Happy New Year's Everyone! This was shot at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, so it's only a year or two in the making! Really, I wanted to release at the end of 2022, but I got a bit delayed. あけましておめでとう！今年もよろしくお願いします！
Great video! I've lived in Japan for more than 20 years, and never knew the stories behind the traditions. Thanks! Oh, also, I find the harsh fluorescent lighting inside many Japanese homes to be cold, sterile, and depressing. It feels like being stuck in a Kmart or institutional hospital. Since Japan has done so much to advance LED lighting, I am hoping this will slowly disappear. As a fellow foreigner, I wonder if it bothers you too?
I'm halfway through the video and i just had to comment what a great channel this has been. So much substance presented so neatly without a hint of the standard YT obnoxiousness or sensationalisation. Stuff like this is what Youtue was made for.
for a time youtube was like this, you made solid great vids and you would show up in a massive list of trending videos under watever category you fall in. Now quality of videos arent as important, instead taking advantage of this new algorithm is whats important so instead of quality we get quantity. Then to make it worse the algorithm traps people into these never ending echo chambers and no new creators or content ever reach you because the algorithm will only server you content you like.
I live in Minnesota USA. This is 15 years ago. A Japanese couple moved into our apartment building, I met them through a monthly meet your neighbors' group. It was early November and I always held a Thanksgiving for friends. I decided to write them a formal invitation. I can not believe how kind they were on the appearance of my crap calligraphy. They attended and by the next year, we had become friends. We exchanged food culture on a regular. When I learned about the New year tradition I asked if we could do it. They agreed, being in the USA we would have to make almost everything by hand, we had planned early enough for Keiko's mother to send us some key components. I will never forget the distress on Kay's face when she asked where my rice cooker was. Oh, how we grow. I now dance almost 5 days a week to the sound of my rice cooker. We spent so many hours making everything right we worked for three days and mostly we made food for just a few bites for each thing. It was worth ever moment.
A few other Japanese New Year's traditions I can think of are: 1. Fukubukuro: "Lucky bags" sold by retailers that contain an assortment of mystery items, usually sold for 50% or more off. 2. Emperor's New Year greeting from the palace balcony. 3. Eating kagami mochi on New Year's Day.
Another certified banger. As a person who comes from multiple generations of postal workers, it warmed by heart to see all of those carriers on their motorbikes launch off in ceremonial fashion. This video was so blessed. Hapy New Year everyone- this one is gonna be a great one: I can feel it.
I am Black from the US, and on New Year's Eve I was saying to friends that I grew up in a household that cleaned on NYE because we weren't allow to do so on New Year's Day -- they all never heard of this tradition. I wondered it is just a US Southern tradition, but it is good to see that other cultures do the same. Happy New Year!
I’m Black from the UK, and my family have the same tradition. Not allowed to wash hair on NYD either as its bad luck. Everything got done by NYE. I have Chinese friends that have similar traditions/superstitions. Funny how similar and different some cultures are about some things
In our home in Kenya, we'd do our "annual general cleaning" on the 23rd or 24th. I kinda miss those days now 😃. Ps: I think many other homes did general cleaning before Christmas to prepare for large family gatherings on Christmas Day.
Similar customs too from a Filipino-American household. Get everything done by the new year, cleaning house and even making sure you yourself are fresh and showered, and when the new year comes, everything is clean and sorted and you don't do any work, or cut hair, or clean house after. It's so awesome how there's this similar set of traditions across the world and cultures. We all have the same idea!
I'm from Spain. My mother's family (also Spanish) have had the routine of cleaning on New Year's and I have inherited that tradition. When I ask in other parts of Spain if they do the same, they look at me strangely (idk why). It's nice to see that in other countries this is also done.
10:29 The dog barking was hilarious Im so glad I found this channel, its very neat seeing the Japanese customs on certain events all neatly packed into a documentary/vlog-esque video! I hope your new years goes just as well as the 2022 one!
Hey, dogs are part of the pack. When the pack celebrates, they want to be in on it. 😉 They know what's going on. That "woof" was perfectly suited to the situation.
Quite comprehensive and informative. I always fancy the way Japanese people celebrate New Year. I hope one day I will be there to have a first-hand experience of the celebrations. Happy new year to all of you in advance. 🎉
Hahaha, I cried at the countdown in the temple. Man there's something about the quality and the candid feel of the documentary. makes me feel like I'm really there, with the added bonus of not inconveniencing anyone or appearing, disconnected by having the video explain whats happening Great work as always! Looking forward to seeing more!
New Year's Eve in our family. We have a family dinner around 5 pm and go to bed at 8 pm. A good night's sleep brings in the best New Year's blessings. No one is on the road driving and worried about drunk drivers or accidents. Everyone is home, safely tucked away in their own beds. The doors are locked and everyone we love is safe inside.
From Brazil here, Japanese descendant family, most converted to some form of Christianity all over... but up until I was younger, the tradition of getting the family together on new years' eve was kinda kept, in the way Japanese descendent families in Brazil kept it going somehow. So the separation was, x-mas to be spent with your smaller nuclear family or perhaps the family of members that are not of Japanese descent, but new years had to be with the larger Japanese side of the family. xD I never went to big new years' parties or to see fireworks shows because of that. Some of my cousins when they reached adulthood just managed to convince their families to skip to celebrate elsewhere, but at least some portion of the family was always there with our larger group. I imagine what we do is closer to what traditions were during the time my grandparents and grand-grandparents immigrated to Brazil, few years before WWII, so it looks nothing like modern Japanese customs, but getting the family together was a thing. Up until my grandparents generation, we used to still see things like Kamidana, and a few more traditional things. We didn't have osechi, but it was a huge collection of dishes that mixed Japanese stuff with local and that of other traditions... I think early on Japanese immigrants tried to adapt and remake a ton of Japanese dishes using local ingredients which results in this mess of different things. xD Someone makes nabemono, someone else makes mochi, someone cooks fish, some pork dish, someone orders or makes a bunch of sushi, and then you have an assortment of Brazilian dishes and other stuff so that people who dislike Japanese food had something to eat... xD It was always all over the place. I remember back when I was a kid a few older relatives still gave otoshidama to kids of the family, but this also kinda died off and got mixed up with different traditions over the years... we also had Secret Santa style gift givings, years we did Bingo games and other types of games, plus a bunch of other different stuff. But the family gets older, the festivities get shorter, and things change. One aunt of mine, the one we usually stay at, still does Ozoni in the first day of the year... but it's mostly me, my mom and her that enjoys it, most of the family either don't like, or cannot eat (case of my uncle who is allergic to everything sesame seed related... super unfortunate considering almost all Japanese dishes use sesame seeds, or sesame seed oil xD ). He's from Italian descendency though, so it's not like he cared all that much about Japanese food already. xD Anyways, this will no doubt end in my generation. Most of the cousins my age or younger already don't care much about participating in all of this, most of them don't know the significance of most of these things, and most families of my parents' generation didn't care much about pushing, enforcing, and keeping Japanese traditions that came from their parents and whatnot... it just got so diluted and bastardized over the years that it simply doesn't make much sense. It's also the case like I said that most Japanese descendent families ends up going towards some form of Christianity, so there is little left of traditions rooted in Shinto and Buddhist origins. There are some stuff that I experienced as a kid that I only came to understand and realize where it was coming from after I got older and the Internet was here... xD Over the years, the larger entire family broke apart, got separated, moved to different parts of the country or even abroad, and started celebrating new years and x-mas with family that is closeby. When I was a kid, we used to get together in either some rented place, a big farmhouse of some relative, or something similar because it used to be a huge group of 50+ people. Particularly when my grandparents were still alive, the larger family got together around them... because from my dad's side, it was 11 between brothers and sisters, and from my mom's side was 9 between brothers and sisters. So, huge extended family. But most of them only had one or two kids. After my grandparents died and each portion of the family moving away to different corners of the country, it just made it harder to justify traveling long hours to get together... kids got older, lots of them didn't adopt Japanese traditions, and so things starts diluting away. Before the pandemic we were getting closer to less than 20 people groups.... during the pandemic the core group was reduced to less than 10 I think. We weren't there because it's a long trip away, so I ended up celebrating me and my mom only. :P My mom and dad were the son and daughter that moved to a different state after graduation, so it has always been us to travel to the grandparents state... so from when I was baby up to now end year celebrations has always meant 16 hour trips by car or bus to visit relatives. Anyways, just to give an idea how things are from my pov, and perhaps the experience of lots of Japanese descendant families. Some traditions were kept as much as possible for a couple of generations or so, but it's likely not lasting much longer than this. Well, apart from some of my cousins that got back to Japan and formed families there... xD
Very interesting mix of traditional Japanese, commercial and Western influences. In Europe, the end of year celebrations have lost a lot of their religious meaning, as people are not so religious anymore. But Christmas is still a time spent mainly with family and old friends, it is often the occasion to gather several generations. The New Year is more open to friends and new relationships. In France and Italy, good food is the main ingredient of any successful celebration and everyone kisses on the cheeks while drinking champagne to celebrate the end of the year. I wish you and your talented director a happy new year full of interesting new videos :D
funny here in the netherlands it the same only you open the champagne (or other bubble wine) at the start of the new year. as close after the 0:00 as possible.
Happy New Year to you and your family! As always, I really love watching your documentaries because they cover so many subjects, from "classic" to more "obscure" ones and it's always done so well. Thank you for you hard work! This one was full of nice anecdotes and i'm always happy to see Akko too, she's so fun C: This seems like such an eventful period in Japan! All those things seems tiring indeed, but also kinda nice? Like it's a huge change of pace that really feels like it's marking the passage to a new year :D I live in France and i feel like it's more... laid back? In a good way tho, like you'll find people who will celebrate the New Year by chillin at home alone, some gather with friends and have a party, others gather in restaurants or pubs... One thing that i like, living in a city, is when we hit the end of the countdown, you can run to your window to scream "BONNE ANNÉE !!!" with the neighbouring strangers XD But yeah, you can celebrate the New Year as you feel like and it's fun to change from year to year! C:
This is by far the best video on Christmas and New Years in Japan I’ve seen so far. As a fellow Canadian who’s lived in Japan for over 20 years now, I can vouch that everything in here fits my own experience. (Coincidentally, I recently uploaded a video with the SAME title, but then thought, “wait, that’s what Greg would name it”, and so I changed the title, knowing my own shallow content couldn’t compete with whatever masterpiece Greg was eventually going to come up with on the topic. And here it is…) Thanks for what you do, man. 🍻
I cried more than once during this video because of how beautiful and unique Japanese culture is! Everything they do has meaning and all their celebrations go back hundreds of years! I would love to see a video about what the Japanese think of the Emperor.
Love your videos. Feel like I am really seeing and experiencing Japanese life. I was born in Japan (Odawara) but was brought to the US before I was 2 years old (1951 or 1952). Grew up with my father's parents. I have been back to Japan twice; 1st time to meet my mother and some family members, second trip was to once again to visit my mother before she passed away. Most time I am grateful that my father brought me to America. Not being 100% Japanese, I have heard would have been tough in Japan during the years after WW2. Maybe not so much today? Anyway, when I watch videos like yours, I miss very much, not growing up "Japanese". I love the culture, the life style, the food, the people, the everything about Japan. I should have moved to Japan when I was young, single and able to do so. Happy New Year to all!
"First video of the year!" Thank you for giving us this insight, it's been a real journey! It's interesting to see where formality and tradition meets the practicality of a new age. Much luck to you and your family in the coming year!
I'm hispanic so we are so fond of our 12 grapes to start de year tradition. We all also show up pretty dressy at grandma's house hehe. It is cute to see how new year is celebrated in other places around the world.
YES! _This_ is what I wanted to see/learn more about! Nice one, Greg! Thanks for all your hard work, and wishing you and yours a happy, and prosperous New Year.
Great channel! I live in Japan and this was my first year spending Oshogatsu with my wife’s family. we visited Koshkiwa jinja near our home and Kashiharajingu in Nara for Oshogatsu, both amazing experiences. I wish I had watched your video before Christmas and New Years. I was stunned at the enormous crowds I saw at KFC. My wife’s family has always put out quite a large Christmas display in front of their home. One year the electric deers ($600 USD) were stolen and later they saw them for sale on ebay. Always love your videos, Thank you, Akemashta Omedeto Gozaimasu!
I knew about various practices but seeing a lot of them all rolled into a video really gives a charming feeling to how everyone over there spends the new years.
Wow, this video was excellent and extremely interesting. It is fascinating to see all the different traditions that Japan has compared to what I'm used to in Italy. Thank you for posting it and happy new year!
Thank you so much. This has been incredibly insightful and informative. I've learned so much from this one video. And thanks also for sharing your gorgeous family and their time with us.
Damn this is so similar to Russian NYE. Making lots of dishes beforehand, family watching old, traditionalistic, oversaturated tv shows, religious gatherings, bells ringing in the last minutes, tangerines!!! Why is it SO similar? Also: believing you will spend the year the way you celebrate it, nobody working for the next few days
I'm from Norway and I usually spend New Year's Eve with family. I roast a turkey with side dishes and we invite family or friends over for a quiet evening. We go out a bit before midnight to watch the fireworks. My city is lucky, we have a volunteer group that does a proper firework show and it is always amazing to watch. The younger people tend to party, but I was never a fan of doing that.
Wow, just wow. I've watched plenty of your videos but this one is by far my favorite. This video had my complete attention from start to finish.. For me at least it seemed like all the family members were so at ease & unguarded with their comments. The Japanese history lesson was also pretty darn cool as well. I plan on watching it again next holiday season. Thanks for all the hard work putting this together.
whenever people describe christmas eve as calm and peaceful it always surprises me because mexican christmas eve is the busiest day of the holiday! you spend the whole night having lots of food and partying or spending time with relatives and such. for us, christmas day is the calm day. as a mexican-american, our family has this tradition on new year’s eve where as we watch the times square ball drop, (although no longer live due to timezone) we prepare bowls of grapes and try to eat as many as we can when it becomes midnight to have good luck! i later learned this is traditionally a spanish tradition, not a mexican one, but it’s still quite fun! as much as it is a lot of work to have so much to do around new years, it sounds just as fun as it does stressful to prepare! i think i wouldn’t mind giving a busy holiday new year event a chance instead of the more laid-back and uneventful one we have here.
11:25 That part about the significance of red and white was my favorite part of the video, it's really really interesting! I knew the word 赤ちゃん for baby, but I thought it's because babies are usually quite red after being born. I had no idea about the deeper meaning!
In my family we clean before any major holiday, from NYE to Easter Sunday to Christmas Week etc. We make sure the home is ready a few days before the actual day, as we receive visitors & gifts (and we visit others). People don't really visit each other on the day but stay & celebrate with their household. Lots of church attendance too for every holiday. We cook dishes from my home country but we always have a bucket of KFC (every holiday! lol). A week or two before the day, the Community holds a Christmas then NY fireworks. Congratulations on your first company bonenkai. 🎉🍻 I wish for you, your family & friends to have a prosperous & successful year. A special thank you to those who helped you by sharing their stories & examples. This is one of the few and best videos of NY's in Japan.
WHEN I LIVED THERE over 50 years ago the mochi for New Years was fried crisp on the outside and gooey inside with a very sweet teriyaki glaze. Soooo good
I loved Japanese New Year's Eve so much the year I was there that I ate soba and watched my VHS of the Kohaku every New Year's Eve for the next 10 or so years after.
Excellent video, thank you so much for making this! I was in Japan for three weeks last month, and left on Christmas day. So I was not there to experience the New Year. This video really touched me, as I love Japanese culture so much. And you are so great at explaining things. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much, Greg! You insipired me to aspire moving to Japan which I was more and more doubtful about in the past couple of months... but after watching this video I got reminded why I want to try living in Japan. Seeing your family sitting together and grandpa writing those beautiful cards made me tear up... so amazing, thank you!
Thank you for showing New Year's tradition in Japan, amazing, very nice to see! In Poland we have something similar in a way but during Cristmas. There is a lot of food preparation for days and weeks ahead of the Chistmas because we have to prepare 12 dishes for entire family for the Christmas dinner. Some of the dishes vary between the region as well as family's own tradition but they are always special since we mostly prepare them just once in a year just for Cristmas. Before we eat we wish each one the best wishes for the entire year and we share a special piece of flatbread with each person. I love the smell because much of the food is made with mushrooms we pick in forests during the year :) A funny coincidence, we also have red and white as our national colours :) Again, great video, thank you for sharing this story! Best wishes for you and yout family!
In Chinese tradition we don’t clean on New Year’s Day bc we believe it will sweep away all the good luck, so right before or the day after New Years we do the deep clean, I love hearing different cultures New Years traditions! All these rituals makes the day even more special and significant, especially culturally significant
I live in Oklahoma USA. in my family New Year’s Eve we eat black beans and ham hock with a side of corn bread. my family will stay up wait until New Years to shoot off fireworks. We’ve always done it this way it’s interesting how unique everyone traditions carry on!. Happy New Years from a okie 🫘 🎆 🎉
My man Greg putting out a banger of a video this early into the year! I wish everyone behind this channel a happy New Year. May you all have a thin long life! p.s. kinda sad the era of Kouhaku Utagassen competing with Downtown 24-Hour Batsu Game for NYE air time is over. But that's how it goes. Things move on. p.p.s. Now it makes sense why in manga and anime the characters laze around under the kotatsu at New Years Day.
One thing I grew up with was trying to stay up until midnight to watch the ball drop in Times Square on TV and the clocks change then to play Auld Lang Syne. With the Internet now we'll go on Facebook and wish everyone a Happy New Year before bed. I do try to clean as much as possible before New Years. It feels amazing to have a clean house that first week of the new year to start fresh.
I'm from the south in the USA and many of the end-of-year traditions are familiar, like cleaning and making certain meals. We always have greens and black-eyed peas. We always spend the days leading up to New Year's day cleaning. I try not to do anything on New Year's except relax and hang out with family. Hope everyone had a great New Year's day and hope you have a wonderful year.
Great video, I'm from Vietnam and I can see how similar our cultures are, as we also have new year's cleaning and cooking preparation. I hope to see more videos from you this year as well. Happy new year!
This was really great, I really appreciated this. I don't really celebrate new years. I'm not very social and I don't like crowds. But this year I did go to the local fireworks on new years day with a friend.
Great documentary as always and Happy New Year!!! On March 1st in Bulgaria there's a tradition for the Baba Marta (grandmother Marta) Day where you gift small bracelets or adornments made of yarn with red and white colors! It's linked to the blossoming of the spring!
This was a _great_ video Greg, I learned so much. I'm glad David was featured in another video as well, I also appreciated the more casual shots in this video. Happy New Year to you and your family!
Its amazing to see someone taking the effort to write new year cards by hand. There's so much prep leading up to a traditional new year. That bell ringing gusto~ I noticed there's no fireworks.
Here in Spain there is also a big Christmas lottery, and there are always huge lines of people on the lottery stores that are believed to have the most winning chances. Superstitions are similar all around the world! :)
Wow! What a great video! It makes me rethink the way I spend my new years day here in Canada. Which is basically doing nothing. I did spend new years eve reviewing the past year of my life. And I also watched the French review shows bye bye and infoman. I miss the English review shows.
Thank you! I felt like I was visiting friends for the holiday. It gave me such great info and perspective on the New Year in Japan. Happy New Year to you and your family!
My birthday is Christmas eve. I went with my friends to eat dinner in oosaka for my birthday and across the street was KFC. I remember thinking "Why in the world is there a super long line to KFC of all restaurants?". To this day this is one of the traditions in Japan that don't make much sense to me.
As a fellow Canadian, I am very, very thankful I found your amazing channel! 🇨🇦 💖💕 But my first instance of the importance of cleaning for January 1st was from Catherine Cookson's novels (Yorkshire, England) years and years ago. 💖💕
I like how everyone does a big clean as a family before the new year. I wish this was more of a thing in North America, because I think it could be really fun if the whole family got involved, and then we’d have sparkling clean homes to enjoy.
