To Celebrate or to Congratulate

by Nao

iwa-i, iwa-u, shuku, shuku-suru

From late April to early May, we have a long weekend called Golden Week (GW). This year’s GW has just finished. Although how long one can take a vacation depends on your business, people generally have a-week holiday. It’s the worst time to travel Japan because many people travel at the same time. The GW includes 4 national holidays. A holiday is called shukujitsu in Japanese. Shuku is today’s character.

The noun iwai and oiwai with the polite prefix “o” are celebration. The verb iwau or oiwaisuru means to celebrate or to congratulate.

This character is written or printed on the paper attached to wrapped gifts. One of our friends is building a house. The celebration of the completion of the house framework took place last week. Each strip of paper attached to gifts people brought has a word with today’s character – “shuku jōtō” or “jōtō iwai.” Jōtō is the completion of a house framework.

Here is a list of combinations of celebrations and words that are used to celebrate these occasions.

• Marriage – “gokekkon iwai” or “kotobuki” (Kekkon means marriage.)
• Childbirth – “goshussan iwai” or “oiwai” (Shussan means childbirth.)
• The 60^th birthday – “shuku kanreki”
• The 77^th birthday – “shuku ki ju”
• The 80^th birthday – “shuku san ju”
• The 88^th birthday - “shuku bei ju”
• The 90^th birthday – “shuku sotsu ju”
• The 99th birthday – “shuku haku ju”

For the meanings of birthdays, please have a look at this.

1. Draw the dot from the upper left corner.
2. Draw the hook. After changing the direction, draw a sweeping stroke.
3. Draw the vertical stroke.
4. Draw the dot touching the previous stroke.
5. Draw the left side of the rectangle.
6. Draw the upper and right sides of the rectangle.
7. Draw the lower side of the rectangle.
8. Draw the sweeping stroke touching the previous stroke.
9. Draw the curve with an upward turn.