towel brush koinobori

This big-eyed blue fish is my latest koinobori etegami. Koinobori are carp-shaped windsocks that are flown from flag poles for Children's Day Festival, symbolizing parents' hopes that their children (especially sons) will grow up to have perseverance, strength, and courage. I used a "towel brush" instead of the standard writing brush for the lines in this one. A towel brush is made by fastening a bit of terrycloth towel around the tip of a chopstick. It has the advantage of being hard to control and gives me the awkward lines I love so much. The writing says: "The Word of the Lord is my Lifeline"

Below, you can see two more koinobori etegami out of the many I've painted in past years:

full of beans

The news and variety shows on Japanese TV today are all showing video clips from the Coming of Age Day (Seijin no Hi ) ceremonies that are being held over the long weekend in cities and wards across Japan. Seijin no Hi is a Japanese holiday held annually on the second Monday of January to celebrate young people who have reached, or will reach, the age of majority (20 years old)  between April 1st of the old year and March 31st of the new year.

Turning 20 in Japan means that young people may legally smoke, drink alcohol, and marry without permission from their parents-- and it also means that if they commit crimes, the law will judge them as adults, without the various protections allowed to minors.

Unfortunately, publicly-held Coming of Age ceremonies are not infrequently disrupted and ruined by drunken and disorderly 20-year-olds. Most years I grumble about the current coming-of-age generation and-- fairly or not-- I lament the plummeting manners and sense of "kids these days."

Today, however,  I am drawn to how full of beans these rambunctious ceremony-disruptors are. By April, how many of them will be wearing suits and grimly kowtowing to their bosses in personality-stifling work environments? How many of them will be able to hold on to their mischievous inclinations and channel them into socially constructive endeavors?

Today I find myself blessing the newly-20 year-olds, hoping with all my heart that they will survive and thrive and deliver way more than anyone ever expected.

let them eat grass

It's customary in Japan to eat a rice porridge called nanakusa-gayu (literal translation: seven-grass rice porridge) on January 7th, the Festival of Seven Herbs. You can find a chart that lists which seven "grasses" (herbs) go into the porridge at this Wikipedia link, which also explains that "The seventh of the first month has been an important Japanese festival since ancient times. The custom of eating nanakusa-gayu on this day, to bring longevity and health, developed in Japan from a similar ancient Chinese custom, intended to ward off evil. Since there is little green at that time of the year, the young green herbs bring color to the table and eating them suits the spirit of the New Year."

Yesterday it became clear that my husband had come down with a serious chest cold, so I made a thin version of a smooth green vegetable soup I often make for him. And since it also happened to be the day of the Festival of Seven Herbs, I made a game out of including exactly seven green plants in the soup.  Specifically: spinach, shiso leaves, parsley, green onions, celery, broccoli, and iso-nori (a laver-like seaweed that grows on rocks), all blended into a base of chicken broth. It isn't seven-herbs rice porridge, but it's really quite tasty.