Mamemaki

To keep the devils out in the new year, the Japanese people throw peanuts in their homes and workplaces on a specific day in mid-february.

This little origami box of peanuts was on my desk:


In other years, a teacher put on a red devil mask and ran thru the room while we pelted him with peanuts. While fun for us, it kind of sucked for the poor guy.

Side note: The person to do this is usually the youngest teacher, but seeing as that person is me, and pelting the young foreign girl with peanuts might not be looked upon too kindly... they usually choose another teacher.

This year, however, the art teacher got creative and made a samurai robe [complete with bunny rabbits] for a teacher to wear.



He then magestically threw peanuts around the teachers room while telling the demons [oni] to go away:




We then got to eat the peanuts and got extra little treats to eat.
Here is my desk, complete with Vietnam research on my screen in the background:



Another side note: Can you see the DIGITAL TV written across the oni masks this year? They were all like that, to remind people that Japan is going digital as of March of this year. Clever, yet also very untraditional :p