Saturday, November 15, 2008

Rokuyō

It is rare for a Japanese electronic dictionary to not find a translation, but we ran across this case the other day.

Rokuyo
(六曜): are a series of six types of days that supposedly predict whether there will be good or bad fortune during that day. Upon further investigation I discovered that each day in the Japanese version of Microsoft Outlook is labeled as one of the Rokuyo. The six types of days are:

先勝 Senshō: Good luck before noon, bad luck after noon. Good day for beginnings (in the morning).
友引 Tomobiki: Bad things will happen to your friends. Funerals avoided on this day (tomo = friend, biki = pull, thus a funeral might pull friends toward the deceased). Typically crematoriums are closed this day.
先負 Senbu: Bad luck before noon, good luck after noon.
仏滅 Butsumetsu: Symbolizes the day Buddha died. Considered the most unlucky day. Weddings are best avoided. Some Shinto shrines close their offices on this day.
大安 Taian: The most lucky day. Good day for weddings and events like shop openings.
赤口 Shakkō: The hour of the horse (11 am - 1 pm) is lucky. The rest is bad luck.

For the engineers, my Friend A made me a chart to illustrate the information above.

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