Japanese Birthdays

In response to a question I asked one of my friends in Japan, she went and asked her students about what Japanese people did for their birthdays.

Here's what was discovered:

It seems that a Japanese birthday celebration has the same essentials as an Aussie one.

There is usually a family celebration dinner. Often the mother will cook a meal requested by the person having the birthday. Following dinner there is the birthday cake. Apparently, you are able to buy chocolate name plates to put ontop the birthday cake but I'm yet to see one. The only unusual thing about the cake is the candles. Instead of having one candle for each year, the Japanese, in their usual style of ingenuity, have one big candle to represent 10 years and the little candles to represent one year. That way if someone is 40 years old, you need only four large candles instead of 40 tiny ones.

They sing the same 'Happy Birthday' song as us however they don't do the "hip hip hoorays!" afterwards and they don't make a wish as the candles are blown out. They were also very amused to hear about the tradition of kissing the nearest boy/girl if the knife touches the bottom of the cake. I don't think they do birthday punches either.

One of my younger students said that young Japanese also have a second party for friends after the family party.

I told them about games that are played at children's birthday parties, like running with an egg in a spoon, bobbing for apples, musical chairs, pass the parcel and smacking a pinata. They don't play any of those games at children's parties here, but they do put candy on a table in a small pile of flour. Children have to try to get the candy out without their hands so they end up with flour all over their faces. They also play a game called mama and baby bird where you have to use suction on to pick up a peanut on the end of a straw to drop it in the open mouth of your partner.

As far as party food goes, I think Japanese kids are being ripped off. They don't get goodies the likes of butterfly cakes, fairy bread, chocolate crackles or traffic lights sandwhiches. Instead they get sushi, oshizushi (pressed sushi), cherios, red rice or some strange dish with layers of tuna, rice and fish amongst other things.

The red rice was interesting. It is made from a particular type of rice (they are really particular about types of rice here in Japan) which is boiled in water with red beans. The red beans cause the water to go red and thereby the rice to go pink. This is, according to one of my students, a celebration dish that is served not only at birthdays but also other important milestones in a person's life such as starting school and graduation. Her mother used to serve this dish at every birthday along with a sea-bream fish with the head still attached.

In Australia, our special birthdays are celebrated at ages 18, 21 and 50. Here in Japan, it is at age 20 and 60. Twenty is the age at which Japanese become adults. This is when they can vote, drive a car, smoke, drink, gamble and get married without parental consent. Sixty is considered an important age because this is when the twelve years of the chinese zodiac has cycled five times. This is like returning to the age of 0.... at least that's the understanding I got from the conversation with my student.

-Fin-