Food, names, and magic

A lot of the foods eaten as osechi have names that tie them in with good wishes.

• Kinton, one word for sweet potato, can also mean block of gold.
• Kuromame, black beans, includes the word mame, which means working hard, which presupposes health and leads to wealth.
• Kobumaki, rolled konbu, includes kobu, which means pleasure. 
• Kachiguri, dried chestnuts, sounds a bit like katsu, which means victory.
• and so on.

Of course, black beans are eaten throughout the year, konbu is eaten in some form almost every day by many Japanese, and sweet potatoes are certainly an everyday food. It's only at New Year's that the food takes on this special significance. That's because of the magic of names. Japanese, after all, avoid using one one of the standard ways to pronounce the word four because that word, shi, sounds like the word for death.

Words have power. Words are magic. They invoke the nature of the thing they refer to, and by extension, what may seem like a pun, "Let's eat some good luck now," is actually a magical activity. That's why people's names are so important, and not just in Japan. As an elementary school teacher, I've always been very careful to pronounce students' names "properly" -- that is, the way they want them to be pronounced. If you mangle a person's name, you are doing violence to the person, the essence, the self-image of that person. Some people have taken to referring to President Obama as Omoslem. That's their way of insulting him, to tie his name to a religion that they apparently despise and consider un-American.

With food at New Year's in Japan, this sort of association makes eating a religious activity very similar to the practice of visiting shrines and buying omikuji. You buy a random inscription of good or bad luck and, if it's bad (for example shō-kyō, small curse 小凶) you fold up the paper and tie it to a pine tree which will be growing, handily, next to the place you get the slip of paper. That's because the word for pine tree is matsu, which is also the verb wait, so you're magically hoping the bad fortune will wait by the pine tree and not follow you in the new year.


It's magic. So, in these last few days, we've been stuffing ourselves with happiness (kobu), victory (katsu), and especially wealth (kinton). It's tasted good. But now we have to get busy (mame) and walk off those calories, without losing all that good fortune. Wish us luck!