Vocabulary

rows of torii gates (e.g. at Kyoto's Fushimi Inari shrine); torii corridor

twentieth day of the first month (end of New Year celebrations, upon which remaining New Year's food is eaten, decorations are stowed away, etc.)

ninth day of the cold season (approx January 13th)

fire festival (often celebrating the absence of fires)

first calligraphy of the year

divination that predicts the events of the whole year (esp. concerning crops)

coin purse

dried stretched abalone flesh

chōgin (Edo-period silver coin shaped like a sea cucumber)

buckwheat cookie

Mikawa manzai; style of manzai originating in the Mikawa region in Aichi prefecture

ellipsis points (e.g. ...); suspension points; apostrophe

important intangible folk culture asset

confessor

cleaning utensils

drug development

blunt slipper lobster (species of shovel-nosed lobster, Scyllarides squammosus)

scavenging

Asian constable (species of butterfly, Dichorragia nesimachus)

confessor

commonness; the common touch

exchange value

abstract human labour; abstract human labor

fetish character (in Marx's commodity fetishism)

paper output (of a printer, photocopier, etc.); paper ejection

slipper lobster of genus Scyllarus (esp. species Scyllarus cultrifer)

dictionary of seasonal words (for haiku and haikai)

first young greens of the year

Shijimi clam caught during winter

warm sake with grated ginger (effective against colds)

dried salted salmon

soup with fried tofu, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, sweet potatoes and daikon flavored with salt or soy sauce and thickened with potato starch

miso soup with natto

soba eaten at the end of the month (esp. at the end of the year)

gods or demons that cause epidemics

adzuki bean rice gruel eaten on the day of the winter solstice (to chase away demons that spread contagious diseases)

Christmas cake

duck meat stew (dish from Ishikawa prefecture)

pickles made in brine and fermented rice bran (esp. vegetables, also meat, fish, eggs, etc.)

soup made with salted or rice-bran-pickled fish, vegetables, and sometimes sake lees (Hokkaido local specialty dish)