Dec 22 (SBS) - In Japan, New Year celebrations begin on the evening of 31 December with a simple bowl of soba noodles in dashi broth and the ringing of a gong.
Nobuyuki Ura, the former head chef of Sushi-e, tells SBS Food, "We eat soba noodles to say thank you for the year. While we're eating, we can hear the monks at the local temple hitting the gong 108 times, from 10pm until midnight.
In Buddhism, it's said that people have 108 undesirable mental states known as kleshnas. Ura-san explains, "The monks hit the gong 108 times to try to remove the passions from the body."
However, times have changed and many young people now prefer to attend parties rather than stay at home and eat. Although, Ura-san says the father usually determines who can go out.
"If the father is very strict, he will say to the kids, 'you have to stay home and eat noodles with us'. Then everyone sits around a table that has a heater underneath. In the winter it's so cold in Japan. Everyone puts their legs under the warm table and eats hot soup."
On New Year's Eve, some people will go to the temple to pray for good fortune in the coming year.
"You go throw a coin to the shrine, and pray for family, health or growth, or even that your kids get to go to a nice school."The next three days are for rest, which is hard earned for whoever spent days preceding New Year preparing the osechi-ryori, traditional Japanese New Year food that dates back to the Heian period.
"It's usually the mum who makes the osechi, but in my family, it was my grandfather. He was a politician, but he loved to make food as a hobby. It's a big reason why I became a chef," he says.
Osechi comes in a partitioned wood box called a juubako, which is similar to a bento box.
The boxes come stacked in two or three layers and in theory, should contain enough food to last for the three days of rest.
