New Year's Eve - How to spend New Year's Eve in Japan

New Year's Eve! What do you do in your country?

Speaking of New Year's Eve, "kouhaku utagassen," it is shortened into "kouhaku," is a popular TV show loved by everyone irrespective of age or sex. Watching kouhaku and eating dinner are the typical ways of spending New Year's Eve in Japan. 

The image of "kouhaku utagassen."

"Kouhaku" is a singing battle show and has been on the air on New Year's Eve since 1951(initially, it used to be broadcasted at the beginning of the year.) "Kou" is "aka(a Team Red- for female singers)" and "haku" is "shiro(Team White - for male singers)." But to be honest, it doesn't matter for Japanese people to which they belong. It's just a show! And the word kouhaku itself means "happy occasion." 

The image of "kouhaku."

Since the way of spending New Year's Eve hasn't changed in such a long time, the competitive TV show is broadcasted now.

I asked a lot of people what kind of TV show they watched. Some people said if someone in their family watches kouhaku(the rate of watching kouhaku is still high), some people said they watch "warattewaikenai," a comedy show, which is broadcast on New Year's Eve every year and is popular among young people.

The image of "warattewaikenai."

"Warattewaikenai" means "don't laugh" and they have a theme each year such as police, nurses, spies, etc, and this year's theme was "breakout."
One of the most famous comic groups, "Downtown", appears each year on the show as well as many other well-know comedians and actors. This year they were dressed in prison uniforms and many very funny things happened to them. But according to the show rules,they can't laugh or else get their butts are beaten by scary military-like people. One of the members' ex-wife, their family and the celebrities we think would never appear on this kind of comedy suddenly appear on the show, totally surprising them.

The image of "warattewaikenai."

While watching TV, we usually eat buckwheat noodle which are called "soba". The soba we eat on this day is specially called "toshikoshi soba." "Toshikoshi" literally means "crossing years," and eating soba 
signifies "wish for one's long life." We can eat it whenever we want to sometime during the New Year's Eve and is a very important custom. 

Eat soba at home.

Happy New Year!

日本ではクリスマスは恋人と、年越しやお正月は家族と過ごすということが多いですが、海外は全く逆になります。
この時期は家族でテレビを観るということが多くなる時期。「紅白」は今でも国民的なテレビ番組で すが、最近では「笑ってはいけない」も人気ですね。ちなみに、日本では年が明けてから「あけましておめでとう」と言うのが普通ですが、海外では年越し前から「Happy New Year!」、また「Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!」と言うことも多いです。