How do you count your birthday?  Historically, the Chinese count age from the day of birth and every year afterwards on the seventh day of the new year as the communal birthday for everyone (you add a year on that date).  An individual’s birthday is not celebrated until the ripe age of 60, with a festive occasion marked every ten years.

            In both the Jewish and Chinese tradition, there are birth ceremonies: the 30-day ceremony when the Chinese baby is officially given a name and the simchat bat and brit milah when a Jewish child is named.  There is no secular-- Asian or American-- equivalent to the Jewish bar or bat mitzvah coming-of-age milestone, when the child accepts responsibility for his or her religious obligations.  This occurs at age 13 for boys and age 12 for Orthodox girls or age 13 for Conservative or Reform Jews.

            What is the significance of birthdays? 

            The Chinese have a fate-based culture, in that one’s role in this life is pre-destined.  Cultural symbols—red eggs at the one-month birth ceremony, red color in general-- rituals and folk expressions all call for good luck.  One’s lot in life is determined or changed by others and by outside forces.  In the Jewish tradition, there is an emphasis on teshuva (repentance), wherein one acknowledges one’s failings-- chet or sin-- and resolves to not replicate the mis-deed by avoiding the situation.

The American tradition combines both wishes and resolutions.  We love to make birthday wishes and New Year’s resolutions.  We rejoice when our good fortune changes us for the better, but we also have the fortitude to improve ourselves.  The vast amount of money raised in this country for charity from private donors—far more than any other nation*-- testify to the American sense of self-initiative and making the world a better place to live for others, just like the Jewish ideal of tikkun olam, repairing our world.

*According to Dr. Carol Adelman, Director for The Center for Global Prosperity of the Hudson Institute in its first Index of Global Philanthropy (2006): The total of US private giving had increased to a massive $71 billion in 2004 [as quoted in globalissues.org, maintained by Anup Shah].