April in Japan, and My New Beginning
Life in Japan – Issue 024
The Saturday “Life in Japan” series is where I share Japan’s seasons and the atmosphere of everyday life.
This week, alongside the feeling of Japan today, I would also like to share a little about a new personal challenge of my own. If you are interested, I speak more about it later in this article.
April in Japan is a season of many changes. Schools begin their new academic year, companies enter a new business year, and many people step into new environments. School entrance ceremonies, new jobs, transfers, moving homes. In the streets, many people wear expressions of quiet tension, and within the spring air, there is a sense that new stories are beginning to move forward.
As I mentioned in a previous article, many children in Japan enter school in April. Seeing them dressed in brand-new uniforms or carrying new randoseru backpacks, standing beside their families for commemorative photographs, is one of the scenes that belongs to this season. For adults as well, April is often a turning point. Many begin life in a new workplace, a new department, or with a new title.
Yet every new beginning brings fatigue as much as expectation. Unfamiliar relationships, days filled with things to learn, and rhythms of life different from before. Apart from the brightness of spring, small burdens begin to gather in both mind and body.
That is when Golden Week arrives. In Japan, several national holidays fall between late April and early May, allowing many people to take an extended break. The length of the holiday changes each year depending on how the holidays align with Saturdays and Sundays, and whether people choose to take leave on weekdays in between. In some years, it becomes a break of four or five days, while in others it can stretch to nearly ten days.
The main holidays during this period are Shōwa Day（昭和の日）on April 29, Constitution Memorial Day（憲法記念日）on May 3, Greenery Day（みどりの日）on May 4, and Children’s Day（こどもの日）on May 5. There is also a system known as Kokumin no Kyūjitsu（国民の休日）, in which a weekday between national holidays becomes a holiday itself, sometimes extending the break even further depending on the calendar.
The name “Golden Week” is not an official legal term. It is said to have spread in the 1950s as a commercial phrase used by the film industry, after noticing that cinema attendance and revenue rose sharply during this holiday period. It later became widely established in everyday society, and today it is Japan’s best-known name for a long holiday season.
Some people travel with family or friends, while others return to their hometowns. Some may simply look forward to resting quietly at home without making any special plans. For many, it is finally a chance to pause after working hard through the first weeks of a new life. Crowded stations and airports, and news reports of traffic jams on expressways, are also familiar scenes of this season.
Just as April in Japan is a month of beginnings for many people, it was the same for me.
In an article in January, I wrote that I had left the job I had held for many years. Leaving a place where I had spent so much time brought uncertainty, but it also became an opportunity to think again about how I want to use my time, and how I want to live.
Now, I am gradually exploring a way of working outside a company structure. It is not yet a finished shape. I am still trying, learning, and reconsidering things as I go. It may not be the most stable path, but there is a different kind of reality in days that I choose for myself and take responsibility for myself.
And this spring, I began something new. I started a personal vlog on YouTube.
This is a separate personal project from Spiritual Japan Journal. Through SJJ, I research and write about aspects of Japan that are not often fully conveyed in ordinary travel magazines: Japanese culture, history, shrines and temples, and the landscapes of regional Japan.
In the vlog, however, I record daily life in Japan from a more personal perspective. If Spiritual Japan Journal is a place where I share Japan through reporting and writing, this is a small record where people can see my everyday life through film.
For those who are interested, you may also find my vlog here:
Through beautiful visuals and words, I preserve fragments of the day’s atmosphere and ordinary life. Time spent at home, time spent going to work, small things that catch my eye within the changing seasons. Even in such ordinary moments, I feel that something distinctly Japanese appears naturally.
I wanted to share, in another form, the hours of daily life that never appear in guidebooks, and the feeling that someone is truly living in this country. For those who are interested, it may be another way to experience Japan, different from reading my articles.
Recently, more new readers have found this place, and I am truly grateful. To those who have been reading for some time, and to those who have only just arrived, I wanted to share a little of the changes in my own life this spring, which is why I wrote this piece today.
Through writing and through film, I hope to continue sharing Japan in many different forms.
What kind of season has this spring been for you? Have you started something new, or is there something you hope to begin soon? If you would like, I would love to hear the story of your life right now.
—Written by Sumire