SAKÉ IN ART AND LITERATURE

First Day of the Year Hinoe-ne (1816)    Written by Kashiwagi Jotei (1763-1819);    Translated by Burton Watson

Snow melts, seacoast roads are opening: Neighbors this morning can make their way back and forth. Sitting up last night, we could hear the New Year's Eve rain; Greeting spring, we're washed free of last year's grime. Welcome breezes will no doubt be stirring by the garden door- already the east wind blows into my cup of wine.* The climate here -how does it differ from that back home? All I lack is a branch of flowering plum to stick in the vase.

Saké is an integral part of Japanese heritage and has been widely written about in works of literature such as haiku and tanka poetry, and has been a popular subject in fine art, particularly ukiyo-e - a traditional form of woodblock printing. Today the Japanese celebrate the New Year according to the Gregorian calendar on January 1. In the Shinto tradition, however, the New Year is observed at the very beginning of spring, based on the lunar calendar. That is why the poem above, "First Day of the Year Hinoe-ne," mentions "snow melts" and "greeting spring." It also refers to the custom of watching the New Year's Day sunrise (hatsuhinode). According to Shinto legend, the sun is the most important god in the universe, so praying to the first sun of the New Year is believed to bring health and good fortune. In many parts of Japan, hatsuhinode is toasted with a small cup of otosu, a sweet saké brewed with cinnamon and other spices, or amazake - a sweet, non-alcoholic saké.

* Prior to the 1970s, Japanese saké was typically translated into English as "wine."