"A Tribute to Japanese Holidays"

Living in Japan I am constantly reminded by my friends back home that Japan has an unusually high number of National Holidays. I get comments like "I thought Japanese worked all the time, why do you get so many holidays?"

In my constant thriving to bring Zone81 readers up to date on current events in Japan, I was fortunate enough to come accross official documents which were in the hands of the Japanese government for some time.

These documents contain national holidays that were proposed by the government, but never came to fruitition for one reason or another. Here is the list of Japanese Holidays that Never Came to be, as released by the Japanese governent:

Holiday name: My Hand is Green Day
Holiday explaination: All Japanese go through their refrigerators and throw out natto that went bad

Holiday name: Dirty Ocean Day
Holiday explaination: All Japanese companies may throw more pollution into Japanese Ocean water than on normal days

Holiday name: Hard Labor Day
Holiday explaination: All Japanese are required to work in a factory or lift heavy objects to see what it is like to be an immigrant

Holiday name: Loathe for the Aged Day
Holiday explaination: Japanese assault and beat the elderly for making us pay more and more penssion every year

Holiday name: Obon-er
Holiday explaination: "Happy" Summer time. This one is self explanitory

Holiday name: Violent Sports Day
Holiday explaination: All Japanese children are required to box each other to vent frustrations rooted from the fact that there is no grass to play real sports on in Japan

Holiday name: Comming With Age Day
Holiday explaination: Celebrate more physical activity with the opposite gender as you get older

Holiday name: Autumn Equality
Holiday explaination: Otherwise known as "Gaijin Day." Japanese pretend for one day that foreigners in Japan are actually just as smart and capable as they are