When I was little, I remember throwing a tantrum, insisting, “I absolutely have to see the first sunrise of the year!” My mother, however, explained that the “First Sunrise” (Hatsuhinode) is simply a sunrise that happens to occur on New Year’s Day, and as a phenomenon, it\u2019s exactly the same as any other sunrise. With that, she brilliantly avoided the hassle of going out in the early morning. I remember how the fantasy of New Year\u2019s\u2014something I had held as a special, sacred thing\u2014crumbled inside me at that moment. I really thought New Year\u2019s was some kind of massive natural phenomenon involving the entire planet!<\/p>\n
Thinking back, my family was quite dry regarding New Year\u2019s. Even on December 31st, my parents would usually go to bed before midnight. Their stance on Coming-of-Age Day was, “Why should the government decide whether I’ve become an adult or not?” and celebrations like Christmas or birthdays stopped happening quite early on.
\nIn short, it was a “party-pooper” household that didn’t buy into society\u2019s collective fantasies at all.<\/p>\n
As for me, I actually love the festive atmosphere of the city during Christmas and the year-end season. But I\u2019m a bit bad with New Year\u2019s Eve; it\u2019s painful for me to have the “one-year” boundary forcibly shut down, and I find myself wanting to turn away from it. After all, every year is full of things I failed to achieve. Besides, don\u2019t decide on a 365-day boundary on your own! Humans are so selfish! Cats aren’t aware of New Year\u2019s! Out of such selfishness, I find myself making an effort to spend the day as normally as possible. Because of that, I kept working on my animation. Maybe I’ll write about that in the next diary entry.<\/p>\n
On the 30th, at a local udon shop in Fujimi Town called “Yamayuri<\/a>,” there was a live performance by the band “Kafka\u2019s Ibiki<\/a>,” consisting of Jim O’Rourke, Eiko Ishibashi, and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. “Yamayuri” is an udon shop in an old folk house that also appears in “Evil Does Not Exist<\/a>” (directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi). It felt so good to be bathed in such great sound in such a wonderful place. Even though Fujimi is a small town, I’m truly happy that people organize wonderful events in various places. On the 31st, I was tinkering with Blender since morning. From the evening, everyone remaining in Fujimi gathered at our place for a New Year’s Eve hand-rolled sushi party while watching Kohaku Uta Gassen*. I didn’t know many of the performers, but I was surprised by how cool everyone was. After all, the kendama and domino segments were incredibly exciting. Is Vaundy a person, not a band? It was also great to see Aina The End on Kohaku. Also, Kenshi Yonezu’s performance<\/a> was incredibly cool (I always thought his name was pronounced “Genshi”). I was enchanted by Seiko Matsuda<\/a>‘s singing voice (The 80s Legend!), and as usual, I questioned the Kohaku victory\/defeat system. After everyone left, I touched Blender until about 4 AM to erase the feeling of “New Year\u2019s Eve” within myself and to forget about boundaries like “one year.” It was a very quiet night, and I worked until dawn.<\/p>\n *Kohaku Uta Gassen<\/strong>– Japan\u2019s legendary New Year\u2019s Eve TV special where top artists compete in a “Red vs. White (Female vs Male)” singing battle.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was little, I remember throwing a tantrum, insisting, “I absolutely have to see the first sunrise of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-notes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":859,"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions\/859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ryohirano.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAfter that, the drunkards of Fujimi Town gathered one after another at a recently opened karaoke snack bar at the quiet Shinano-Sakai Station, turning it into a giant year-end karaoke party.<\/p>\n
\nApparently, next year is the Year of the Horse. It reminded me that two Decembers ago, I was in Georgia, and there were many snake goods at the street stalls in front of the Bus station. When I asked why, they said, “Because next year is the Year of the Snake.” I was surprised to learn that Georgia also uses the Chinese zodiac! and also made me think that we almost never use the zodiac except during the New Year season.<\/p>\n