Special Birthdays
Twenty
The twentieth birthday is where a person becomes an adult and can drink alcohol and smoke tobacco. Pronounced hatachi.
Sixty
The sixtieth birthday is the occasion of kanreki, 還暦, when five cycles of the Chinese zodiac have completed.
Seventy-seven
The seventy-seventh birthday is the occasion of kiju 喜寿, "happy age", because the Chinese character 喜 written in cursive style looks like the characters for seventy-seven.
Eighty-eight
The eighty-eighth birthday is the occasion of beiju 米寿, "rice age", because the Chinese character for rice, 米, looks like the characters for eighty-eight (八十八).
Ninety-nine
The ninety-ninth birthday is the occasion of hakuju 白寿, "white age", because the Chinese character for white, 白, looks like the Chinese character for one hundred, 百, with the top stroke (which means "one") removed.
Read more about this topic: Etiquette In Japan
Famous quotes containing the words special and/or birthdays:
“When we walk the streets at night in safety, it does not strike us that this might be otherwise. This habit of feeling safe has become second nature, and we do not reflect on just how this is due solely to the working of special institutions. Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together, but in fact its only bond is the fundamental sense of order which everybody possesses.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.”
—Jean Paul Richter (1763–1825)