Sticking With a Family Tradition

“Okay kids! Another batch is almost ready! Come on out!” shouted one of my aunts through the front door. We were all gathered at her house for our traditional mochi pounding event on the last Sunday of the year.
“Hey, someone pause the video game. Come on, last one out is a rotten egg!” One of us kids shouted as we raced out the door.
“Now don’t forget to shape it like this,” my grandma would say while showing us the exact motion and technique to shaping the mochi.
“Oooh that looks very good,” she would say to my cousin Lindsay and me. Then there was the occasional, “That doesn’t look so good. Fix it,” that she would say to some of my other cousins. Then once in a great while, usually when a male tries to shape the mochi, she will say with a sigh, “Umm… Mali or Lindsay, can you fix that for them please?”
“Hey Mom?” I asked once while we were all making mochi.
“Yes? What is it?” my mom replied.
“I was wondering, why do we always have mochi pounding? I mean, not that I don’t like it or anything, but isn’t it an old tradition from when great grandpa moved here to Hawaii?”
“Well, yes, it is an old tradition, but we are continuing it. We started off having mochi pounding at my grandpa’s house. He would have it on December 30th no matter if people worked or not. Everyone would go over and the men would pound the mochi and the women would shape them after the rice was pounded. Kind of how we do it now,” she explained.
So I sat down and watched as the men started pounding the steamed rice inside of the usu, or stone bowl that is used to pound the mochi in. As all the ladies watched, I wondered, why can’t I pound mochi too? Is it just because I’m a girl? I think I’m just as strong as some of them. In fact, I think a lot of us are just as strong as some of those guys. Is it another one of those status things where it’s a powerful task so the men get to do it? It looks like a lot of fun and it looks important too. Is all this gender stuff just tradition that we follow for the sake of tradition? My mom says that the men are supposed to be “stronger”, but I think the men don’t want us to pound because we would make them look bad. Why can’t we change other things too? Why don’t we color the mochi or use a machine to make the mochi? I figured that mochi just wouldn’t be the same if it was a different color and it just wouldn’t be as fun to use a machine. I started to wonder about tradition and why we have to carry it on.
“I have another question, why do we continue the tradition? What does all this stuff symbolize?” I questioned.
“Well, for many reasons, but… hey! Don’t throw the katakuriko around! You might get it in peoples’ faces!” my mom scolded as some of us started fooling around with the powdery potato starch, or katakuriko, that is used to make the mochi less sticky so it doesn’t stick to our hands. “Anyway, where was I again? Oh yeah, symbolism of the mochi. They say it symbolizes ‘sticking together’.”
“Okay, well I guess that kind of shines a new light on mochi pounding now. We’re going to do this forever, right?” I asked.
“I hope so. As long as we can find someone to step up to the plate and take over from your generation,” my mom answered.
Wondering who would be the next in our generation to carry on the tradition, I started watching the men pound the mochi again. One or two of them at a time would grab a mallet and pound the sticky rice. Each hit like a beat that keeps the rhythm of our family’s heart together. Along with the beat, my uncle turns the rice so that every part gets pounded and smoothed out.
Every hit sounds powerful, smack, smack, smack. Toward the end of each batch, my uncle would say, “Hold up! Ten more strong hits should do it.” and as each hit turns from smack to SMACK, everyone counts down, “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!” Finally my uncle will carefully pull the smooth, sticky mochi out of the usu and bring it over to the table where the ladies will shape it.
When our family gets together for mochi pounding it’s now more relaxed compared to before, but it is still really similar. Now, while we are waiting in between batches to finish steaming, the kids go inside and play board games or video games or just talk story while enjoying the comforts of air conditioning. Meanwhile the adults stay outside and joke around teasing one another and laughing. Before it was more traditional and there were no video games or air conditioners for comfort, but the family was still all there and bonding, just like how the mochi symbolizes sticking together. With all our busy lives, we make it a point to meet at the end of the year to be together. My family gets together for this event every year so that we will never fall apart. The same way mochi sticks together and doesn’t fall apart, even if it is stretched.