Setsubun festival

On the 3rd of February, every year, there is a festival called Setsubun (節分).

On the evening of the festival,  Japanese families do mamemaki (豆まき). This is when, a wooden container is filled with roasted soy beans and then they throw the beans around the room whilst shouting 'Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi' (鬼は外、福は内) which roughly translates as 'Goblins out, good fortune in!' This is to drive out bad fortune and evil and keep good fortune and happiness in.
Afterwards, you eat the same number of beans as your age. So for example if you are 7, you eat 7 beans. But this may not always be possible because if you are, for example 89, there may not be enough to have 89 beans. Eating too many soy beans is not be too good for you as they contain a substance that is not good for us in large quantities, so watch the amount that you eat! Also, there have recently been articles in the news that the beans are a possible choking hazard for children under the age of 3. Here is the article. So sadly, not everyone can take part in the festivities.

The roasted soy beans and the goblin masks
By katorisi (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This is usually a fun event for families especially if there are young children as someone dresses up or wears a goblin mask while the others throw roasted soy beans at the goblin.

I hope all of the setsubun celebrations go well and everyone has good fortune for the rest of the year!

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