#yo shorty

[vintage-tigre]

[space-andro]

Yours truly

[fineillsignup]

Did you know that the age of adulthood in Japan is 20? (some sources say 18 as far as sexual consent goes outside of two places there one being 13)

I actually know quite a bit about this topic!

First off I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article on East Asian age reckoning. It will give you a pretty easy to understand overview of an issue that will come into play, but I’ll summarize: “twenty years old” traditionally meant something very different in Japan than the modern international understanding based on birth date. In Japan, like in China, originally time in the womb was considered part of your age, and thus you were counted as a “year old” when you were born; then the first New Year (in China, actually the 3rd day of the New Year holiday), you turned another year older.

That means if a baby is born a few days before the New Year, when the New Year comes, if someone says “how old is that tiny infant?” the parents are going to answer “two years old.” This is a bit wild for someone who doesn’t come from that culture to understand.

Look at that adorable two year old!

On the other hand, if you are a born a few days AFTER the New Year, you won’t turn two until you’re one. *squints* Yes, I think that’s right. I know this gets confusing.

So. The age of “adulthood” traditionally for both China and Japan was 20. However when most people turned 20 in Asian years, they were actually between the age of 18 and 19.

Japan, when it did calendar reform, changed to using the Western system for age and for dating holidays and stuff through the 19th century. So “coming of age day” is still for age 20, but it’s now the modern age 20 based on birthdate. The voting age in Japan used to be 20, but it’s just recently become 18. The drinking age is still 20, but that’s basically completely ignored.

And of course, “age of adulthood” is not necessarily the same as “age of consent for sex”. I actually don’t know too much about age of consent in Japan other than a cursory Google, but it seems to be a rather confusing issue. With a legal minimum of 13 nationally, but local laws upping that to 16 or 18, but with exceptions for “sincere romantic relationships”–it’s confusing.

It should be fairly obvious that throughout history, in China and in Japan, both men and women got married before age 20 or 18 or even 16. I actually don’t know that much about Japan, but I know quite a bit about Chinese customs of marriage and sex, including what was considered to be the “ideal” age for women vs. men (18 for women = 16-17, 20 for men = 18-19).

Since this is a Naruto blog, if you’re asking about age of adulthood and sexual consent in the Land of Fire, Rock Lee, Upstanding Young Man, mentions that the drinking age is 20 (the same age as modern Japan), so we might assume that laws are similar to modern Japan, but on the other hand, modern Japan doesn’t allow children to become professional assassins. So it’s open to conjecture. 

[wannabeanheiress]

so today is Friday 13th and tomorrow is my 30th birthday