Celebrating Keiro no Hi

Today is Keirō no Hi (敬老の日), or Respect for the Aged Day, in Japan. It is an annual holiday here in Japan honoring elderly citizens–celebrating their longevity of life and praying for their health, as well as building greater awareness of the issues that face the elderly and trying to promote discussion about how welfare services for the elderly can be improved. This holiday used to be held on September 15th, but in 2003 it was moved to the 3rd Monday of September due to the Happy Monday System (ハッピーマンデー制度, Happī Mandē Seido) (a decision made by the Japanese government to move several holidays in order to create 3-day weekends).

This holiday has only been a national holiday since 1966, so there aren't any true cultural customs in place. However, different cities around Japan hold different events and schools encourage children to honor their grandparents. I know that some of my friends are having to help their children write letters to their grandparents that will be sent out in cards that they have made this week.

In an article published today in The Japan Times, it's reported that the government announced yesterday that the number of people in Japan that are 80 years old or above topped 7 million for the first time. The 7 million plus number makes up 5.6% of the total population. The number of people that are 65 years old or above makes up 21.5% of the population (27.44 million people). Wow. Japan's birth rate is dwindling–already every fifth person in Japan is aged 65 years or older–so this holiday is likely to become more and more important as there are more and more people to celebrate.

We did our part to "celebrate" today by enjoying having husbands home from work and getting together with friends for a BBQ. It was a beautiful day and it was fun to enjoy each other's company. The babe enjoyed watching the other kids play and the men had a little too much fun playing Xbox.

Totally unrelated, but I just have to share, I bought a new toy on Saturday. I have been wanting a good Japanese cooking knife, so hubby gave me a voucher to buy one for my birthday back in January. Things have been so busy and crazy in the Fuji Mama house that I have not had the opportunity to cash in. So we finally planned a family outing to Isetan department store in Shinjuku on Saturday so that we could all go and enjoy buying Fuji Mama a very sharp object. I bought a Kyocera Ceramic Santoku Knife. I am very excited to start using it! Making the experience even more fun was the information sheet in English that I was given when I bought the knife. It provides such engrish gems as: "It is said that metal knife has unique metal ion, this ion will be added to smell like fish and meat. In case of ceramic knife, if you only wash them, you can remove smell you feel."

To make sure that hubby went home happy we went to the new Burger King afterwards and filled him up with a Whopper and fries. The babe was very content to sit in her highchair making goo goo eyes at the nice Japanese couple sitting at the table next to us.

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