[HN Gopher] Kakizome: Japanese way of new-years resolution
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Kakizome: Japanese way of new-years resolution
Author : NalNezumi
Score : 212 points
Date : 2025-01-02 17:27 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (harimus.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (harimus.github.io)
| Fethbita wrote:
| Last year even though I didn't have a theme, I made small changes
| in the way I live, tried to complete my 15 book goodreads
| challenge, started doing sports and improve myself professionally
| on my free time.
|
| This year started with pretty fundamental questions in the way I
| live and uncertainties about my future so deciding on a theme is
| very difficult. I can't answer those questions and don't know
| what I really want. I will try to put an effort into keeping the
| good habits I gained last year though.
| ehnto wrote:
| I am in a similar boat. I guess I am fortunate, in that there
| are many interesting paths forward. But I don't know which to
| take, and there are so many uncertainties in the fundamentals.
|
| I am leaning toward taking Patton Oswald's advice, and
| executing any plan now, rather than the perfect plan later. But
| I am getting older, so it feels like I only get a few more
| "pivots" in life, especially with financial stability in mind.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yeah, executing ANY plan is better than waiting to come up
| with the perfect plan, IMO. I had no idea it was tied to a
| single person.
| ianmcgowan wrote:
| There's a long list of historical quotes about planning,
| but I think this reference might be to a different Patton:
|
| "A good plan violently executed now is better than a
| perfect plan executed next week." - George S. Patton
|
| * "Those who are victorious plan effectively and change
| decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its
| course but adjusts its flow." ~ Sun Tzu
|
| * "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans
| are useless, but planning is indispensable." ~ Dwight D.
| Eisenhower
|
| * "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend
| the first four sharpening the axe." ~ Abraham Lincoln
| jayrot wrote:
| "No plan survives contact with the enemy". --Helmuth von
| Moltke
|
| or, if you prefer,
|
| "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth"
| --Mike Tyson.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| I don't always like the pressure of the "New Year" to come up
| with a "goal"... Maintaining the habits you already have isn't
| easy either! And I think a goal can emerge along the way.
| txbrown wrote:
| What I did this year was draft all the things I wanted to
| achieve, check roughly how long it takes to achieve them - some
| have deadlines, like driver license test, which has a specific
| date - split them by quarters (Q1,Q2, and so on), some are more
| about consistency and repeated practice that culminates into
| being able to perform something at a higher level of execution
| - e.g. bass guitar and music theory. During each quarter I
| focus on what is there and try to limit my time around those
| things. I adjusted my calendar, reminders, etc to help me stay
| on track. I thik focusing on a few things every 3 months and
| tracking time/sessions/effort put into can be helpful. I think
| something good happens regardless and you know for sure you did
| your best.
| research_pie wrote:
| I like this idea of setting a theme. It gives you a compass for
| if an action is in accordance to the theme or not.
|
| I still like to drill into the concrete quantitative details of
| how I'm going to achieve the theme though.
|
| This year theme for me would be: Freedom.
| vivekd wrote:
| What was a bit disappointing to me is the author decided to gloss
| over the parts like getting fresh water from a well and having it
| purified at the temple.
|
| That's the parts I wanted more details on - it makes it
| interesting and more like a glance at a foreign and different
| culture.
| imsurajkadam wrote:
| Japan does really have a wells that has pure water than is
| drinkable
| BalinKing wrote:
| Should this read "Japan really does have wells that have pure
| water that is drinkable"? (Not trying to be annoying or
| anything, just want to understand your comment correctly :-)
| )
| bot347851834 wrote:
| This is my second year picking a theme and I picked "Revolution",
| many things are (probably) going to be different 360 days from
| now for me!
|
| Fun read, it didn't occur to me that I could simply pick foreign
| words that are much more adept at explaining complex concepts
| briefly.
| throwvolution wrote:
| I have a theme song for you: https://youtu.be/PTc52teL4dc
| Waterluvian wrote:
| > couple of years ago, CGP Grey made a point about replacing the
| New Year resolution with the New Year theme.
|
| Yeah this year (really: mid December when the work year ended for
| us) we declared it the Year of Discovery. All it really is, is a
| thing my wife and I say to each other any time we're humming and
| hawing on a purchase or decision or uncertainty on what menu item
| to pick. It's kind of become a running joke, and yet it's pretty
| effective.
| mc3301 wrote:
| Few more fun facts:
|
| Elementary school students all write kakizome at the end of
| December. Within the school, each grade will write the exact same
| thing. They're hung in the halls for all to see. Hundreds of the
| exact same kakizome.
|
| Many people burn their kakizome mid-January during "Dondoyaki."
|
| The posture, attention and care taken while writing Kakizome is
| one of the important points. Those, and the outcome of the
| characters themselves, are all taken into account.
|
| Unrelated, but Japan's officaily chosen Kanji for the year 2024
| was "Jin " which means gold, or money, or heck, even Friday.
| gsf_emergency wrote:
| --> Jin --> Venus --> Friday -->
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday#Etymology
| SllX wrote:
| Jin : _kin_ : gold
|
| oJin : _okane_ : money
|
| Jin Yao Ri : _kinyoubi_ : Friday (shortened to Jin on some
| calendars, kind of like how we do "Fri" sometimes in English)
|
| Jin Zi : _kaneko_ : gold coin
|
| Jin Yu : _kingyo_ : goldfish
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Jin Zi is kinsu.
|
| https://jisho.org/search/%E9%87%91%E5%AD%90
|
| Kane is not a normal reading for Jin in compound words
| unless this is an esoteric word I haven't seen.
| numpad0 wrote:
| That one sounds like Chinese word with hallucinated
| Japanese usage. Zi is IIUC casually used to mean "little
| ___ things" in Chinese, but same isn't the case with
| Japanese; Jin Zi is used as a somewhat discrete way to
| refer to an envelope of cash.
| SllX wrote:
| You are correct. Jin Zi can be read as "kaneko", but
| that's actually a surname and place name. "Kinsu" is a gold
| coin. I got the two swapped.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Oof. The reading for names will always get me. Still
| worth knowing the name reading!
|
| Google maps has it showing up in a bunch of business
| names, too.
| fenomas wrote:
| Seems to have been a bit of confusion in several
| directions here, but just to clarify: in modern usage Jin
| Zi is read only as Kaneko, and is a very common surname.
| The "kinsu" reading is archaic; a typical native speaker
| may never have heard of it.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Burning them during Dondoyaki feels like a meaningful way to
| let go and start fresh.
| samcheng wrote:
| The Chinese have a new-year's calligraphy tradition, too, written
| on red paper and hung on your door. Of course, that's done on the
| Lunar new year, not the Solar one.
|
| Your description of New Year's as "like Western Christmas" is apt
| - I remember visiting one year, shocked by how quiet everything
| was, and how many restaurants and attractions were closed.
| Everyone was at home with their family! The January First
| festival at Senso-ji Temple was a unique spectacle, though - the
| sound of people donating hundreds of one-yen coins at once is
| really unique.
| adastra22 wrote:
| That's because Japanese new year is derived from Chinese
| (lunar) new year traditions. They moved the New Year's
| celebration to align with the Western calendar as part of the
| Meiji restoration, but kept the festivities the same.
| BalinKing wrote:
| The image caption is interesting: as a right-handed person
| myself, it had never occurred to me that handedness would matter
| so much in shodo. I wonder if Western calligraphy is this way too
| (maybe to a lesser degree, given that stroke order isn't as
| crucial)?
| emaro wrote:
| Not really sure about calligraphy specifically, but since
| western languages are written left to right, it's always harder
| as a left-handed person. Because you have to push instead of
| pulling, where the latter makes fluid shapes easier.
| NalNezumi wrote:
| Left-handed calligraphy is slightly harder in shodo. The two
| main thing I've struggled over the years is how to end a line
| in a beautiful way.
|
| Usually, a line start with pressing slightly harder, then
| "drag" it while slowly lifting the pencil, making that end of
| the line more aesthetic by thinning it out. And at the end you
| move it swiftly.
|
| It's much easier to control this end movement when you're
| dragging towards your body, rather than away from it. For left
| handed, it's essentially the opposite in the way that what for
| right handed is dragging towards you(r right hand) is away, so
| all the details become the opposite.
|
| Apparently you can learn this as a lefthanded too, but in Japan
| it's quite common to "correct" lefthanded kids to learn to use
| both hands for writing, so not many people know the struggle or
| the remedy. (my mom used to point out that me and my younger
| brother wrote badly, and we are both left handed)
| whym wrote:
| If nothing else, the fact that many people write _anything_ with
| ink and brush helps to sustain the calligraphy culture. Nowadays,
| to many (if not most) of them the new year kakizome ritual is the
| only occasion they practice brush calligraphy in an entire year.
| bamboozled wrote:
| This is what I find most interesting about Japanese culture.
| The Japanese do things for seemingly superficial reasons which
| can seem redundant to an outsider but the more I learn, the
| more I see utility in a lot of it.
|
| They've seem so much come and go over the centuries they seem
| to just go their own way because it works for them. Almost
| feels like they've been burned enough times to know better than
| to just throw the baby out with the bath water.
|
| The most efficient in the short term, certainly not always.
| Tade0 wrote:
| They do seem to understand ergonomics and user experience
| better than most.
|
| My Sony Xperia has all its buttons on one side. Seems awfully
| unorthodox, as almost all the other brands put them on both
| sides.
|
| Until of course you start using the phone with one hand or
| lay it on its side to watch a movie.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Do not think it's a bad thing... Even if it's just once a year
| iammrpayments wrote:
| I just spent the new year in Japan in a temple, and the way they
| do it compared to my country makes much more sense. They just
| wait until midnight to hear the bell 108 times, go to the temple
| pray and then wake up to see first sunrise, instead of watching
| the fireworks and partying all night.
| qmarchi wrote:
| Shibuya usually has parties going all night, but it was all
| pushed back into clubs holding events, nothing on the streets.
| pezezin wrote:
| I live in Japan and I find the Japanese new year celebration or
| it's lack thereof absolutely depressing, but to each their own.
| iammrpayments wrote:
| I probably chose a nice place, because they lighted up a huge
| fire while the monks were chanting around it, also there were
| lots of food stalls and people lining up to the temple.
|
| I also used to go see fireworks in Taiwan but it is usually
| like this -> wait for fireworks -> 10 minutes fireworks -->
| have some fun (hopefully) -> get stuck in traffic/public
| transportation.
|
| My home country is more lively but it ends up being similar,
| except people get way drunker.
| litbear2022 wrote:
| "Yuan Dan Kai Bi "[1] The first writing of the New Year. Its a
| small ritual performed by ancient Chinese intellectuals on the
| first day of the New Year. It has a history of about 1,000 years.
| During the Qing Dynasty, the emperor's ceremony became more grand
| and lengthy, including writing words of blessing with ornate
| Chinese brushes, symbolically turning the pages of the New Year's
| calendar (in the early Qing Dynasty, European missionaries
| participated in the improvement of the traditional Chinese
| calendar) [2] and drinking from a golden cup symbolizing the
| eternal and unbreakable borders. Ironically, one of the golden
| cups was stolen by French invaders during the Second Opium War
| [3].
|
| [1] https://imagepphcloud.thepaper.cn/pph/image/114/965/140.jpg
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Adam_Schall_von_Bell [3]
| https://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMP/eMuseumPlus?se...
| coldtea wrote:
| Like most "ancient Japanese" customs, foods, etc
| schappim wrote:
| This is awesome.
|
| I'm going with Duo Jiao Jing Ying (takaku keiei) A four-
| character phrase (yojijukugo) literally translating to "managing
| multiple facets." It carries a similar notion to "Portfolio
| Approach," implying strategic diversification rather than a lack
| of focus.
| greekanalyst wrote:
| Fun fact: although rarely used, the very close word "kakiazomai"
| (kakiazomai) means "I am feeling/generating evil/bad/negative
| thoughts" in Greek.
| nicbou wrote:
| That's interesting, thanks for sharing!
|
| I usually take the opposite approach. My resolutions are usually
| a lot smaller, and their theme more practical. I don't intend to
| stick with them all year, but I fully intend to make significant
| progress within a month, and thus set the course for the year.
|
| Some examples from this year: improve my German, cook Indian
| food, travel with friends. For each of them I have already made a
| list of actionable first steps, and I have taken many of those
| steps.
|
| I find a general theme to be both too broad and too narrow. I
| want many small things, not one big thing.
| rwmj wrote:
| Careful with this. I once did a kakizome for Shui (mizu, water),
| because it's a nice simple character to draw. That year the
| bathroom leaked, flooding the house.
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| Better choose wisely this year!
| ErigmolCt wrote:
| A visible reminder that quietly nudges you throughout the year...
| It always works for me. I have a whiteboard at home where I write
| down my goals for the quarter. It's satisfying to erase a goal
| from the board after completing it and write a new one.
| criddell wrote:
| Have you ever considered setting an annual theme rather than
| quarterly goals?
| riffraff wrote:
| I saw someone on mastodon[0] mentioning the idea of using a bingo
| card for new year resolutions rather than a specific objective.
|
| It aligns with the idea of having a new year theme rather than a
| specific goal, and I liked the idea. Sadly, I'm not one for
| resolutions either way.
|
| [0] https://mastodon.social/@jessie/113742080312737907
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