Explore everyday life in Japan
Every year, the second Monday of January is dedicated to a national holiday in Japan known as Seijin no Hi. Seijin no Hi is commonly translated as Coming of Age Day and is a day when those who have turned twenty during the previous year celebrate their entrance into adulthood. While it is common in many parts of the world to group people by the year in which they were born, Japan has a custom of grouping people by their school year, which begins in April and ends in March. This means that someone who was born between the months of January and March of a particular year will be considered one year older than someone who was born between the months of April and December of the same year.
Seijin no Hi has been practiced in Japan, in one form or another, for over a thousand years and is said to have its roots in the actions of a prince who long ago changed the style of his hair and dress to signify that he had become an adult. These days, young men and women tend to dress up in either kimono or suits on this day or the day before it. They also attend city-sponsored ceremonies that involve listening to guest speakers and sometimes receiving small gifts, visit shrines, and celebrate with their friends by exercising their newly acquired right to legally drink alcohol.
If you are traveling in Japan on or before the second Monday in January, you are bound to see young women clad in beautiful kimonos and young men in suits riding trains, walking through stations, and possibly sheltering themselves with umbrellas from the falling rain or snow of January as they pass through town on their way to a nearby shrine or izakaya.
Image Credits: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture any worthwhile pictures of this holiday myself this year as my family plans had me mostly in the car and in areas where I wasn’t able to properly photograph the revelers that I saw. The images used in this post were found here First Image, and here Second Image.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.