I think I'm starting to get into the swing of once-a-week posts on here. What I need to do now, it convince my boss to let me start doing this from home so I can post more things when I feel like it, not just went the office tries to schedule me in.
Anyway, today I'm going to take a break from the website reviews and write about something probably every other single blogger about Japan is blogging about.
Yesterday, on April 29th, Japan entered perhaps its most famous set of holidays, Golden Week.
If you haven't heard about it, Golden Week is a one-week period between April 29th and May 5th that houses four national holidays. Yes, four. These four are:
April 29th - Shouwa no Hi (昭和の日)
May 3rd - Kenpou Kinenbi (憲法記念日)
May 4th - Midori no Hi (みどりの日)
May 5th - Kodomo no Hi (こどもの日)
This year, because May 3rd falls on a Sunday, May 6th is a Furikae Kyuujitsu (振替休日), basically an observed holiday.
While April 30th through May 2nd are not technically holidays, many businesses will close to let their employees travel. The most common destinations are major tourist spots in Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo, Okinawa), returning to your hometown, South Pacific islands, the west coast of North America, and Europe.
During this week it is nearly impossible to find flights or vacant hotels without paying through the nose. Most bullet trains and super express trains are also completely booked way in advance. The few train cars on them that are not reserved seats are usually packed like a Tokyo subway car at rush hour: like a can of sardines.
Last year I was smart enough to stay at home and not really go anywhere. My husband hadn't been in Japan for even a month yet, so I didn't want him to be turned off of Japan by the mass exodus out of the city.
However, the year before I had a former student come visit me from the US for her high school senior project. We decided to rough it out and make a trek from Gifu up to Nagano City. Oh man, was that a mistake.
The train from Gifu to Nagoya wasn't all that bad, but the 4-hour express train from Nagoya to Nagano was standing-room only in the non-reserved cars. We ended up shoving our bags into the luggage racks at the one end of a car, and sat in there for the 4 hours. The weather was quite warm as well, so the train cars, despite being air conditioned, were still quite stuffy due to the fact that everyone who got on the train was sweating from standing out in the heat on the platforms.
I know now, because of that trek, that if I am going to travel during Golden Week, I better make plans and reservations about 6 months in advanced. Well, maybe 2 months at the least....
Now, I can't find anything to back this up, but I once heard on a TV show here that the name Golden Week was originally created by travel companies and movie theaters. Basically, the long row of holidays created a surge in people going on trips and going out to movie theaters, so the PR guys for the travel companies and movie theaters decide it was a "golden" opportunity to get some business going. As such, the week was labeled "Golden Week" as not only a "golden" time to go spend time with your family in an exotic location or at the movies, but also a "golden" time to make a lot of money.
Whether this is actually true or not, I don't know. However, I do know that because of so many travel deals that are marketed for this week, many employees started taking off the whole week to travel, and eventually many businesses started shutting down for the week as well.
Even though I have class and a meeting tomorrow (out of all the teachers, I'm the only one with a class), our office is technically closed from the 1st through the 6th for Golden Week. A friend of mine is coming back home for the first time since New Year's, as Golden Week is one of only three long holidays his company in Tochigi gives him (the others being New Year's and Obon in August).
Anyway, I figure it's probably a good "work thing" if I go into a bit of detail on the holidays that make up Golden Week. While it's all easy to Wikipedia and all, at least it'll all be on the same page on my blog!
Originally, April 29th was only celebrated as the birthday of Emperor Hirohito (posthumously called Emperor Shouwa). However, upon his death, the day was made into a national holiday called Greenery Day (Midori no Hi みどりの日). This name was chosen to represent the Emperor's love of plant without specifically naming him, basically just to keep scandals away.
Wait? Midori no Hi? Didn't I type that up as being May 4th?
Well, after the Emperor's death, Japan was all afraid that there would be huge scandals and controversy and such, and decided not to name it directly after him. But, starting in about 2000, several attempts to change the name of the holiday were brought to the Japanese Diet and finally in 2005 one of them passed. Starting in 2007, the name of the day was officially changed to Shouwa no Hi.
May 3rd, Kenpou Kinenbi, is an easy day to explain. Literally, it's Constitution Memorial Day. May 3rd, 1945 was the date that the new Japanese Constitution was put into effect. Japan likes to make holidays, so they commemorated the turning of a new page in Japanese history by making May 3rd a national holiday. Many news outlets use this day to talk about democracy and bring up issues in the constitution that are constantly being battled about in the Diet, mainly the issues of Article 9 (no offensive military, just defensive), and whether or not the royal line can be passed down to a princess.
The common man, however, just sees it as a day off. Nothing more, and no one really cares it seems. They're all too busy drinking fruity cocktails out of coconuts in the South Pacific.
May 4th, the current Greenery Day, was originally just a "day of rest" between two national holidays. Japan didn't like the fact that there was a holiday on the 3rd, a day of work on the 4th, then another holiday on the 5th, so someone got the bright idea to make the 4th a holiday as well and just give everyone three days off in a row.
Whoever came up with that idea, thank you. You deserve a medal.
Once April 29th was renamed to Shouwa no Hi, Greenery Day got moved to the 4th to make it an official holiday. Much rejoicing was had with, once again, fruity cocktail-filled coconuts.
May 5th is probably the most well-known and celebrated of all the holidays in Golden Week.
Originally called Tango no Sekku (端午の節句), it marked the beginning of the summer rainy season on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. (Which is total news to me. I'm learning this right along with you guys!)
This day was also used to celebrate the health and prosperity of boys born into families by the hanging of carp banners, and displaying a set of armor and arrows in the home. Some houses only display the kabuto helmet of the armor set, but there are immaculate, full-armor sets in some older homes. One of the kindergartens I teach at has a full-set from the Heian Era (794-1185).
The banners, koinobori, are kinda neat. One day I will post pictures of the set Gifu Kindergarten made last year in an event we helped out at. Basically, the banners are a family of carp: a large black one for the father, a slightly smaller red one for the mother or eldest born (depends on who you ask, it seems), and then smaller blue, green and purple carps for each subsequent son. They're pretty much giant windsocks, and are usually on a pole that has a spinny-thing on top followed by streamers.
Carps were picked because of a Chinese legend about carp becoming a dragon if they swam upstream, but you don't really hear anyone mention that anymore. There are a few songs about the carp banners and the day in general, but once again, I've never actually heard them.
On the largest, black carp, you will usually see a half-naked, red-skinned child hanging on for dear life. This is Kintarou, a character in Japanese history/myths that was known for his strength as a child. Supposedly he played around with wild animals and rode on the back of a bear, not a horse. Not sure why he's on the carp and not a bear, but I have a feeling it's to wish that the sons born into that family become strong like Kintarou was as a child. If I can find out anything more on why Kintarou is on the carp, I'll be sure to add it in. On the same note, if you know why Kintarou is on the carp, please leave a comment!
There's some controversy over Kodomo no Hi, mainly as it has traditionally be considered "Boy's Day". Though the name has changed to "Children's Day" to celebrate all children, it still focuses mainly on boys, while Girl's Day (Hinamatsuri) on March 3rd is not a national holiday. Many feminists and women's rights people have gotten their panties in a twist over this fact, but nothing has changed still. I think it would be awesome if Girl's Day became a national holiday. One more day off for me!
Once again, this blog has gone on way too long.
I need to stop writing walls-of-text. Maybe then some of you would stick around to read the whole thing.
I may or may not post from home during the holidays. Currently we have no plans to go anywhere except karaoke with my friend coming home from Tochigi. If we feel up to it, we may venture over to Inuyama Castle for a day. If we do, expect a photo post.
Anyway, today I'm going to take a break from the website reviews and write about something probably every other single blogger about Japan is blogging about.
Yesterday, on April 29th, Japan entered perhaps its most famous set of holidays, Golden Week.
If you haven't heard about it, Golden Week is a one-week period between April 29th and May 5th that houses four national holidays. Yes, four. These four are:
April 29th - Shouwa no Hi (昭和の日)
May 3rd - Kenpou Kinenbi (憲法記念日)
May 4th - Midori no Hi (みどりの日)
May 5th - Kodomo no Hi (こどもの日)
This year, because May 3rd falls on a Sunday, May 6th is a Furikae Kyuujitsu (振替休日), basically an observed holiday.
While April 30th through May 2nd are not technically holidays, many businesses will close to let their employees travel. The most common destinations are major tourist spots in Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo, Okinawa), returning to your hometown, South Pacific islands, the west coast of North America, and Europe.
During this week it is nearly impossible to find flights or vacant hotels without paying through the nose. Most bullet trains and super express trains are also completely booked way in advance. The few train cars on them that are not reserved seats are usually packed like a Tokyo subway car at rush hour: like a can of sardines.
Last year I was smart enough to stay at home and not really go anywhere. My husband hadn't been in Japan for even a month yet, so I didn't want him to be turned off of Japan by the mass exodus out of the city.
However, the year before I had a former student come visit me from the US for her high school senior project. We decided to rough it out and make a trek from Gifu up to Nagano City. Oh man, was that a mistake.
The train from Gifu to Nagoya wasn't all that bad, but the 4-hour express train from Nagoya to Nagano was standing-room only in the non-reserved cars. We ended up shoving our bags into the luggage racks at the one end of a car, and sat in there for the 4 hours. The weather was quite warm as well, so the train cars, despite being air conditioned, were still quite stuffy due to the fact that everyone who got on the train was sweating from standing out in the heat on the platforms.
I know now, because of that trek, that if I am going to travel during Golden Week, I better make plans and reservations about 6 months in advanced. Well, maybe 2 months at the least....
Now, I can't find anything to back this up, but I once heard on a TV show here that the name Golden Week was originally created by travel companies and movie theaters. Basically, the long row of holidays created a surge in people going on trips and going out to movie theaters, so the PR guys for the travel companies and movie theaters decide it was a "golden" opportunity to get some business going. As such, the week was labeled "Golden Week" as not only a "golden" time to go spend time with your family in an exotic location or at the movies, but also a "golden" time to make a lot of money.
Whether this is actually true or not, I don't know. However, I do know that because of so many travel deals that are marketed for this week, many employees started taking off the whole week to travel, and eventually many businesses started shutting down for the week as well.
Even though I have class and a meeting tomorrow (out of all the teachers, I'm the only one with a class), our office is technically closed from the 1st through the 6th for Golden Week. A friend of mine is coming back home for the first time since New Year's, as Golden Week is one of only three long holidays his company in Tochigi gives him (the others being New Year's and Obon in August).
Anyway, I figure it's probably a good "work thing" if I go into a bit of detail on the holidays that make up Golden Week. While it's all easy to Wikipedia and all, at least it'll all be on the same page on my blog!
Originally, April 29th was only celebrated as the birthday of Emperor Hirohito (posthumously called Emperor Shouwa). However, upon his death, the day was made into a national holiday called Greenery Day (Midori no Hi みどりの日). This name was chosen to represent the Emperor's love of plant without specifically naming him, basically just to keep scandals away.
Wait? Midori no Hi? Didn't I type that up as being May 4th?
Well, after the Emperor's death, Japan was all afraid that there would be huge scandals and controversy and such, and decided not to name it directly after him. But, starting in about 2000, several attempts to change the name of the holiday were brought to the Japanese Diet and finally in 2005 one of them passed. Starting in 2007, the name of the day was officially changed to Shouwa no Hi.
May 3rd, Kenpou Kinenbi, is an easy day to explain. Literally, it's Constitution Memorial Day. May 3rd, 1945 was the date that the new Japanese Constitution was put into effect. Japan likes to make holidays, so they commemorated the turning of a new page in Japanese history by making May 3rd a national holiday. Many news outlets use this day to talk about democracy and bring up issues in the constitution that are constantly being battled about in the Diet, mainly the issues of Article 9 (no offensive military, just defensive), and whether or not the royal line can be passed down to a princess.
The common man, however, just sees it as a day off. Nothing more, and no one really cares it seems. They're all too busy drinking fruity cocktails out of coconuts in the South Pacific.
May 4th, the current Greenery Day, was originally just a "day of rest" between two national holidays. Japan didn't like the fact that there was a holiday on the 3rd, a day of work on the 4th, then another holiday on the 5th, so someone got the bright idea to make the 4th a holiday as well and just give everyone three days off in a row.
Whoever came up with that idea, thank you. You deserve a medal.
Once April 29th was renamed to Shouwa no Hi, Greenery Day got moved to the 4th to make it an official holiday. Much rejoicing was had with, once again, fruity cocktail-filled coconuts.
May 5th is probably the most well-known and celebrated of all the holidays in Golden Week.
Originally called Tango no Sekku (端午の節句), it marked the beginning of the summer rainy season on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. (Which is total news to me. I'm learning this right along with you guys!)
This day was also used to celebrate the health and prosperity of boys born into families by the hanging of carp banners, and displaying a set of armor and arrows in the home. Some houses only display the kabuto helmet of the armor set, but there are immaculate, full-armor sets in some older homes. One of the kindergartens I teach at has a full-set from the Heian Era (794-1185).
The banners, koinobori, are kinda neat. One day I will post pictures of the set Gifu Kindergarten made last year in an event we helped out at. Basically, the banners are a family of carp: a large black one for the father, a slightly smaller red one for the mother or eldest born (depends on who you ask, it seems), and then smaller blue, green and purple carps for each subsequent son. They're pretty much giant windsocks, and are usually on a pole that has a spinny-thing on top followed by streamers.
Carps were picked because of a Chinese legend about carp becoming a dragon if they swam upstream, but you don't really hear anyone mention that anymore. There are a few songs about the carp banners and the day in general, but once again, I've never actually heard them.
On the largest, black carp, you will usually see a half-naked, red-skinned child hanging on for dear life. This is Kintarou, a character in Japanese history/myths that was known for his strength as a child. Supposedly he played around with wild animals and rode on the back of a bear, not a horse. Not sure why he's on the carp and not a bear, but I have a feeling it's to wish that the sons born into that family become strong like Kintarou was as a child. If I can find out anything more on why Kintarou is on the carp, I'll be sure to add it in. On the same note, if you know why Kintarou is on the carp, please leave a comment!
There's some controversy over Kodomo no Hi, mainly as it has traditionally be considered "Boy's Day". Though the name has changed to "Children's Day" to celebrate all children, it still focuses mainly on boys, while Girl's Day (Hinamatsuri) on March 3rd is not a national holiday. Many feminists and women's rights people have gotten their panties in a twist over this fact, but nothing has changed still. I think it would be awesome if Girl's Day became a national holiday. One more day off for me!
Once again, this blog has gone on way too long.
I need to stop writing walls-of-text. Maybe then some of you would stick around to read the whole thing.
I may or may not post from home during the holidays. Currently we have no plans to go anywhere except karaoke with my friend coming home from Tochigi. If we feel up to it, we may venture over to Inuyama Castle for a day. If we do, expect a photo post.
4/30/2009 06:19:00 PM |
Category:
Golden Week,
Japanese culture,
Japanese history,
work
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