So, post war, they didn't go back.

Anybody, care for more mochi?

George Tanabe, Jr.

: I'm modern and American enough to believe that race should not be a  consideration, that ethnicity should not be a consideration in what's important for my  life or my participation in this community.

And what all of this is doing, the pounding  of the mochi, the ozoni, the setting it, going through all of these rituals, offering  incense to the ancestors, is simply a recognition of a very simple fact, namely, that I am  Japanese American.

And that gives me definition, that gives me my place, and that gives me a  point of view, and that gives me a platform on which I stand and from which I move out,  and New Year's is the perfect time to do this, because it allows me to move forward having  reminded myself of where I've come from, who I've come from, the people who have made me who  I am, quite literally, quite physically, made me who I am.

And once a year, is not bad to stop  and to remind ourselves that we are who we are.

Narrator: During the next few days, other ceremonies and  services will take place again, emphasizing the importance of beginning  anew while reasserting old traditions.

(ceremony music) Narrator: The first tea ceremony of the  year is performed with great care.

(pouring tea) (speaking in Japanese) Narrator: Several days later, Reverend Daiya Amano conducts  a Shinto ceremony on the steps of the Honolulu Academy of Arts to bless a new exhibition and  a culmination of years of study and collection.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the exhibition.

Narrator: For many local residents of Japanese ancestry, the exhibition would be like looking into a  mirror and recognizing the roots of something familiar.

Reiko Mochinaga Brandon grew up in a  traditional Japanese household.

As the curator of textiles at the Honolulu Academy, she has staged  several important exhibitions at the academy.

Barbara Stephan was born in Illinois.

Her  interest in Japan began in the mid 1960s when she began studying Japanese crafts and  the Japanese language.

Friends for 10 years, Reiko and Barbara have created  a major exhibition celebrating the traditions and arts of New Year  as it is still recognized in Japan.

Reiko Mochinaga Brandon: This whole thing began with one simple phone call from Barbara about five years  ago.

I still remember one afternoon she called me and she said, are you interesting  at doing an exhibition of shimenawa, sacred robes?

And I thought about it for  five seconds and innocently said, yes.

Narrator: One phone call became an odyssey.

For the following five years, they visited shrines,  museums and country festivals every new year.

Reiko Mochinaga Brandon: There are two very contrasting sides of the Japanese New Year.

One side is religious,  very serious, quiet, intimately private.

This is a time of self-reflection.

The energy sinks inward.

The other side is hedonistic, bright, hopeful, fun seeking.

The energy bursts outside, and this  is a time to go out and have fun.

We divided the exhibition space into three major areas.

The first  area, or first setting, is a quiet shrine setting very realistically built.

Two shrines convey  that particular atmosphere, the Shinto religion.

Barbara Stephan: Because shrine going is actually the most popular activity during the first three days of the year.

There are also examples of the special arrows that you would purchase and take home as talisman to  protect the home, and the ema, the wooden plaques on which you write your wishes for the new year  or your hopes of something good that will happen.

Narrator: Surrounding the shrine are the shimenawa, the sacred ropes.

They are traditionally hung  in front of the house during the New Year.

Barbara Stephan: Basically, you see them in Japanese culture and in other settings because they're markers between  the ordinary human world and the sacred world.

So, you'll see them in front of shrines or around  a tree where there's a sacred presence.

Narrator: The most notable shimenawa hangs overhead,  made from rice straw.

The beautifully crafted rope comes from the Izumo Grand  Shrine in western Japan.

14 feet long, it weighs about one ton.

After the exhibition, it  will be installed at the Izumo shrine in Honolulu.

Reiko Mochinaga Brandon: The second setting is domestic.

Narrator: The country home setting reflects the agricultural origins  of the Japanese New Year once associated with the beginning of spring.

Certain New Year items  still represent farmers' wishes for productivity.

Barbara Stephan: As you move into this explosion of color at the  year-end market, you come across, for one thing, these wonderful red Daruma, which people would buy  at the end of the year and paint in a single eye to signify some aspiration, and paint in the  second eye if their wish came true.

All these would be then returned to a shrine at the end  of the year for burning.

This is all ephemeral.

Narrator: Toys made by artisans throughout Japan delight the child  in all.

And finally, the spectacular Kumari, these bamboo rakes are covered with symbols  of prosperity, wealth and good fortune.

Reiko Mochinaga Brandon: In conjunction with this major show, right at the next door is another exhibition,  essences contemporary view of the new year.

This show features four young women from Kyoto.

This show was organized by the Moo Gallery, and these four young women tried to express the spirit  of the Japanese New Year in contemporary context.

(natural sound) Narrator: One highlight of the exhibition was to  stage a two-day new year's festival with crafts and entertainment, much like the  ones found in the country towns of Japan.

Barbara Stephan: With the festival, we want people to have a chance to see some of the  things that they might be able to see in Japan.

Now, I think even Japanese might be surprised  with some of the things, because you would have to travel or go to rather isolated areas to see  some of the craftsmen who are presenting here.

Narrator: For two days, the Academy turned into a festival featuring  master craftsmen from Japan.

Self-taught Sakuraba Yoshizo will take two days to complete a kite.

Quickly, he outlines the design in black ink.

(natural sound) Narrator: And then fills in with brilliant colors.

(natural sound) Narrator: He has been making kites for 33 years.

He  chooses to depict fight scenes, believing that the vigor and power in these  designs will propel the kite to fly high.

In the days when the New Year was linked to the  advent of spring, Japanese farmers made wooden ornaments to decorate their homes.

Important to  a farming family, large and beautiful, wooden flowers would be made as a prayer to entice good  crops and profitable harvests.

Sakaue Akio has been making wooden ornaments for 25 years, having  learned it from his father.

Today in the region where Mr.

Sakaue lives, the major New Year's  is celebrated with ornaments made of pine and straw.

The little New Year is distinguished with  decorations of silk cocoons and shaven flowers.

Then they will be burned in a special ceremony  in early February.

One popular thing to do at New Year is to purchase ema a votive plaque at a  temple or shrine.

On the back, people will write their wish for the new year, such as acceptance  into a university, luck in love, success in business, or even a better golf score.

The plaque  is placed where the message will do the most good.

Like many other Japanese craftsmen, Tonomura  Aichi paints ema because his father did.

He believes that by painting ema, he will continue to nurture the traditions that  the Japanese still cherish.

(natural sound) Narrator: Mr.

Hashimoto Hiroji makes paper-mache  masks and dolls using Kabuki figures and lucky characters such as the God of wealth,  the god of good fortune and the daruma.

The molds are 100 to 200 years old and carved  by hand and passed on from father to son.

His family has made paper-mache mask  items for 300 years.

Mr.

Hashimoto is a 17th generation to carry on this craft,  and is teaching his young son at home.

(natural sound) Narrator: Mr.

Hashimoto treats the audience to an impromptu dance.

Local musicians join in to provide all  day entertainment in the center courtyard.

(taiko drumming) (music playing) Narrator: They are joined by Terasawa Masaji, a one-man band who delights the audience  by carving out animals out of soft candy.

Over in the academy Art Center, children paint  glue and create their own New Year handiwork.

Reiko Mochinaga Brandon: It starts with a kind of slow, powerful beat, and gradually it  picks up the rhythm, and at the end, bam, like a big drum explodes with  hundreds of colors and forms and lines.

(taiko drumming) George Tanabe, Jr.

: One of the important things that cultures  and traditions do is insist upon repetition, that we do it because we've always done it, and if  you don't do it, then something is being lost.

And young people very often question, why do we have  to do this?

Why do we have to drink the sake?

Why do we have to make the ozoni?

Why do we have to  pound the mochi like this?

Wouldn't it be easy to just buy a machine, or wouldn't it be easier to  just buy the mochi?

Why do we go through this?

And the answer very often is, I don't know.

I don't  know why we do this, except that we did it last year and the year before.

Traditions remind us of  something that is very old, something that we've done.

Maybe we don't even know why we've done  it, but it's simply important to keep doing it in that way.

That's an important side of ritual  and tradition.

And at the same time, it is also important to invent and to create new traditions  or to modify old traditions and to do things that have never been done before.

And in this fashion,  traditions continue to survive.

They continue to live, even though they've been brought over to a  very far away place in a very different culture.

Narrator: From the dark of midnight, time moves away from the debris of the  former year to the bright new dawn with the wishes of a new year with all of its  possibilities.

It is time for renewal, for physical and spiritual transformation.

It is oshogatsu, Japanese New Year.

(instrumental music)