The Japanese eat mochi (rice cake) during the first month of the year. Their rice cakes are made purely of glutinous rice and are shaped into a round shape, which is written in Chinese characters as "kagekake". There is a beautiful legend about mochi in the Chinese notebook "Fengduji" from the Nara period (715-782 AD): Once upon a time, there was a victorious and arrogant samurai, who one day shot an arrow with mochi as his target. The moment the arrow was about to hit the target, the rice cake turned into a white swan and flew away. As a result of this, the Japanese believe that the rice cakes are hosted by a god, and so the making and eating of rice cakes at the end of the year and the beginning of the year is regarded as very sacred. Glutinous rice is resistant to hunger and rich in nutrients, so the Japanese have "cake belly for three days" proverb, which says that eating rice cakes can withstand hunger for three days. In the first month of every year, the palace holds a ceremony called "Kokeshi," in which the emperor is invited to eat a "mirror cake" in order to wish him a long and healthy life. During the samurai era, when samurai warriors prayed for "divine power" by offering rice cakes before going to war, the rice cakes were also called "power cakes.　　Japan also has a life ritual called "wear cake", that is, let the boys under five years old in the first month of the head or back rice cakes, said so that when they grow up can be powerful, promising. I once saw a ceremony for a week-old boy in the suburbs of Tokyo, where the boy wore a small kimono, stood barefoot on a tatami mat with a large mirror cake on his back, and stood motionless with a serious face, while the adults recited congratulatory words and prayers. The atmosphere is so sacred that it makes you stand in awe.　　Most Japanese people make mochi (rice cakes) for three days, from the 25th to the 28th of the lunar month. Twenty-nine days made called "nine cakes", New Year's Eve made called "one night cake", many places taboo "one night cake". I have seen the scene of Japanese rice cakes. But see a mortar and pestle, four strong men, lifting the pestle and mortar repeatedly pounded that wooden mortar in the steaming rice, pestle sound again and again, singing loud and clear. The "song leader" led the singing, and the crowd helped: "ah - auspicious pine heh, (branches and leaves), depicted in the offering plate of heh, (and cranes and turtles); send off the New Year's Eve ushered in the New Year heh, (the door pine stands), the god of the year is coming to us! The god of the year is coming to us, yo, (has been buckling the door); my family's beloved god of the stove, (the name of the barren god of the pine). I can't help but join in, (please take care). ...... The snow on Mt. Fuji is melting, so let's roll the bean paste into rice cakes. I have been away from Japan for some years now, and every time I savor my hometown's rice cakes, the Japanese people's neat and resonant song will ring in my ears.