節分 Setsubun!

Today is setsubun, the day before the change of the seasons on the Lunar calendar. On this day, the typical Japanese family celebrates with several rituals. First, the father of the household dresses up as an oni or demon. The children throw roasted soybeans at the oni, chanting oni ha soto, fuku ha uchi: "Demons out, fortune in." Then, as papa oni is driven out, the children shut the door behind him. It's not clear to me whether they let the father back in.

I wasn't able to celebrate this specific ritual with my host father, unfortunately, but I was able to participate in a different Kansai region-specific ritual. Here, it's tradition to eat an uncut roll of makizushi (pictured below in splices) on setsubun.

But here's the kicker: You eat it silently while facing a direction that is specifically designated for that year (at least that's my understanding). So as I picked up my roll of makizushi, my host father pointed to the direction of seinansei (west southwest), and we turned out bodies that way and ate our rolls without speaking. When I took my first bite, all the juices from inside spilled down my arms. I wondered how long we would do this, and after a minute, my host mom somewhat impatiently said that that was enough. The rest of the dinner passed by normally. I asked my host parents what the origins of this tradition were, and they had no idea. They kinda shrugged and told me that they do it just because you're supposed to do it.