WAIMEA — While excitement centered around the New Year baby born at the Kaua‘i Veterans Memorial Hospital Tuesday morning, a kagami mochi sat quietly on the countertop of the hospital’s Family Birth Center nurses station. Situated next to a Christmas
WAIMEA — While excitement centered around the New Year baby born at the Kaua‘i Veterans Memorial Hospital Tuesday morning, a kagami mochi sat quietly on the countertop of the hospital’s Family Birth Center nurses station.
Situated next to a Christmas display of the wise men bringing gifts, the special traditional Japanese decoration of two mochi topped with a leafed tangerine is one of the Hawai‘i practices brought over by the Japanese immigrants more than a hundred years ago.
“They’re everywhere in the hospital,” said Sherry Harris, a Family Birth Center nurse. “They were made by Brycen Hiraoka.”
Hiraoka, an employee with KVMH, had earlier in the year coordinated the successful bon dance, another traditional Japanese event paying tribute to deceased ancestors, during the bon season ending in August.
The kagami mochi, translated to mean mirror mochi, is displayed in the house for Toshigami, the god of the new year, to bring good luck and prosperity in the new year, states the Muza-chan’s Gate to Japan website.
Kagami mochi is made from two rice cakes, one larger than the other, the smaller being placed atop the larger mochi and topped with a daidai, a type of bitter orange. In Hawai‘i, the tangerine has taken the place of the daidai, and in some versions, the mochi arrangement is placed on a konbu, or Japanese seaweed, because the konbu is a symbol of pleasure and joy.
The calligraphy for daidai can mean “generation to generation,” the website states. The small orange, therefore, symbolizes the continuity of the generations and long life while the mochi symbolizes the past year and the year to come.
Kagami mochi’s name comes because the shape of the two mochi is similar to the shape of the copper round mirrors, kagami in Japanese, which was used during the Muromachi period.
Kagami mochi is kept until the 11th of January, or on the second Saturday, or Sunday, when a Shinto ritual, kagami biraki, or the opening of the mirror takes place.
This is the first important ritual following the New Year when the kagami mochi is broken with the hand, or with a hammer, into edible-sized pieces and cooked. A knife is never used because that would mean cutting family ties.
Visit www.muza-chan.net for more information.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
