Red Rice

[steepholm]

I learned the other day that it's traditional in Japanese homes, when a girl has her first period, for the family to be served red rice (sekihan). In the explanation I initially heard, this was described as a way of announcing the happy news to the family, where it might be rather indelicate or embarrassing to say it aloud.

First thought: how is this going to be less embarrassing? Apparently many young Japanese women agree, because the custom is becoming less common, although my lodgers assure me that it very much still exists.

My second thought was wider of the mark. Admittedly, I didn't seriously think that they made the rice red by mixing in the daughter's menstrual blood (they use adzuki beans), but I did think it might symbolise that blood. I briefly wondered how they might celebrate a son's first wet dream - by smearing some paper glue on a napkin, perhaps? (But there is no culture that celebrates that momentous event, as far as I know.) But no, it's just that red is the general colour of celebration, and red rice can be used to celebrate other things, too - birthdays and the like. I was relieved to discover this, but also just a little disappointed.

Comments

[oursin]

This reminds me of the 70s feminist attempts to create Celebratory Menarche Traditions, and the Posy Simmonds cartoon where ?Wendy Weber's daughter has come on, and Mummy promised celebration, but alas, Mummy has elderly relatives round for tea....

[steepholm]

I can imagine Posy Simmonds would have a great take on that!

[joyeuce]

In Michelle Magorian's Back Home, Rusty embarrasses her mother by knowing all about menstruation from her "Bohemian" American family, and expecting the celebration meal that said family would have given her.

[steepholm]

I must have read that back in the day, but had forgotten it! It strikes me that it would be a very Bohemian US family that would have celebrated in that way during WWII, twenty years before Betty Friedan!

[larryhammer]

I've always wondered what happens if that first period coincides with a birthday. Are there two separate days of red rice?

[steepholm]

Or just one, but with a more intense shade?