There was a launch with a difference last Wednesday when a Sake Barrel Ceremony was held to open the Dr Glenn & Partners Medical Imaging rooms at Wollongong Private Hospital.
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The ceremony was hosted with the help of Toshiba to celebrate harmony and good fortune at the new facility.
And the story behind the ceremony was fascinating for all present.
Originally, “kagami-biraki” was one of the rituals celebrating the first day of work or events at New Year.
Kagami-biraki means the vigorous breaking open of a sake cask.
Nowadays it is often carried out when a new house is completed, on the anniversary of the foundation of a company, or at wedding receptions.
Long ago, it was custom in Samurai families to offer a set of round rice cakes called “kagamimochi” to the gods at New year, and to cut and eat them on January 11.
This custom was called “kagamibiraki”.
It is still done at New Year, when people offer kagamimochi to the gods.
It is also performed at the beginning of the year at homes or offices. They eat the sake while wishing health and prosperity in the coming year. At sake breweries, where ‘kagami-biraki” was performed, the top cover of a cask was called a “kagami”.
Also from ancient times, it has been a custom to offer sake to the gods when various Shinto rituals are conducted, and once prayers are over, the attendants drink it together wishing that what they prayed for will come true.
In case the sake for the gods is offered in a cask, people open the top cover and serve sake.
Since opening the top cover of a cask involves breaking (“wari” in Japanese) the kagami, the event was also called “kagami-wari” or “kagami-biraki”.
Because the word “wareru” (meaning to be broken) is inauspicious, over time the expression used has become “kagami-biraki”.
(“Kagami” means harmony, and “hiraku” means growing increasingly prosperous.)
Both types of “kagami-biraki” - one meaning the cutting and eating of kagami-mochi and the other the opening of the top of a sake cask used in Shinto rituals - are practiced while wishing that one’s prayers for health and happiness at the start or end of an endeavour will come true.