Okuizome: 100th day of a Baby's Life

Being a new mum since a few months ago, there are many celebrations and traditional rituals which have to be watched out for in an international relationship. For Christians, the baptism of baby is once such important ritual. In Japan, on the other hand, the 100th day after the baby's birth is a special occasion for a celebration.

This special Japanese celebration is called "okuizome" and it has a long history -- more than 900 years. During the ceremony the infant will be fed using chopsticks (imitatively) for the first time in their life. 

Special small lacquerware dishes set on a high-feet table (black for boys and red for girls) are used during the okuizome ceremony. Of course, there is also special food to eat. Usually the menu, which is called iwaizen, includes a soup dish, three sides dishes and a whole sea bream. There is also a special order in feeding the dishes to the child, but nowadays people are not so picky about that anymore.

Also, a small stone, which is usually from a shrine nearby, is given to the infant to let it teeth on it as part of the ceremony.

Many traditional Japanese restaurants offer okuizume menu for babies if you request them in advance. Unfortunately, the restaurant we wanted to visit at the time of our okuizume couldn't prepare the fish, which is one of the important parts of the ceremony. We had to bring and prepare the fish by ourselves, which was a little bit bothering, but in the end the menu was very reasonable without the fish.

One of the wonderful points of this celebration is that usually the whole family is coming together to celebrate a new, small life and enjoy good food. We also used the occasion as a chance to take some photos at the shrine together and afterwards went to the restaurant. I also liked it that we got as a small present the special stone and very cute chopsticks with rabbits on them.

Like with the restaurant we went to for okuizome, many may offer to take a photo of the ceremony and the whole family. Afterwards we got as many printouts as we wanted, which is really a very nice memory.

Even though this ceremony was very new to me and sometimes a little bit awkward, I really enjoyed it to get a glimpse into this Japanese tradition, which is unfortunately getting less and less popular with many people having already forgotten about it.

Have anybody of you also experienced this celebration? I really like to hear your opinion.