Sixtieth birthday in the Sinosphere
| Hwangap | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A museum display of a gobaesang, a traditional table setting for hwangap | |||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Chinese | 甲子 | ||||||||||
| 
 | |||||||||||
| Korean name | |||||||||||
| Hangul | 환갑 | ||||||||||
| Hanja | 還甲 | ||||||||||
| 
 | |||||||||||
| Japanese name | |||||||||||
| Kanji | 還暦 | ||||||||||
| Kana | かんれき | ||||||||||
| Kyūjitai | 還曆 | ||||||||||
| 
 | |||||||||||
In the Sinosphere, one's sixtieth birthday has traditionally held special significance. Especially when life expectancies were shorter, the sixtieth birthday was seen as a symbolic threshold for reaching old age and having lived a full life. This birthday is known as jiazi in Chinese, kanreki in Japanese, and hwangap in Korean.