November 15th is Shichi-go-san (七五三, read as 7-5-3). This is a day when girls aged 3 and 7 and boys aged 5 are dressed up in beautiful kimonos and taken to temples to pray. Other days when children have a shared celebration are Hina Matsuri (ひな祭り, Girl’s Day Festival) on March 3rd and Kodomo no Hi (こどもの日, Children’s Day) on May 5th. Then there’s Seijin no Hi (成人の日, Coming of Age Day) in January.
I wondered about the whole one-day-for-all festivals, and it was explained to me that in a way, they were like Japanese birthdays. Birthdays aren’t as special as Hina Matsuri or Kodomo no Hi here in Japan. It might be because of the importance of the group or something, but it seems having a big celebration for everyone has been a long time tradition. A friend told me that people in Japan got a year older on New Year’s Day, as opposed to one’s day of birth. I googled this recently and found this:
Question
Is it true that when a baby is born in Japan it is automatically 1 year old? Thank you.Answer
Hi Bill,Yes and no. Japanese have 2 ways of counting age. One is the ‘kazoe’ system, which is the same as we use in the west.
It is used in everday conversation.The older form of counting is the ‘man’ system. In Japan one’s age is counted from the day you were supposed to be conceived – hence in Japan they say that a pregnancy is ’10 months long’, since in the west they usually start counting pregnancy from the first missed persiod.
In the older system in Japan the first year is not a full calendar year. So when you are born, you are called one year old, and then on the next Jan. 1st you are called a year older. For example, if a baby is born on Dec 1st, it is called one year old. One month later, on Jan 1st, the baby is now ‘2 years old’, or really, in your second year. But birthdays are still celebrated on the same calendar day – otherwise you’d have 127 million birthday celebrations on Jan 1st.
On some resume forms for example, you might still see the Chinese character for ‘man’ in the birthday form, indicating
that the system used is the man system. It can be confusing even to Japanese, and the system on forms is changing more and more to just listing what your birthday is so there is no confusion.Japanese also count their emperors along the same lines.
Everyone in Japan knows and uses the Gregorian calendar, but on official documents you still might see the query for your birthday with the year as what emperor and what year of rule he was in. For example, if you were born in 1955 you would list your birthday as ‘Showa 30’, since Showa refers to the late emperor Hirohito, and he first became emperor in 1925. Emperor Akihito became emperor when Hirohito died in 1988. But the last year of Hirohito was not a full calendar year – he died in March, if I remember right – and the first year of Akihito was just a little more than 8 mos. long. But it is called his first ‘year’
(gannen) although it is not a full calendar year.Hope that helps,
Robert
My wife is Japanese and her 31st birthday is coming up. I remember her saying something about it being a bad luck year for her and that we’re supposed to have a huge birthday party in order to offset the badluck. Can you tell me more about that so that I can do this right?
Thank You,
Dennis
Thanks for leaving a reply, Dennis!
I have heard a lot about that. The bad luck years are called “yakudoshi”. There are certain things you can do, but I’m afraid I’m not an expert and it would be safer to consult a Japanese person.
Anyway, here is a quote:
“In Japan, there is a belief in Yakudoshi, or unlucky year, when misfortunes are supposed to happen to individuals through the workings of cosmic forces. For men, the Yakudoshi is 25 and 42 years, and for women, 19 and 33 years.
Superstition has it that you can get rid of Yakudoshi’s bad luck if you eat as many beans as your age on Setsubun.”
I am turning 14 soon, I want to have a Japanese Birthday Party sooooo bad, how do have one?
Hi Katie!
Are you part-Japanese, by any chance? If not, are you looking for a Japanese-themed birthday?
If it’s a Japanese-themed birthday, that would be so much fun! Decorating with Japanese paper lamps, maybe a few with some Japanese characters you can copy and paste from online (like characters for dream (yume 夢), love (ai, 愛)、sakura (桜), etc. You could also decorate with candles and incense sticks. Then you could serve Japanese food on pretty Asian dishes and have guests use chopsticks. You could also have an origami (paper-folding) activity for your guests. You could wear an Asian or Japanese inspired dress, too!
I’m sure there are dozens of ideas online! Have fun!
im doing a project on this its a 3 minute lecture that is due tomorrow and we got it today
hehehehhehehehehehehhehehehehehehehhe hahahhahahahhahahahhahahahhahahhahahah
Super exetcid to see more of this kind of stuff online.
Hello! This next year will be my husband’s yakudoshi. He is Japanese. I would like to throw a party in honor of this and to help with all the superstitions. Can you give me advice? I know he needs to wear red-should I ask all the guests to do that? Also, we are thinking of wearing matching red kimonos-myself-husband and son-is that ok?
I know to have red food and put pine tree clippings at the front door and to make 1000 red cranes and string them together. Anything else?
I enjoy the Japanese culture and want to show my respect for my husband’s special birthday.
Thanks for your help!
Karen 🙂
hi i`ve been wondering about how you would have a japanese birthday as well i am not all japanese but i really do want one and if i want to celebrate the days of the chinese zodiac can i do that as well?
Hi. My Japanese grandma’s bday is in a couple of weeks and it’s gonna be her 80th bday.
I was wondering if there’s something special or specific to do for this bday.
Thanx!
I think you got it backwards. “Kazoe” (数え年) is the old style of counting years. “Man” (満年齢 [lit. “Full Year Age”) is the Western style of counting years. That is why it uses the Kanji “満” – “man”, or “full” in the name, meaning that the full year is completely. This is my first time visiting, but I hope that this is just a small inaccuracy that slips through your vigorous fact checking!
ええ~!しらなかた、おもしろいです!~