Aw, dude... I remember Bean Throwing! Our homeroom class, back in juinor high, did this. Of course, being we were a classroom full of immature, 12/13 year old tweens with a our own soybean bags, we were flinging them at each other... and trying to ping them off the chalk board.
In fact, that's what the mask if for in that set; someone wears it to "symbolically" be the oger that you throw your soybeans at and chase out of the house (and yes, you really do throw soybeans at them). It's a more common tradition in housholds with small children; where the dad is the oger and the kids throw the beans at him... (picture it as kind of like how, here, a dad dresses as Santa Clause for his kids).
However, since I spent more of my time at Camp Shinodayama (near Osaka)... the holiday traditions, I remember, were a little different. Like, instead of eating soybeans, we ate sesame-covored peanuts (FYI: Osakans will never miss a chance to tell you that they invented the soybean-eating tradition... XD
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Now see, you're the kind of Japanese-savvy friend a girl needs. So many of your wapanese fangirls carry on and on about "loving Japan" and "Asians are sooooooo kewl" and yet all they really know or understand is what they see in Japanese anime, hardly a reliable source for understanding real, honest-to-God Japanese culture (which obviously consists of twelve-year-olds dressing in sailor suits to save the world *rolls eyes*). It's why I've never understood why "otakus" get so bent out of shape over movies like The Last Airbender. They're not "ethnically realistic," so they say (like a bald kid shooting fireballs from his palm is "realistic" in any culture), and yet better than half of the people complaining are probably white, probably fangirls, and probably don't have any real understanding of the original culture to begin with, which the series itself (and countless series like it) insults by insinuating that all asians are kung-fu masters that chop celery with their car keys
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Thanks for the kind words... But, it shoud be me thanking you for being one of the few, normal people that I can talk about my time in Japan, and not go crazy on me. And, understanding Japan is more then what's on your YST DVD.
I had no idea it was a mask (I might have known if I'd paid a little closer attention to the product description)Oh no, don't beat yourself up on that... The only reason why I remembered the mask was because my brother (who was third grade) made them in his class
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I did look up "Setsubun" on YouTube and found like, a bazillion search results. One of the videos I watched looked like a classroom of kids wearing handmade oni masks out of paper plates (or something). The teachers stood around while the kids threw beans at the ground and at each other. Another looked like a big festival production in Kyoto, and one even poked fun at the holiday saying bean throwing was "cruelty to monsters." xD I'd love to visit Kyoto one day. It'd be beyond awesome to see a live geisha performance and NOT a video recording with crappy sound/quality on YouTube. =P
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I know, right? These are the kind of "cultural details" that get lost watching anime and manga, so I'm glad my CDJapan newsletter keeps me "in the know." Although I'd hate to be the one who has to clean up all the beans. _-_;
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Our homeroom class, back in juinor high, did this. Of course, being we were a classroom full of immature, 12/13 year old tweens with a our own soybean bags, we were flinging them at each other... and trying to ping them off the chalk board.
In fact, that's what the mask if for in that set; someone wears it to "symbolically" be the oger that you throw your soybeans at and chase out of the house (and yes, you really do throw soybeans at them). It's a more common tradition in housholds with small children; where the dad is the oger and the kids throw the beans at him... (picture it as kind of like how, here, a dad dresses as Santa Clause for his kids).
However, since I spent more of my time at Camp Shinodayama (near Osaka)... the holiday traditions, I remember, were a little different. Like, instead of eating soybeans, we ate sesame-covored peanuts (FYI: Osakans will never miss a chance to tell you that they invented the soybean-eating tradition... XD ( ... )
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But, it shoud be me thanking you for being one of the few, normal people that I can talk about my time in Japan, and not go crazy on me. And, understanding Japan is more then what's on your YST DVD.
I had no idea it was a mask (I might have known if I'd paid a little closer attention to the product description)Oh no, don't beat yourself up on that... The only reason why I remembered the mask was because my brother (who was third grade) made them in his class ( ... )
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If you did it outside though, the squirrels probably would. Those pests will eat just about anything.
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