December 29, 2001
  mochitsuki

Back in the days when I was young, the Seattle Dojo used to be smack dab in the heart of the city, on a small street in a curious little apartment complex at the top of a broken down stone stairway older than dirt. The complex was a single-story circle, looped in low-rising red brick around an uneven courtyard featuring a cherry tree and mossy stones.

Each year, a couple of days before the old year ended, the older members of the Dojo -- older being in terms of history with the Dojo, rather than physical age -- would get together in the courtyard behind the two apartments we'd taken up for the Dojo. The morning of mochitsuki, mochi making, long wooden trays would be set out with mounds of rice kernels, washed and drying. Hoshikawa-san, an Okinawa man with a boy's grin in an old man's face, would pull out the huge hollowed-out tree stump we used for making mochi, and long-stemmed wooden mallets, (kine), for those men practiced enough to use them. The women would cook mochi rice, a different grain than we use in our daily meals, then dump the sweet pails into the bowl of the trunk.

Three men would stand around the stump, each holding a mallet. One by one, they would each pound the rice in an ancient rhythm passed down through generations of Japanese tradition. In between, a woman with a steady hand and rice paddle would reach in and turn the pounded rice over, splashing hot water on the mashed kernels and presenting a new face to the mallets. Thud-thud-thud, turn. Thud-thud-thud, turn.

My father was one of those who picked up a mallet for the traditional making of the mochi. My mother was one of the women who took turns crouching by the stump. Hoshikawa-san, grinning from ear to ear, would come out with his own mallet wearing the traditional Japanese garb: white cloth band tied around the head, breeches and sandals, a thin striped hakama with the sleeves tied back.

It was a festive occasion, mochitsuki; the Americans loved it as much as the Japanese. The neighbors would come out to participate in the feasting that surrounded the hard work of pounding the rice; there would be dancing later, in the island style. As the years rolled on, the wooden mallets were replaced by a gargantuan, mechanical monstrosity that Hoshikawa-san had discovered or created somewhere, a Frankensteinian tangle of pipes and pooting steam that would take in steamed rice on one end and vomit out strings of mochi on the other. The rest of us, those that looked on while the tradition was being practiced, regretted the picturesque ceremony. The feasting remained the same, and the dancing.

Hoshikawa-san died shortly after we moved to the new Dojo, a beautiful building in Mountlake Terrace. Our old Dojo neighbors regretted our departure; in our stay there, we'd cleaned up the neighborhood and initiated them in an alien culture. By the time he passed away, smaller machines had been developed, combination rice cookers and mochi makers that cost thousands of dollars but could be put into the back seat of a car. He left two to the Dojo, that are still being used today.

Nowadays, mochitsuki is done by the women. My mother is the center of a frenzy of activity, experienced Japanese hands that know rice like they know their children. Despite the fact that the Dojo is closed, people assemble, anticipating a lunch of freshly made mochi and its trappings: natto (fermented soybeans), daikoroshi (Japanese white radish with bonito and soy sauce), taroko and shiso (spicy fish roe and perilla leaf), shoyu (soy sauce), nori (seaweed), sweet kinton.

We gather in the kitchen when the mochi is done, and inhale one of the great traditions of Japanese culture. It's warm and cozy, and there's a wild babble of English crossing Japanese and Japenglish. Of the entire holiday season, this is the one I'll enjoy best, later.

Almost 2002. Let's hope it'll be better than 2001 was.