hatsumōdë

Last week’s Jinja Shinpō contained the first official report on this year’s hatsumōdë, with a suggestion that there would be further articles once the reporters had heard from some smaller jinja around Japan, and had time to build up something of an overview of the country. This year is likely to have been bad, however, and not just because of the pandemic. Some regions had unusually heavy snow, which made it physically difficult to get to some jinja. The overall picture was that jinja saw massive reductions in visitor numbers… Read More »Hatsumōdë Reports

In normal years, hatsumōdë mainly happens in the first three days of the year, and they are over, so we are starting to hear how that period was different this year. And it was different. To start with the least surprising one, reports say that Meiji Jingū in Tokyo has had about 20% of its normal visitors. It normally has about three million, so that’s still a lot, but the jinja is also pretty big. I hear from someone who was there that the precincts felt empty on the first.… Read More »Hatsumōdë Under COVID

My local jinja has just put a sign up on the front of the prayer hall saying “Hatsumōdë by Setsubun”. Hatsumōdë is the first jinja visit of the new year. Traditionally, it is supposed to be done in the first three days of the year, which means that those three days have been extremely busy at most jinja; Meiji Jingū in Tokyo normally gets about three million visitors in that time. Most people just go to the jinja and pay their respects in front of the prayer hall, but quite… Read More »Hatsumōdë by Setsubun

This new year was the first new year of the Reiwa era. Although this year is Reiwa 2, Reiwa 1 started on May 1st last year, and so it did not have a New Year’s Day. Jinja Shinpō has, as normal, published a report on how things went. In general, the weather was good across most of the country, which will have been a big relief to the jinja that rely on hatsumōdë income to keep going through the year. Meiji Jingū, in Tokyo, which typically has the highest number… Read More »The First New Year of Reiwa

The most recent issue of Jinja Shinpō included a long article on hatsumōdë, and how it went at various jinja. This is a standard feature at this time of year. In the past, it focused on the larger jinja, but recently it has spent more time on jinja in regions that have suffered natural disasters recently, and on jinja that have some particular link to the year. This year, the first three days of the New Year saw good weather across Japan, so there were a lot of people. Jingū,… Read More »This Year’s Hatsumōdë

Hatsumōdë is the first visit to a jinja (or Buddhist temple, but normally jinja) of the New Year. In one use, it simply refers to a person’s first visit in a year, no matter when it happens. The most common use these days, however, is to refer to the custom of visiting a jinja in the first three days of the New Year (or maybe a few days later if you are away). This is an extremely popular custom; the estimates I have seen are that about 80% of Japanese… Read More »Hatsumōdë