いい庭の日 – Good Garden Day

On 11/28 is Ii Niwa no Hi – Good Garden Day!

Japanese people love playing on dates and words which results in very interesting days (like Good Tooth Day..)

On 28th we now have the Good Garden Day.
Lets take a look on the numbers in this date:
1 – ichi = i
1 – ichi = i
2 – ni = ni
8 – this is a bit complicated, but let me explain.
8 is hachi or ya. In this situation, we use the ha.
Maybe, some of you already know basic Japanese?
A common phrase is こんにちは – kon’nichi wa, which means ”hello“. The は is normally written and spoken as „ha“. Like in はな – hana „flower“.
Only when it is used as a particle (は,の,で..), it will be pronounced as „wa“, (は is a particle for showing the topic of a sentence).
With our 8 in the date, we now pronounce its „ha“ as „wa“.

This irregularity often occurs in Japanese. Mostly it is a connection to older forms of Japanese. As well as European languages changed over time, so did Japanese.

Together with „ni“ the „wa“ of the 8 will be „niwa“ which means garden.
„Ii“ means good. So we get the Good Garden Day!

Of course, the Tokyo Metropolitan Park Association uses this date as promotion for Tokyos gardens!
The Association welcomes all to visit them on this special day. And luckily, it is also a very good time of year for autumn foliage.

If you are around Tokyo during November, please plan a visit to one of the gardens.
You can also participate in the „Twitter Metropolitan Autumnal Garden Photo Gallery“ until the 4th of December when you took nice pictures.
The hashtag is: #いいにわ Please add the name of the garden!
If you want to let the Park Association know about your post, add @ParksTeien  (May be postponed in November 2021!)

And don’t forget to use our Garden Guide Books during the visit ^_-

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