It is a bit early to celebrate for folks here in the US, but in Japan it is already March 3rd, which means it is already Girl’s Day (hinamatsuri ひな祭り)!

三月三日、おはようござます。#ひな祭り　#耳の日#MKトラベルの日常#ロボホン課長を探して下さい

写真は 京都 長岡京 柳谷観音楊谷寺
※お寺の許可をいただき撮影しました pic.twitter.com/IyWcAmXP3P

— MKトラベル【公式】 (@mk_ryokou) March 2, 2021

So for all the ladies out there, Happy Girl’s Day!!

P.S. In traditional Japanese, Girl’s Day is also known as jōshi no sekku (上巳の節句).

September 9th (9/9) is the last of the yearly sekku (節句) or seasonal holidays in the old Japanese calendar, and is named kiku no sekku (菊の節句) or more formally chōyō no sekku (重陽の節句). The name means something like “Day of the Chrysanthemum”, and has its origins in a similar Chinese holiday called the Double Ninth Festival. The formal name chōyō (重陽) is the more Sinified name.

Because 9 is considered a “yang” number, the double 9 (September 9th) is thought to become “yin”, and thus can bring misfortune. So, like other sekku holidays, it was thought that celebrating a holiday on this day would avert disaster. Since 9 is the highest single-digit “yang” number, the “yin” misfortune was even worse. More on this in a future post.

The holiday, as the name implies, is devoted to Chrysanthemum flowers. In Heian Period Japan (8th-11th centuries), the golden age of the Imperial court, it was commonly believed that gathering the morning dew from chrysanthemums on this day, and applied to the face would keep ladies youthful looking. For example, in the famous Pillow Book by lady of the court, Sei Shonagon, she writes:

[7] … It’s charming when a light rain begins to fall around daybreak on the ninth day of the ninth month, and there should be plenty of dew on the chrysanthemums, so that the cotton wadding that covers them is thoroughly wet, and it brings out the flowers’ scent that imbues it.

translation by Meredith McKinney

People would also consume Chrysanthemum-infused rice wine, and go on picnics too.

Chrysanthemums are a popular subject for poetry as well. Sugawara no Michizane, who was later deified as the god of learning, Tenjin, wrote the following:

Japanese	Romanized Japanese	Translation
秋風の	Akikaze no	The autumn breeze
吹上に立てる	fukiage ni tateru	rises on the shore at Fukiage
白菊は	shirakiku wa	–and those white chrysanthemums
花かあらぬか	hana ka aranu ka	are they flowers? or not?
浪の寄するか	nami no yosuru ka	or only breakers on the beach?

There is also this wonderful poem from the Hyakunin Isshu anthology:

Japanese	Romanization	Translation
心あてに	Kokoroate ni	Must it be by chance,
折おらばや折おらむん	Orabaya oran	if I am to pluck one, that I pluck it? —
初霜の	Hatsushimo no	white chrysanthemums
おきまどはわせる	Oki madowaseru	on which the first frost
白菊の花	Shiragiku no hana	lies bewilderingly.

Modern day celebrations during Day of the Chrysanthemum still happen at local Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples and such, but compared to more well-known sekku such as Children’s Day or Girl’s Day, September 9th is a more low-key day. As someone who likes low-stress holidays, I think the concept is pretty neat, to be honest.

Tanabata (七夕) is the fourth of five sekku or “seasonal” holidays that happen every year in Japan,¹ and has been a big summer festival since antiquity. The origin story of Tanabata is based on a Chinese legend about two young, celestial lovers named Hikoboshi and Orihime who were later forcibly separated by Orihime’s father except for one night each year: the seventh day of the seventh month. On that day, a flock of magpies form a bridge so the two can meet for that evening. Thus, Tanabata in the modern calendar is always July 7th.

There’s even a famous poem referring to Tanabata in the ancient Hyakunin Isshu anthology:

Japanese	Romanization	Translation
かささぎの	Kasasagi no	When I see the whiteness
わたせる橋に	wataseru hashi ni	of the frost that lies
おく霜の	oku shimo no	on the bridge the magpies spread,
白きを見れば	shiro wo mireba	then do I know, indeed,
夜ぞふけにける	yo zo fuke ni keru	that the night has deepened.

The reference to the Magpie’s Bridge is from two places: the Imperial Palace at the time had a set of stairs called Magpie’s Bridge, but also the famous legend of Tanabata. Although the poem takes place in the dead of winter, even as far back as the 8th century, the story of the magpie bridge was culturally significant.

The story of Tanabata makes a good theme for a summer night, and not surprisingly, it’s a great excuse to get out, dress up in traditional robes (yukata) and enjoy local festivals, food and people watching. My wife and kids are usually in Japan during this time, but due to work, I tend to arrive later in July, so I often miss the Tanabata, but when I do go, it’s a good time for the family.

One popular tradition is to write one’s wishes on a small piece of paper called tanzaku (短冊)² and hang it on a designated bamboo tree:

There’s also a song that goes along with this tradition, which my wife would sometimes sing to our kids when they were babies:

ささのは　さらさら のきばに　ゆれる お星さま　きらきら きんぎん　すなご ごしきの　たんざく わたしが　かいた お星さま　きらきら 空から　　見てる[9]

Sasa no ha sara-sara Nokiba ni yureru Ohoshi-sama kira-kira Kingin sunago Goshiki no tanzaku watashi ga kaita Ohoshi-sama kirakira sora kara miteru

The bamboo leaves rustle, And sway under the eaves. The stars twinkle Like gold and silver grains of sand. The five-color paper strips I have written them. The stars twinkle, Watching from above.

My wife usually only sings the first four verses if I recall correctly, but I can still hear her singing this song in my mind to our newborn kids before they go to sleep. 🥰

Anyhow, Tanabata is a nice summer holiday that young and old can enjoy, and well worth seeing if you happen to be in Japan in the summer.

¹ This includes Girls Day and Childrens Day among others.

² As well as an emoji 🎋

I have a small fascination with calendars,¹ including the traditional Japanese calendar (online example here), which has a lot of interesting cultural tidbits that aren’t obvious to Westerners.

On many Japanese calendars are small words like 大安, 仏滅, and 先勝 that repeat over and over in a cycle each month. These are known as the rokuyō (六曜) or “six days” and are related to a superstition that has persisted since the Edo Period (16th – 19th century).

Here is an old example I took many years ago at my in-laws house in Japan. I use to stare at this calendar all the time, trying to puzzle out what these words meant…

A more contemporary example here is from a calendar we got in 2025:

Prior to the early-industrial Meiji Period (late 19th century), Japan still used a lunar calendar based on the Chinese model which is now called kyūreki (旧暦) or “the old calendar”. As a lunar calendar, it had twelve months, 30 days each, to reflect the cycles of the moon. Japanese New Year thus originally coincided with Chinese New Year, though the first day of the new lunar year is now relegated to kyūshōgatsu (旧正月, “old New Year”). Modern new year is observed on January 1st instead to coincide with Western calendar.

Anyhow, since the months were all exactly 30 days, the rokuyō were six days that reflected good or bad fortune on that day, mainly related to public events like weddings, funerals, new undertakings, etc. Though, it’s thought that the six days were also used to determine one’s fortune in gambling, too. The six days are, in order are:

Japanese	Romanization	Meaning	Notes
先勝	senshō	Winning first/before	Mornings were thought to be auspicious, but afternoons unlucky.
友引	tomobiki	Pulling friends	Funerals were avoided this day, but private gathering of friends were considered OK.
先負	senbu	Losing first/before	Mornings were thought to be unlucky, but afternoons auspicious.
仏滅	butsumetsu	Death of the Buddha	Inauspicious all day. Social events avoided.
大安	taian	Great Luck	Very auspicious day.
赤口	shakkō	Red Mouth	Though 11am to 1pm was thought to be OK, the rest is dangerous, especially handling knives.

The six days simply repeat over and over throughout the old Chinese calendar, but there’s a twist:

• The first day of the 1st and 7th lunar months is always 先勝 (senshō).
• The first day of the 2nd and 8th lunar months is always 友引 (tomobiki).
• The first day of the 3rd and 9th lunar months is always 先負 (senbu).
• …and so on.

So this cycle of six days actually resets at the beginning of a new month. This leads to some interesting outcomes for certain traditional Japanese holidays, particularly the 5 seasonal holidays or sekku, some of which we’ve talked about here in the blog. For example:

• Girls Day is always 大安 (taian). Girls rock, what can I say? 😎
• Childrens Day (originally Boys Day) is always 先負 (senbu). Maybe boys start out awkward, but mature into their own later? 💪🏼
• Tanabata (July 7th), one of my other favorite Japanese holidays, is always 先勝 (senshō). The star-crossed lovers that feature in the story of Tanabata were separated later, so perhaps they were only lucky at first. 💔 (just kidding)
• Day of the Chrysanthemum (Sept. 9th, another holiday we haven’t gone over yet) is always 大安 (taian). Mathematically this makes sense since it is exactly 6 months away from Girls Day.

Further, a couple other traditional holidays such as jūgoya (十五夜, “harvest moon-viewing day”) is always 仏滅 (butsumetsu) and the lesser-known jūsanya (十三夜, “the full moon after harvest moon”) is always 先負 (senbu).

Finally, there are intercalary or “leap months” (uruuzuki, 閏月) that are inserted about every 3 years to help re-align the calendar with the seasons. Lunar cycles don’t match solar ones very well, so in antiquity, lunar calendars frequently fell out of alignment. In the case of the Japanese calendar, this is done about every 3 years after the risshun season from what I can see.

A while back before I had all this figured out, I wrote a small computer program that would execute every time I would log into my computer terminal. Sometimes, I written program this in Python language, sometimes in Ruby, and then Golang. The screenshot below is from the Ruby version which worked reasonably well:

The current incarnation I use was written in Golang language and doesn’t yet include Imperial reign name, nor leap months. I have taken the existing version and moved it to Gitlab for public usage, though it is far from complete. You can find the repo here.

Anyhow, that’s a brief look at the rokuyo in the Japanese calendar. If you’re technically-inclined, feel free to try out the program above, make improvements, send feedback, whatever.

For everyone else, the six days are a bit of a cultural relic from an earlier time in Japan, and apart from planning weddings and funerals, most people give it no real thought. Me? I like to check it from time to time and see if my day’s experiences matched the day’s fortune (spoiler: it usually doesn’t).

Edit: turns out my Ruby code had a silly bug in it all these years. It is now fixed.

Edit 2: turns out 2023 in the Chinese lunar calendar had a leap month, which throws off this entire script. I hadn’t expected this. Will think about this for a while and try to solve for leap months too.

¹ Historia Civilis has a fun video on Youtube about the origin of the Julian Calendar and why 44 BCE was the “longest” year in history.

² The idea of the Buddha’s death and the concept of Nirvana (lit. “unbinding”) is a lengthy subject in Buddhism. Enjoy!

May 5th in Japan every year is a holiday called Children’s Day or Kodomo no Hi (子供の日). This holiday was originally the third of five sekku (節句) or seasonal holidays in ancient Japan and a counterpart to Hinamatsuri or Girl’s Day. The 5/5 date, along with Hinamatsuri’s 3/3 date is no coincidence. Most of the sekku holidays have traditional dates like that: Tanabata is 7/7 and the Day of the Chrysanthemum is 9/9, and many of them have Chinese origin as well. May 5th is also a holiday in China as well.

According to an old cultural guidebook that I previously owned, Children’s Day used to be called the Day of the Iris (ayamé no hi, 菖蒲の日) in traditional times. The term for Iris is usually called ayame (菖蒲), but the Chinese characters can also be read as shōbu, which happens to be a homophone of another word that meant warlike spirit, or martial prowess (尚武), which sounded manly and hence it became a festival for boys. By 1948, the holiday was broadened to Children’s Day and has remained that way since. It is also known by an alternate name, tango no sekku (端午の節句) which still retains the nuance of “boy’s day”.

One of the most common displays you’ll see on Children’s Day are the koinobori (鯉のぼり) wind-socks. These wind socks intentionally look like Japanese koi fish, and are usually displayed in groups of 2 to 4. My kids used to make them out of paper each year in Japanese preschool.

The other common tradition is to see samurai armor displayed. If a household has boys in the home, then families setup miniature display of armor, or in our case just the helmet (kabuto 兜) and weapons, some time in April until shortly after Children’s Day. However, schools and preschools also make kabuto helmets and armor out of construction paper for kids to dress up in too. Everyone gets into the spirit that way.

My son, who was born several years after his big sister, is really excited about Children’s Day because he knows he will be spoiled extra, even in these trying times.

Among other things, my wife was able to get kashiwa-mochi (柏餅), which is a special treat made of soft rice-cakes wrapped in White Oak leaves. The leaves are tough and inedible² (unlike sakura-mochi for Girl’s Day) so unwrap the mochi first and enjoy.

2020 under lockdown is an especially tough year for everyone, especially kids. But I sincerely hope kids everywhere have a terrific Children’s Day and feel loved and appreciated. 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒

¹ One other holiday worth nothing is Nanakusa, which doesn’t follow the usual dating convention, but is considered another sekku holiday.

² Learned that one the hard way. 😅