After my first New Year's feast with my host family, I was invited over to my friend Adam's homestay to participate in a Daruma Kuyo (Doll Burning ceremony), make fresh mochi and eat homemade gyoza.
When I attended the Daruma Kuyo ceremony with my friends, we watched as members of the community arrived with their old daruma dolls, standing in line to place them within the giant bamboo structure that would soon become a bonfire. Food stalls lined the small street, serving warm takoyaki (octopus), grilled squid skewers and dango (sweet grilled dumplings). After all of the daruma had been placed inside of the bamboo structure, local children arrived in masks and performed a play as part of the celebration.
Unfortunately, the daruma burning was delayed for another hour, and Adam's host mother decided that it would be best for us to head back to the house and get started on making our mochi and gyoza. My friends and I played a game called Othello and ate our fair share of mandarin oranges while the mochi cooked, and children from the neighborhood popped in and out of the house to play as the festivities went on.
In Japan, dolls called "daruma" can be purchased from many local shrines. Daruma look a bit like egg-shaped gnomes with bushy mustaches (though they are modeled after the founder of Zen Buddhism, a man named Bodhidharma), and are always sold with blank, white eyes. After purchasing a daruma, you are supposed to make a wish and draw in only one eye on the doll. Once your wish has been fulfilled, you can fill in the second eye.
