February 3rd is the "Setsubun" festival

February 3rd is the "Setsubun" festival in Japan. Setsubun means dividing the seasons, and it has been celebrated on February 3rd in which is believed the end of winter and start of spring.

There are several rituals to celebrate that day in Japan. The most general ceremony is throwing at soybeans with crying "Go out the devil, Come in fortunes" to a person who wears the mask of the devil and acts like the devil. Then people eat as many soybeans as there ages. It is because the past people have believed that the day around dividing the seasons entails maliciousness and they could to exorcise it.

There is a lot of ceremonies to celebrate Setsubun. For example, some families display holly and dried sardine heads because the devil hates it.

Nowadays, the most popular ceremony is eating Ehomaki which is thick roll sushi. The tradition has roots in Kansai which is west of Japan. Ehou means luck direction, and it has been changed every year depends on the calendar of Eastern. So, the direction of eating Ehomaki has been changed every year. Ehomaki is eaten towards a promising direction of the year silently. If someone disrupts the silent, it is said that fortune would disappear.

Furthermore, Ehomaki means good luck thick roll sushi. It contains seven ingredients such as egg, cucumber, and so on derived from seven lucky gods.

Virtually, Ehomaki is a recent tradition, but it spread rapidly. One of the reasons is Ehomaki is reasonable for the current family's lifestyles. The devil has been acted by fathers traditionally, but they became too busy to go back home at ceremony time because of there hard works. And the recent family who lives at an apartment in the city center has become challenging to mess up their residence with soybeans and to annoy to neighbors. Second reasons are that it has promoted by convenience stores and supermarkets to recent families.

The ceremony has been changed in history, but the custom of Setsubun hasn't been disappeared so far. If you are in Japan on February 2nd, how about will you participate in the ceremony as the devil or person who throws at soybeans?