In Japan, Coming of Age ceremonies are usually hold on January. I attended the ceremony last month. There is a custom that most women who attend it wear furisode : traditional piece of Japanese clothing. I wore red one.
After the ceremony, the alumni association was hold, so I could meet my old friends again and enjoy talking with them.
I would like to know how people celebrate on Coming of Age Day.
Hi Pekochan,
Congratulations on your brand-new weblog!
Yuriko-san posted a photo the other day of herself wearing her furisode. Via the tags to the right of the image you can click through to a whole lot of related photos from throughout Flickr.
Comment by Rudolf — February 1, 2006 @ 4:45 am
Also, for the latest weblog posts on Coming of Age celebrations in Japan, try this.
Comment by Rudolf — February 1, 2006 @ 4:53 am
In my country – the USA – there are no coming of age days, but rather there are three ages that are significant in some way. 16, when you get your drivers license; 18, when you legally become an adult, can vote, smoke cigarettes, buy a gun, die in a war, be put to death for crime, etc; and 21, when you can finally buy a beer.
Hmmm…doesn’t something seem odd about that equation?
Comment by Aaron — February 2, 2006 @ 4:17 am
Yes, it seems a little bit odd. Why is only drinking left out of 18?
I didn’t know that 18 is the age that person is admitted as an adult in the USA. Thank you.
Comment by pekochan — February 2, 2006 @ 4:01 pm
Let’s see — in Switzerland you can get a driver’s licence at eighteen, and that’s the legal age for smoking and drinking as well. You get the vote at twenty — and if you’re a guy, you have to go to the army at that age.
Coming of Age Day does exist, but it’s not such a big production as in Japan — it’s called Young Citizen’s Celebration: it’s an event, much like in Japan, where you’re invited to go to some municipal festivity where the mayor will address you. Most people don’t bother going, though — or that, anyway, was my impression back at the time.
Comment by ammann — February 3, 2006 @ 1:39 am
Oh, and why is drinking left out of 18 in the US? My guess would be religious reasons — the Unites States came out of the Puritan settlements on the East Coast; the Puritans represented a very strict branch of Protestantism, and some of that strictness still lingers on today. Europe, by comparison, is more relaxed about drinking.
Comment by ammann — February 3, 2006 @ 1:45 am
I was convinced by your guess. I remembered my friend who came from Korea once told me most people in Korea are Christians and drinking is regarded as a bad deed among them.
Comment by pekochan — February 3, 2006 @ 3:08 pm
Well, CIA stats one quarter of the South Korean population are Christians, another quarter are Buddhists.
Don’t get me wrong, though: Christianity comes in many forms, and most of them, unlike Islam, do not demand complete abstinence. Some of those forms are stricter than others, and those stricter forms may have a stronger influence on public life in the US than they have in Europe.
Comment by ammann — February 4, 2006 @ 12:11 am
Pekochan, Congratulations on your coming of age. What is the name of the celebration that you attended? I live in the United States and when I was 18, individual states decided what age was considered legal…some were 18 and others were 21. At some later date, the drinking age was established to be 21. I think that was because people under 21 that lived near a state that had laws saying it was legal at 18, would drive into the other state and drink…this caused a lot of problems, especially upon returning to their home state…possibly intoxicated.
Comment by Jillian — March 3, 2007 @ 6:39 pm