‘Setsubun’ bean-throwing festival held across Japan

Events marking Setsubun, also known as the bean-throwing festival, were held across Japan on Friday.

Setsubun — Feb 3 — marks the day before the beginning of spring, according to the lunar calendar. The festival involves a ritual called mamemaki, traditionally intended to drive away the evil and disease of the former year. The ritual involves throwing roasted soybeans at people and children.

On Friday afternoon, temples and shrines across Japan drew big crowds for the first time since 2019 due to the coronavirus. Two of the most popular were Zojoji Temple in Tokyo and Naritasan Shinshoji Temple in Chiba Prefecture, where celebrities and sumo wrestlers threw soybeans from the stage to excited spectators who tried to catch and eat them.

It is believed to bring good fortune if you eat the same number of soybeans as your age.

Celebrities throw soy beans at Zojoji Temple Friday in Tokyo on Friday. Photo: AP/Eugene Hoshiko

People try to catch soy beans at Zojoji Temple on Friday. Photo: AP/Eugene Hoshiko

The festival is also celebrated in many homes. The father or the oldest man in the house plays the role of a demon, wearing a mask, while children throw soybeans at him shouting Oni wa soto, Fuku wa uchi (Demons out, good fortune in!)

Another traditional custom for Setsubun is to eat eho-maki (hand-rolled sushi) which is supposed to bring good luck. You eat an uncut sushi roll while facing the lucky direction of the year. This direction changes every year and is determined by the 12 Chinese zodiac symbols.

Each year, the Consumer Affairs Agency and the National Center for Child Health and Development issues a caution to parents to be careful about letting young children swallow the soybeans. In the past, there have been cases of children aged between nine months and four years old being taken to hospitals for treatment after choking on the beans.

Health officials say it is possible for a soybean to lodge in a child’s bronchial tract for one or two days before being discovered. A four-year-old child choked to death at a childcare center in 2020 in Shimane Prefecture. The cause of death was suffocation due to one bean that got stuck in his throat. The bean was enlarged as it contained moisture from water. Each child was given around 10 beans during the event.

© Japan Today