I wanted to share this touching New Year memory by long-time MLCer @Sally. Enjoy.
Here it is, my annual sharing of Oshogatsu Memories.
Hoping for everyone a safe, healthy, happy, akamai, prosperous, amazing 2022!
Growing up, our house was “that” house. The one with the complete spread of every traditional and meaningful oshogatsu food and every uncle, aunty, cousin, family friend and their families came over. My mom, aunty, and baban were busy in the kitchen from the afternoon and did not come out until the midnight fireworks string… only to go back and continue their work. Looking back, this was the only time I was not required to participate in any of the cooking, I was allowed to play to my heart’s content with my Baby Camels and Crackerballs and watch my three big brothers (already almost teenagers) blow up ants and green army men and throw firecrackers in the metal coffee can for “effect” … as long as I remembered that the bathroom had to be scrubbed and cleaned and floors vacuumed and mopped before midnight (the clean house for New Year thing).
After midnight I was allowed for the ride with my parents to the Shinto Shrine (I think in Nuuanu) where we did the traditional offering and blessing. I must have fallen asleep on the rides home, I don’t remember ever walking back into the house. When we woke up New Year’s morning the living room in our small 2 bdrm house was transformed into a Japanese teahouse. All the furniture was stacked and piled into the kitchen and back bdrm and the long Japanese style low tables (fashioned from plywood panels and short sawhorses made by my carpenter daddy) were covered with white paper from that huge roll in the sewing corner that magically never seemed to run out.
The spread along the table included the fish with the daikon net drape, roast turkey w/stuffing, ham, nishime, sushi, and all the osechi dishes like kanten, kuromame, the special kamaboko and the ring balogna, mommy’s amazing potato/mac salad, and every other traditional thing you can imagine… it was all there. All of it was made in our little kitchen.
I once asked my mom why do we (yah, “we” lol) do this every year? and she said it’s tradition, everyone does it. So then I asked “If ‘everyone’ does it, who’s at THEIR house cooking THEIR food?” because everyone I ever knew as family was coming and going at our house all.day.long! It was great!
Early New Year’s morning my daddy took me with him for a ride to the ice store. Have no idea where that was but we bought blocks of ice to put in the laundry tubs to ice pick away at and that’s where all the beverages went. One side for Diamond Head soda and the other side for Primo and Olympia beer. As I got older (aka high school) my interest turned to the Sunshine Crater Music Festival. My friends came over and we walked to Diamond Head to act like underaged Asian hippies in leather visors and thought we were groovy.
Mommy got sick in 1973 and passed away in 1975, daddy tried to keep up the tradition and I tried to help but it was too hard. All those people didn’t show up, I guess they thought we weren’t doing it. Looking back, Daddy was sad and disappointed altho’ he really tried and all he asked me to make was the ham. A couple of years later it was daddy’s turn to be cared for and when he passed away in 1980 I didn’t really know where to go. I don’t even remember what I did.The tradition ended but not the memories. Man, we had major grindz that I did not appreciate back then but I can see it very clearly and taste every morsel.
I had to put this memory to words, I might someday forget and who is going to care anymore?
