Ôsôji: the big Japanese cleaning 大掃除
The spring cleaning
In Japan, houses are cleaned and tidied up from top to bottom at the end of December, to symbolically clean the "impurities" accumulated during the year and to start the new year "purified"...
In Japan, it is an ancient ritual to clean up to welcome the God of the New Year.
Story
Traditionally, each family would clean the family altar (dedicated to deities and ancestors) on the last day of the year, to honor the arrival of the God of the New Year. Then, from 1640, during the Edo period (1603-1867), Edo Castle began to be cleaned from top to bottom every December 13 (formerly the last day of the year). Year after year, the population, from samurai to common people, did the same. This custom was called susuharai, which means "removing the soot". From symbols to beliefs, this tradition survived and is still practiced.
Read: New Year's Day in Japan
A population in turmoil
Who rubs his windows, who washes the walls of his house, it's the whole Japanese population that seems to be in action. From houses to offices, passing through schools but also Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, everyone is working on the tasks of major cleaning, osoji. In the offices, discard and reclassify the files and the students clean their desks.
Read also: Nanakusa no sekku, the festival of the 7 herbs
The hunt for evil spirits
In Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, where symbolism and rituals are extremely important, Buddhist monks dust statues of Buddha and other bodhisattvas, while Shinto priests and their assistants, armed with long bamboo sticks topped with sacred branches, sasaki, remove dust from the smallest corners of their sanctuaries. They thus kill two birds with one stone: they drive out the bad spirits hidden here and there and eliminate the impurities, in the concrete and figurative sense, which have accumulated throughout the year.
Read also: Japanese superstitions
These tasks, although dreaded, are often accomplished with fervor. By cleaning everything strangely from top to bottom, the Japanese have the impression of getting rid, symbolically, of everything that had cluttered or soiled their lives during the year that is ending. And it is with a light heart that they celebrate the arrival of the new year, in shiny accommodation.
