The Jingara Rice Cake Festival is a New Year’s Festival that conveys Japan’s traditional culture to the modern day. Held on the 2nd Sunday of every January, it features local male members competing over round rice cakes, and the way the cakes crack is used to predict the year’s harvest and how the crops will turn out. This festival follows a tradition called “full of eights,” with eight kinds of various things offered to the gods – 8 “sho” (1.8 liters) of sacred sake, 8 sho of kagami rice cake, and 8 kinds of offerings including vegetables, fruits, and seafood. This important festival has been passed down through the ages as a local tradition for praying for a good New Year’s harvest.

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