Traditional Wedding and Funeral in Japan | Guidable - Your Guide to a Sustainable, Wellbeing-centred Life in Japan

Traditional Wedding and Funeral in Japan

By Guidable Writers Aug 7, 2016

We call weddings and funeral as “Kankonsousai”.   There are many restricted rules to attend those events. You should know these rules before you will be invited there. I will teach 3 things you should know.

1. You have to be careful with what you wear when you go to the ceremony.

2. You should give some money for your attendance. We call it “Osyugi” or “Okouden”.

3. You have to be careful with what you talk at there.

 

<Wedding>

Speaking of “Japanese wedding”, you may image the wedding with Japanese traditional dress “Kimono” with Japanese wedding. But these are not common in nowadays.

 

Many people wear dress like European wears. 

The Japanese traditional wedding is not far from the wedding in Europe or America.but there are many strict rules.

clothes

If you are women, you cannnot wear white dresses, and minidresses. Also, you have to hide your shoulder. You can’t be immodest at the wedding.

If you are men, you wear suit with white tie. Every men are similarly dressed.

money

It is common to give 30000 yen or 10000 yen as a tip at the wedding, because we think it is not good to give even number money as a tip at the wedding. Even numbers are easy to divide. So It sounds like easy to divide the husband and the wife.

 

 

word

You cannot use the word “壊れる、割れる(break)”  “帰る(get off)”  “再び(again)”. There are many words that you cannot use it in the wedding. Don’t use the word with bad sound.

 


<Japanese traditional funeral>

We have two days: funeral wake and the funeral. We call the day the people dead the funeral wake. And we call the day after the funeral wake the funeral.

 

スクリーンショット 2016-08-07 19.15.19

clothes

You have to dress in black on both days.

It is not just black. Many people have a deep mourning. If you live Japan for long time, you should buy one.

money

You give condolence money for a funeral when you attend the funeral not the funeral wake. It depends on the relation between you and the dead that how much you have to pay on it.

Also, you need a special envelope when you give condolence money for a funeral. You can buy it at convenience stores.



words

You should not use the word “dead”. Japanese has many words that means “dead”.
We use “
亡くなる” “ご逝去” to describes “dead” at the funeral.

 

Sui.

Japan