I read a comment on a different subreddit that said in Japan women over 25 are called Christmas cake. Have you ever heard of this in real life? This comment got hundreds of upvotes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/13wh24d/calling_women_christmas_cake_thing/
21 comments
It’s a joke about items that are left unsold after the 25th
I used to hear that phrase a lot around 20 years ago.
But not it’s not really a thing because Japanese women don’t really get married or have kids any more. It’s not in fashion any more.
It’s only really used by miserable old people in the countryside
Back in the 1990s and maybe the 2000s, it was definitely an expression that was used disparagingly to refer to women who were unmarried after the age of 25. The logic is that, just as no-one wants to eat Christmas cake after the 25th of December, no-one wants a woman over the age of 25 – they’re both unwanted and left on the shelf, so to speak.
However, as others have said, given the falling marriage and childbirth rates in Japan, the expression isn’t relevant any more (and never really should have been relevant, of course).
Been living in Japan for the last 17 years .Never have I heard a thing like this .
It’s same in China where single women at 30s and above are called leftovers while in HK they are called oranges at the bottom of the basket if I remember correctly.
40 years ago maybe.
It’s very outdated. That’s from a time when women got married and had kids at an early age.
I think the average age for marriage is around 30 now anyway so it’s not that rare anymore.
Never heard anyone use that expression when speaking about anyone.
Phrase thrown around 30 years ago by bitter old women in arranged marriages.
I heard it mentioned 30 years ago..
I remember someone telling me this about 15 years ago. Cringe then and cringe now
負け犬 loser dog used to be a term for single women over thirty as well. When I explained this term to some a couple of Aussie women in their thirties they were outraged. I guess that’s expected from a couple of western grannies though 笑
I asked my japanese bf about it, he had no idea and didnt know what it meant
This is old. Move on.
My wife was called that by her relatives back in the early 1980’s before we met. They kept pressuring her to go through match making with a string of old, undesirable old men which she immediately rejected. I don’t know if it is still a thing now. But it definitely was at one time.
Still a common thing in Tokyo.
This was published in a paperback Japanese slang book from the 90’s. We used to sit around in a bar reading the slang/pickup lines with the bartenders/regulars who came in and I recall that one always got a round of laughs about how outdated it was even back then.
When Empress Masako married Naruhito in 1993, she was 30 years old. This silenced the talk about Christmas cake and empowered women. It was the fastest I think I’ve ever seen Japanese culture change.
I’ve heard it before, but from an acquaintance who was a good decade older than me, and she hadn’t really heard it in public since maybe the early 90s.
I have literally never heard this being used in 15 years of being involved with Japan (speaking Japanese, living in Japan, etc.) – outside of English speakers saying “Hey did you know that in Japan…” type posts on sites like Reddit.
I’ve been here since 1990. It used to be a thing, but not anymore. Maybe 25 years ago or so. Anyone who was an adult those days will know what that expression is