© Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

Mochitsuki

Taking the (rice) cake

by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

posted 1/8/2009

As I walk with my four kids into the U-M Center for Japanese Studies, we are heartened by the thump thump thump of the kine hitting the rice in the usu. It reminds us of the burly farmhands with whom we used to celebrate Mochitsuki many years ago. The girls start giggling, though, when they see who’s grasping the wooden mallets: skinny little

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