Coming of Age Day in Japan: An Insider's Tips

This Monday January 10, 2011 will be a National Holiday in Japan. Sejin No Hi (Coming of Age Day) is a big event in Japanese culture. It is to celebrate turning the ripe old age of Twenty !

In Japan 20 year-olds are considered adults. That means they can drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, sign contracts and vote in elections. It's a big deal so, everybody gets dressed up for the event.

Years ago, boys came of age at 15 and the girls at 13. The boys would get a haircut for the event. And, the girls would paint their teeth BLACK ! 

Well, times have changed for the better, I think. 

Since 1876 the laws have been modified in Japan. You have to be 20 years old to be considered an adult and girls don't wear blackened teeth anymore. They wear pretty kimonos for Coming of Age Day and they don't have to be be so ugly.

The photo above was taken in September of 2008. To give you an idea how serious folks are about preparing for Sejin No Hi, this gal was getting fitted for a kimono months in advance.  The event doesn't take place until the second week of January.

Knowing she was a minor at the time, I couldn't legally take her picture without the consent of her adult, legal guadian.  So, I went over to her mother, sitting in a chair watching her daughter getting all decked out in this kimono.

I spoke to her in the Okinawan dialect and got her laughing.  I told her she had pretty eyes, hah !

Not only did she sign a release, she gave me permission to have the photo published, too. 

So, that's what I did at BootsNall Travel Articles.

You can read more about Coming of Age Day in Japan  in the JAPAN UPDATE if you like.  I have to clean my cameras and practice stretching the truth, a bit,  in Japanese so I can get more photos of pretty young girls in their kimonos !

Is there anything like the Coming of Age Day in Japan in your culture ?

Year of the Rabbit 2011 (Photo) Okinawa: An Insider's Tip

Here it is, New Years Eve, where I'm at anyway. I guarantee in the next few days I'll get tons of emails wishing me a Happy New Year. I know because I do the same thing as soon as Christmas is over. I start telling everybody to have a Happy and Prosperous New Year, right on through the first week of January. We all do it and it's a good thing. It sure beats talking about the weather.

The Year of the Rabbit is 2011 so, I dug up this photo that I shot back in 2007 to show you what a rabbit looks like in the wild, at night, with camera flash. That's if you don't want to use red-eye reduction on your camera or in editing afterwards. Some people I know will have eyes like this when the wake up New Years Day after a night of celebrating. In Okinawa, we have New Years twice!

The Western, Gregorian, Christian, whatever you want to call it, calendar that a lot of the rest of the world uses, is used in Japan, too. Even in Okinawa we have the Western calendar and celebrate the New Year like folks in the western world. The New Year will start January 1st and people will be popping champagne bottles, kissing strangers on the lips and singing Auld Lang Syne in Japanese in my bar tonight. And they'll be running around with hangovers for the next three days visiting temples to try and have good luck in the Year of the Rabbit, 2011.

It's good for business. People are already buying rabbit jewelry, bunny footed pajamas and slippers and probably wedding gowns with rabbits sewed on them. Some of them even buy pet rabbits for their kids. Then, when they get tired of abusing them, turn them loose, like the one in the photo above. That's no wild rabbit. He's a rabbit turned loose in the wild; a feral rabbit, I guess.

Here's a tip from an old Insider. According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2010 the Year of the Tiger, doesn't end December 31st 2010. The Year of the Rabbit starts on February 3, 2011.  That'd make New Years Eve the 2d of February according to my calculations.

Not one to put a damper on everyone's holiday celabrations I'm going to dig up that Auld Lang Syne music, buy some bottles of champagne and wash the wine glasses for tonight.

What the heck, I may as well trim the beard, get all spruced up and wear my Sunday best for the New Years Party. Even if some good lookin' stranger-gal doesn't run up and kiss me on the lips, it could be my dressed rehersal for the 2011 Year of the Rabbit New Years Eve Party in February!

WHEREVER IN THE WORLD YOU ARE PLEASE DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE.  AND, I WISH YOU AND YOURS A SAFE, HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR !



RELATED LINK: 2011 THE YEAR OF THE PARTY RABBITS

Proper Positioning: An Insiders Infographic From Japan

I don't make this stuff up. I find it in my travels. You don't need a translator to understand the proper positioning of your body when they have these, relatively self explanatory infographics posted in the bathrooms in Japan. 

Okinawan Bullfight: An Insider's Tip

Going back through my past blogs looking for some unique aspect of culture in this part of the world to publish on my newly created Insider's Tips Page, I found this gem. Well, it deserves an update so, here I am almost two years later dusting it off and doing some editing.

A Bullfight in Okinawa is not the bloody sport most people would imagine when they hear the word "Bullfight". Bull Wrestling would be a better description and it is similar, in many ways, to Japanese Sumo Wrestling.

There are no Matadors or swords and knives used in this sport. Some handlers are present in the ring to cheer their side of beef on and lead them in the right direction.

The bulls lock horns and have a shoving match which may last from two to twenty minutes. When one of them gets tired and runs off, the other one is declared the winner.

Every once in awhile, one of the bulls will look at the size of his opponent and decide to turn into a chicken and just run away without ever bumping heads. Then he'll run around the ring trying to find the exit. And the crowd goes wild.

So, after a few thousand clicks of the shutter on my camera, I've decided it's more fun watching the people at the Bullfights than it is watching the bulls. And the best part of the whole sport is waiting for a bull to come into the ring and run around acting like a chicken. The rest of this post in Quotation Marks is my original from March 4, 2009 back when I was too busy to form an opinion about Okinawa Bullfighting:

"Its been a pretty hectic month of shooting the bull and I thought it was all over in Febraury. Well, the bullshooting is really done, now it's a matter of getting all the, what's called post-processing done. So, it looks like these big fellas are going to be haunting me through the month of March, too.
Too tired tonight to post much of a Blog, but, if you want more of the Bull Story go to my website and click-on articles at the top of the page. Then click Okinawan Bullfight and you'll see my first attempt at putting an article on a webpage. THAT'S ALL FOLKS."

If you ever get the opportunity to see an Okinawan Bullfight, don't pass it up !

IF YOU ARE LIVING IN OR VISITING OKINAWA AND NEED MORE INFO ABOUT THE BULLFIGHT PRICES AND SCHEDULES VISIT CNNGO