Reaching the legal age of adulthood is an important milestone in most cultures, and in Japan it is celebrated on Seijin no Hi, Coming of Age Day. It is celebrated on the second Monday in January. Until 1999, it used to be celebrated on January 15th.

The day honors young Japanese who will reach the age of 20 at any point during the year. Twenty is the age of majority in Japan, and people who have reached this age gain the right to vote in elections as well as to drink. Coming of Age ceremonies mark one’s coming of age, which reflects not only the expanded rights, but also increased responsibilities expected of new adults. The ceremonies are generally held in the morning at local city offices throughout Japan. All of the young people who live in the area are invited to attend, government officials give speeches, and small gifts are handed out to the new adults.

Coming of Age Day remains a popular holiday, but Japan’s reduction in population growth in recent years means that fewer people are turning 20 — only 1.24 million in 2013, compared to almost double that at the start of the 1970s.

Women celebrate the day by wearing special kimonos (和服) whose sleeves are long, as compared to the kimono with shorter sleeve portions worn by mature, married women. Some women will also wear baggy pants.

Most young women cannot put on a kimono themselves, and have to go to a kimono kitsuke, who dresses them. They also go to a hairdresser’s to have their hair done the day before or early in the morning. Many women rent their kimonos because of the high cost of buying one.

Most young men wear business suits, although sometimes men wearing dark-colored kimonos can be seen. Certainly, it is a much less expensive day for the young men than for the women.

Coming of Age Day has been a holiday since 1948. The modern legal age of 20 as adulthood was fixed in 1876. Coming of Age ceremonies are a tradition that exists earlier than this by some distance, but the age of becoming an adult was traditionally much younger 一 15 for boys and 13 for girls.

The meticulousness (一丝不苟) that drives the craftsman’s spirit, has made the arts of Japan famous worldwide. But how may this traditional spirit of perfectionism, or kodawari, have wide-ranging influences on everyday life in modern Japan?

Nagasawa Rosetsu was an ancient artist who produced Five Hundred Arhats. He drew the 500 chief followers of the Buddha in a work that measures just 3cm square, roughly the size of a postage stamp. You’ll need to take out the magnifying glass (放大镜) for this one!

Back to modern-day Japan, the most well-known modern Japanese artist is Yayoi Kusama. One of her most representative works is her large-scale spotted pumpkin sculptures. Kusama has also produced many hand-painted works with a level of detail that must have taken weeks, if not months, to complete. Having suffered from a disorder for many decades, Kusama applies herself to painting detailed patterns as a kind of treatment; the repetition involved in creating the work allows her to keep control of her mind.

When did kodawari, this Japanese’s seeking of perfection and devotion to detail begin? I suppose it was even as far back as the Heian period, which began over one thousand years ago. In her The Pillow Book, the court lady Sei Shönagon took it upon herself to write lists of objects and situations that she found to be beautiful due to their perfection.

Today there are still many examples of this single-minded devotion to one’s work in Japan. You can find shops that only produce a single product, whether it be pickled vegetables, tofu, or Mochi sweets. It’s often said that at the best sushi restaurants, apprentice (学徒) chefs will often be tasked for many years with washing and cooking the rice and perfecting this skill before they are even allowed to pick up a knife to begin slicing fish.

This single-minded devotion to one’s craft, whether it be in the field of fine art and handicrafts, or at a local sushi restaurant, is surely one of the defining characteristics of Japanese culture today.

The origin of “holiday” is easy to see, coming from “holy day”, a day of particular religious significance, often celebrating the life of a saint (圣徒), during which no work was to be done. As far back as the 11th century, “holidays”, especially the major feast days, were times of “celebration and amusement”, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it.

The number of holidays steadily increased during the Middle Ages, until a medieval Englishman would have had the luxury of 40 to 50 days a year off work, depending on where he lived, in addition to a free day on Sundays.

During the Reformation, Henry VIII abolished most of the holidays partly because of the Protestant (新教徒的) suspicion of saints, but more practically, because, according to historian Eamon Duffy, “A large number of holidays were making the people poor by limiting agriculture.” The people took a different view and organized a protest march—the Pilgrimage of Grace—partly to protect their days off.

Though at first the religious and festive senses of holiday were combined, the word gradually came to be used for any kind of relaxing break from work. As the word was drawing away from a religious society, the number of authorized holidays was reduced, until by 1834 most workers had only four official days off a year, in addition to Sundays. Many factory workers amplified this time by staying home on “Saint Monday” to recover from what they had gotten up to the day before.

By the late 19th century, employers were compromising and offering half-day Saturdays, the beginning of the “weekend”, a term first used in 1879. In 1908, an innovative mill in New England gave its employees all of Saturday off, and the practice spread widely during the Great Depression as a way to keep employment up. It took 400 years, but finally workers could enjoy as many holidays as they had in the 15th century.