Japan Culture Navi 日本語

Tuesday, October 20 (archive)

Today in Japan

Watercolor of barber scissors, a comb and mirror, reusable glass bottles and bundled paper, an autumn lawn and trees in Yoyogi Park, and yellow-green yuzu citrus

What day is it?

  1. 1977年制定Hair Day頭髪の日

    In Japanese, 10 and 20 can be read as "to" and "hatsu," which sounds like tohatsu, the word for the hair on your head. A Japanese association for hair science picked this date in 1977 to teach people how to take care of their hair and scalp. That makes it a good day to talk about haircuts in Japan.

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  2. 1990年制定Recycling Dayリサイクルの日

    This one is also a play on numbers: 10 and 20 can be read as "hitomawari, futamawari," meaning "going around once, going around twice," like things being used again and again. It was started in 1990 by two citizens' groups working on recycling and community projects. Today, the whole month of October is also promoted by the government as a month for reducing, reusing and recycling.

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  3. 1967年Yoyogi Park opens代々木公園が開園

    Yoyogi Park, next to Harajuku and Meiji Jingu in Tokyo, opened on October 20th, 1967. Just three years earlier, the land had been the athletes' village for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Long before that, it was an army training ground, and in 1910 it was the site of one of the first powered airplane flights in Japan.

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If someone asks you

Q

What's the difference between a tokoya and a biyoin?

A

A tokoya is a barbershop, and a biyoin is a beauty salon, and in Japan they need different licenses. Barbers are allowed to shave your face with a razor, but beauty salons mainly do perms, styling and makeup, and generally can't do a full face shave. Many men go to beauty salons now, though, and there are more than twice as many salons as barbershops.

In season Yuzu citrus 柚子（ゆず） Yuzu is a small, very fragrant Japanese citrus. Green yuzu shows up in summer, and from around now the fruit starts turning yellow. People rarely eat it like an orange. Instead, a little grated peel goes into soups, hot pots and sauces like ponzu, and on the winter solstice many families float whole yuzu in the bath. Micro-season 51 of 72 蟋蟀在戸きりぎりすとにあり Crickets Sing at the Door Crickets move close to the house and sing by the door. Japanese culture listens to insect sounds as music, a habit many visitors find surprising.

Phrase of the day

I got my hair cut yesterday.

Sentence of the day

October 20th is Hair Day and Recycling Day in Japan, both thanks to word play with the numbers 10 and 20. It's also the day Yoyogi Park opened in 1967, on land that had been the Olympic village just three years before.

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Sources

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