Birthday traditions in China

The West’s curiosity about China may be triggered by the country’s presence today its hosting of the 2008 Olympics, its post-Revolution growth and emergence onto the world stage but it is also fuelled by China’s past - its ancient and modern history, its centuries of culture and thought.

China’s civilization has been developing for so many centuries (the first dynasty was the Shang, in 1600 B.C.), that breaking it into smaller pieces can be a way to understand something about a complex world where symbolism has strong meaning, and beliefs, myths and multiple religions are forceful threads that tie the Chinese together in this life, and tie this life with the next. One of these pieces is that celebration everyone knows: birthdays.

If you are a Westerner, the first thing to understand about age in Chinese culture is that you may be a year older than you think. The traditional Chinese approach is to take into account the number of calendar years lived in, rather than the number of actual years, and to factor in time spent in the womb. As a result, a baby may be considered a year old at birth, and on the seventh day of the new lunar year, everyone may become another year older regardless of their actual birth date.

There was a time when that date might also have been the only acknowledgement; people marked their births collectively on this Everybody’s Birthday and individual celebrations went largely unrecognized until reaching a big birthday stage. (Although today younger birthdays they may also be marked by gifts of red-dyed eggs in even numbers, glutinous rice and red and green beans, noodles. Gifts at one month birthdays or first birthdays might include tools of possible future careers, such as pens, books, or musical instruments.)

In Chinese culture, unlike Hollywood’s, older is better. The big birthdays (also known as Longevity Parties or Longevity Feasts) begin at age 50 the half-century mark and are then celebrated every ten years. This joy at reaching middle age is the result of a past of hard times, short life spans and a respect for age that characterizes Confucianism, whose teachings have been part of the Chinese religious landscape since the death of Confucius in 479 B.C. An individual at age 60 has the added distinction of having completed the full cycle of the twelve Chinese astrological symbols (Rat, Ox Tiger, etc.) which are affected by the five elements of earth, fire, water, wood and metal.

Big birthday celebrations revolve around food and call for a banquet, usually hosted by the celebrant’s children. The meal will have nine courses (nine, jiu, is pronounced the same as the Chinese word for long time, and so represents everlasting longevity) and will include foods symbolizing long life, such as noodles (often called longevity noodles, which ideally should not be cut but eaten full-length) and a steamed bun resembling a peach. The courses are likely to include the special delicacies shark’s fin or bird’s nest soup, and Peking duck.

The celebrant may also choose to wear a long life or longevity robe of richly woven and embroidered fabrics, representing the fullness of his or her life and the wisdom to come. The tradition of this garment may date back to at least the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.) where, on the emperor’s birthday, court officials wore badges with symbols of longevity, and a robe with the shou longevity character was worn on one’s sixtieth birthday, then kept to be put on again for burial.

It will be an event with gifts for the honoree and gifts for the guests, and the good-fortune colors of red and gold will dominate. In some regions, children may give their parents zong zi (sticky rice dumplings), cloth, shoes, socks, wine, and longevity poems and scrolls with longevity calligraphy symbols on them. Among Chinese Americans or families in China with means, gifts may include hongbao, red paper envelopes containing money, or items of gold ranging from jewelry to Chinese characters denoting longevity, health and prosperity. Conversely, items whose names resemble death, misfortune or sadness clocks, odd numbered-quantities, white things are avoided.

In short, these celebrations rejoice at what has gone before, and a look ahead to the maturity and perspective that will come with each succeeding decade of life. Calling on a belief that eastern oceans and southern mountains are God’s home, a representative and fitting longevity scroll phrase sums it up: “May you have good fortune as great as the eastern oceans, and may your life last as long as the southern mountains”.