Today, I believe, is “Natto Day”. What’s ‘natto‘? Sticky, smelly, Japanese food made from fermented soybeans. Why does it have a special day? Because today is July 10th. Huh? That’s 07/10. Huh? Well, 7 in Japanese is なな (nana) and 10 is sometimes と (to). So, when you put them together, you can make なと (nato) which sounds enough like なっとう (natto) for the Japanese to deem this day ‘Natto Day’!
In fact, as I mentioned on July 4th (Pear Day), in Japan they really seem to like this word play, or “goroawase” (語呂合わせ). There’s a great article on this on the Japan Times website, here. It seems this word/number play is used as a memory aid for many things, as well as for creating amusing days, such as “Letter Writing Day” (fumi-no-hi) – which is 23rd of every month, because 23 can be read as “fu-mi” which means “letter”. Or “Toilet Day” (toire-no-hi) – November 10th, 11/10 = “i-i toire” = nice toilet!
Do you know of any more of these special days? Please let me know! 
4 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
OK I found lots! I’ll choose the best one for each month!
1 / 8 day of all or nothing, game of chance day(1 -> ichi 8 -> bachi : ichi ka bachi ka means, all or nothing)
2 / 2 2 day of cat (2:nya nya nya, nya is the sound describing cat’s crying)
3 / 9 day of thank you (3 san 9 kyuu -?> san kyuu -> Thank you!)
4 /18 day of good teeth (4 1 (yoi -> good) 8 ha (teeth))
5 / 30 day of zero trash (5 3 (go mi->trash) 0 -> obviously zero)
6 / 3 day of Moomin (6 mu 3 min)
7 /3 day of surfer (7 (na) 3 (mi) nami means wave!)
8 /19 day of Haiku or Bike (8 ha 19 iku or 8 ba 19 iku)
9 / 9 day of first-aid (9 kyuu 9 kyuu: kyuukyuu means, first-aid or emergency)
10 /2 day of Tofu (10 to 2 fu: Tofu)
11 /1 day of dog (1 one 1 one 1 one : wan is a sound describing bark! wan wan! here in Japan)
12 / 12 day of Kanji (chinese character like 漢字) (1 ii 2 ji 1 ii 2 ji : ii ->good , ji -> character/writing)
わあ！すごい！ありがとう！！
I am very used to the smell of Natto as my wife eats it almost every day. I tried it once. Never again.
Read the article on Japanese Times website – really interesting. Going to take me a while until I can get my head round this level of Japanese I think but it’s a great play on words. Why don’t we have something like this?
xxx