Kakizome Day has been celebrated for centuries and centuries! January 2nd is traditionally the day in Japan that they practice their calligraphy and do the first writing of the year. Originally they would use the first water drawn from the well on New Years and rub it together with ink to make put haikus or phrases on long strips of paper. It's all very symbolic... the first writing, the first water, the new year.
It's actually a lot more complicated than it sounds. Japanese has over 2,000 characters and 3 different writing systems blended together. Kakizome Day is a day to let them express themselves and their language as an art form. They then hang them up and party hearty to celebrate how pretty their art is, just to take it down and burn it on January 14th. We don't understand the Japanese sometimes but we sure love their food!!!!
So here's to all those Japanese people calligraphying it up today, so that we can later print it on our t-shirts and cheap gift shop items!
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