Asian Culture

JAPAN

Coming of Age
People in Japan become adults at age 20. They are able to smoke,drink, and vote at that age. To celebrate their independence. The Coming of Age day is on the second Monday of January. Women wear luxurious kimonos and men typically wear suites.  The young adults listen to speeches given to local officials and receive small gifts. Then people party afterward.


Fake Food

Fake food is an important part of the food industry. It  was started in the 20's when Japanese people started to eat out more. The restaurant were having trouble keeping up and the customers were not happy since they did not know what there were ordering. So people made food in the morning and displayed it out front to show people what food was being served that day. This was way too much money and attracted flies in the summer. Then fake food from wax was made and allowed people not to deal with those problems. Now plastic is used for fake food, and is used in many restaurants. The fake food is even made very similarly to the real thing. It is often impossible to tell the difference between fake and real when it comes to food. 

Golden Week

It is a week of celebration in Japan. Everyone has off this week. I guess you could consider it like a spring vacation of some sort.  It runs from April 29th to May 5th. On April 29th it is Showa Day. They celebrate his birthday since the Japanese people went through great efforts to rebuild Japan. Constitution Day is on May 3, it celebrates the new constitution after WWII. On May 4th  it is Greenery Day. It celebrates Emperor Showa's love of nature. On May 5th it is Children's Day. Parents on this day pray and hang up streamers.

White Day

Image from wikipedia

Well Valentines Day was a few days ago, but I was still thinking about it.  In Japan things work a little differently. Only Japanese females buy chocolate or some other small item  to there boyfriends rather than a gift exchange. Then a month later on March 14th, the roles switch. It is White Day and the males should give chocolate back to the people that gave them chocolate last month. It is also worth noting that not all exchanges are romantic, some are formed by social obligations. The candy used in these type of exchanges are called Giri Choco, while  honmei choco is used for romantic exchanges. You can sort of equate it to flower buying in America. If you bought as red rose for a co-worker it would be awkward, but if you got her a mix of flowers it would be seen as a nice gesture.

Picture from wikipedia

 Hanafuda

It is a Japanese card game. "Hana" is in reference to flowers, and "fuda" is in reference to cards. So it means flower cards.  There is not just one set game to play with these cards there are actually a few. Each card is part of a month of the year, like suites in western cards. A fun fact is that Nintendo actually started as a hanafuda maker.


                                                   
                                                           Shogi

 Shogi is Japanese chess. There are some different rules in this type of chess than the kind you are most likely familiar with. The first thing is that in shogi you are allowed to reuse captured pieces, which is something you can't do in western chess. Also if a piece makes it across to the other side of the board it changes. They have it in western chess but in shogi you can't choose for the most part. You simply flip it over and it takes on another role.