{"id":57839,"date":"2026-07-14T03:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T03:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/57839\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T03:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T03:48:12","slug":"kazoedoshi-japans-traditional-way-of-counting-peoples-ages-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/57839\/","title":{"rendered":"Kazoedoshi: Japan\u2019s Traditional Way of Counting People\u2019s Ages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-series\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nippon.com\/en\/series\/cs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cultural Snapshots<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"csp-catelogo\">\n\t\t\t\t\tGuideto Japan\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a class=\"c-cate c-cate0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nippon.com\/en\/articlelist.html?f=ncf-category&amp;s=Society\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Society<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a class=\"c-cate c-cate2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nippon.com\/en\/articlelist.html?f=ncf-category&amp;s=Culture\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Culture<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tJul 14, 2026<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tBefore celebrating birthdays became the norm, kazoedoshi was the traditional way of counting one\u2019s age in Japan.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>  \t\t\t\t Older at New Year<\/p>\n<p>In Japan, kazoedoshi is the traditional way of talking about people\u2019s ages. According to the system, also found elsewhere in East Asia, everyone added one year to their age at New Year, instead of on the day they were born. Babies were also considered to be one at birth, so a newborn might quickly get to two, if born late in the year.<\/p>\n<p>With modernization from the nineteenth century, the custom gradually faded, although laws in 1902 and 1950 that encouraged people to stop using kazoedoshi indicate its persistence. It is still used by some today to decide the timing of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nippon.com\/en\/features\/jg00043\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shichi-Go-San<\/a> ceremonies for children aged seven, five, or three; kanreki celebrations for people at 60, as well as other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nippon.com\/en\/japan-data\/h01872\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">age milestones<\/a>; and yakudoshi, or ages considered to be unlucky.<\/p>\n<p>(Originally written in English. Banner photo \u00a9\u00a0Pixta.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-keywords\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <a href=\"\">tradition<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t <a href=\"\">age<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cultural Snapshots Guideto Japan Society Culture Jul 14, 2026 Before celebrating birthdays became the norm, kazoedoshi was the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30487,8,31,3294],"class_list":["post-57839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-age","tag-japan","tag-nippon","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}