Page 204 - Easy Japanese - Learn to Speak Japanese Quickly! (TUTTLE)

period is called gan-nen (元年). The years are named and counted with the
Chinese numbers plus -nen. It’s highly recommended to know your birthday
according to the Japanese calendar. Dates by the Japanese calendar will be used
in official documents in Japan and are quite common in everyday conversation.
Having this—and key measurements such as shoe size, height and weight that
have been converted to the Japanese sizing system—will be useful when going

to Japan. The most recent periods include:
Meiji 明治 1868-1912

Taisho 大正 1912-1926
Showa 昭和 1926-1989
Heisei 平成 1989-present

A note on celebrating birthdays in Japan. Traditionally everyone’s chronological
age increases by one on the first day of the year regardless of one’s actual date of
birth. This system is called kazoe-doshi (数え年). In this system—which
gradually faded due to the influence of western culture—a newborn baby is one-

year old immediately and turns two on the next New Year’s day. As a result,
celebrating individual birthdays was not common. Birthdays are generally
celebrated privately among family and friends, but rarely at the workplace. The
emperor’s birthday is an exception and is declared as a national holiday.
Milestone ages include the seventh night (oshichiya お七夜), third, fifth, and
seventh birthdays (shichi-go-san 七五三), 20th (hatachi 二十歳), 60th (kanreki

還暦), 77th (kiju 喜寿), 88th (beiju 米寿), and 99th (hakuji 白寿). Every
milestone is celebrated with different rituals.

NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Date English name Official name
January 1 New Year’s Day 元日 Ganjitsu

2nd Monday of Coming of Age Day 成人の日 Seijin no hi
January
February 11 National Foundation 建国記念の日 Kenkoku kinen

Day no hi
March 20 or 21 Vernal Equinox Day 春分の日 Shunbun no hi
April 29 Shōwa Day 昭和の日 Shōwa no hi

May 3 Constitution Memorial 憲法記念日 Kenpō kinenbi