New Year's Feast: New year in Japan is more like Christmas in Australia, it is a time for families to get together and celebrate. In the centre of the table in the photo above is a typical (at the time) New Year set, which you could buy from Supermarket containing, prawns, cray fish, lotus root, and other good things to eat. Next to the New Year set there are glasses of sake (rice wine) and miso soup with tofu in it.
Everybody gathered together for the New Year's meal and we all watched the New Year's concert on TV. It was this New Year's concert that I first heard the Japanese pop singer Namie Amuro and her song "Can You Celebrate?". I became a fan of her music after hearing her on the New Year's concert. Normally I am into heavier music, but it was just the sad irony in the way she sang which had me hooked.
Although most Japanese celebrate New Year with their families there are some sub culture groups in Japan which celebrate it out on the streets and make a lot of noise. These groups are known as the Boso-zoku (hot car or motorcycle gangs, noisy but harmless)1 and the Yanqui (tastelessly dressed young Japanese with dyed hair)2. There were a few in Kobayashi that night and they made their presence known with the noise of their hotted up cars making a racket in the normally quiet streets of Kobayashi.
