- Born in Meiji era (1863-1910ish - these people are mostly dead).
- Born in Taisho era (pre-WWII, 1910ish to 1926ish)
- Born in Showa era (1926ish up to 1989), this is Hirohito's reign
- Heisei era, from 1989 on (Akihito's reign)
- Red letters mean it's your bad year. Also you can see here that someone born at the end of an era is also counted as the beginning of the next era - i.e. a 19-year-old at this time is both Showa 64 and Heisei 1.
- Dangerous ages for men are the year you turn 61, 42, and 25. For women, it's the years you turn 37, 33, and 19.
- The 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, in order (rat, cow, tiger, etc through to boar)
- The top year is the year you were born (in this case, Taisho 4 or 1914, I think) and then how old you will be turning this year is listed below.
Years of Bad Luck
This is the chart of yakudoshi (厄年, literally "calamity years") from the shrine by my house. The dates are in the Japanese calendar, but if you were born in one of the years in red, this is your unlucky year. To avert the disaster awaiting you, you can buy charms from the temple and set them on fire to take away your bad luck.
A tidbit a lot of people don't realize is that in Japan, your age is almost always counted by the reign year you were born in and not the number of years you're been alive. All official paperwork, forms, even karaoke room reservation slips ask for the era and reign year of your birth, not your age - I can never remember "Showa 58" as my birth year.
To find your year on this chart, use the numbers at the bottom (i.e. 120-1) of each square. Keep in mind this was taken in 2007, so this chart references the age you turned in 2007.
Comments and faves
Hryck. (64 months ago | reply)
It's been a weird year for a lot of my friends. Hopefully, this works.