The United States of America has their Debutante Balls, Mexico has their Quinceañera, the Indonesians have their Sweet Sixteen/Seventeen, and Japan has their Seejin no Hi or the Coming of Age Day (literally, seijin means "to become a person"; "seijin no hi" therefore means "to-become-a-person's day"). This national holiday celebrates those who turned 20 during the preceding year (during the current school year, which in Japan began in April). According to the Daily Mainichi, this year's number of debutante is the lowest ever in 20 years, prompting concern about the declining birth rate in Japan. Last year, 1.39 Million Japanese reached adulthood.
In Japan this used to be celebrated on January 15 until 1999 when it started being fêted on the second Monday of January. Twenty is the legal age for voting, drinking, and smoking (and I shall see which of these three new rights is celebrated the most by these youth!). In the two times that I had attended the festivities (the first in Asakusa Temple back in 2005) I noticed that the majority of youth who donned their kimonos were mostly the young women. This year I only spotted a few, but was not sure if they were the girls' dates or fellow debutants.
(I caught sight of a couple of kimono-clad middle aged women who were too coquettish for local standard, prompting me to believe that they must have missed their own Coming of Age day a few decades ago; or perhaps they are now celebrating the Coming of Old Age day. Rejoice!)
There were a few three-generation groups of women: a set that included the grandmother, the mother, and the debutante. You can almost trace the genetic line on most of them. The elder ones were beaming with pride as spectators snapped pictures of their progeny (not to discount a number of fathers who proudly escorted their daughters to the shrine). As soon as I load the pictures to my Flickr account, I will create a link here.
