While most birthdays are celebrated with noodles and cakes in China, there are a few unusual birthdays that Chinese people treat differently.
There are a couple birthdays that people do not celebrate. In fact, it is considered bad luck to celebrate them. For women, the 30th birthday is not celebrated. Like in the West, turning thirty is a big milestone in a woman's life. For many Chinese, it is a period of uncertainty and danger when mishaps often take place. In order to avoid bad luck, Chinese women often do not celebrate their 30th birthday, remaining twenty-nine for two years and skipping right to thirty-one. This way, they hope the 30th year will go by quietly and without any troubles. For men, the unlucky year is forty. Many Chinese men do not celebrate their 40th birthday just like the women do not celebrate their 30th.
In addition to the 30th and 40th birthdays, 33rd and 66th birthdays are also occasions to be careful of and cautious. These two years are thought to be potentially dangerous and troublesome, especially for women. In order to warn off evil, women turning thirty-three must buy a piece of meat on her birthday, hide behind the kitchen door while chopping the meat thirty-three times, and throw it away. It is believed that doing so will cast all the evil spirits into the meat so that the year can pass by smoothly. One of our good Chinese friends had a terrible year a couple of years ago when she was thirty-three. She had fallen sick quite a few times and had a lot of headaches at work. She finally remembered that she had forgotten to cut the meat thirty-three times on her birthday. Having had enough of bad things happening to her, she decided to do the ritual even though her birthday had passed. I don't know if her year improved markedly, but she was relieved to have at least located the cause of her bad luck and be able to do something about it.
Similarly, the 66th year in a woman's life is also precarious. On a woman's 66th birthday, her daughter, if she has one, must buy a piece of meat and cut it sixty-six times in the kitchen to get rid of bad luck. If she does not have a daughter, then her daughter-in-law or another younger female relative can do the deed. For example, when my grandmother turned sixty-six, I cut the meat for her because I was the closest female relative present at the time. Even though there was no way to prove the effectiveness of my actions, my grandmother really appreciated my gesture and my good intentions. And I was glad she had a really happy birthday!
(selected from 101 Stories for Foreigners to Understand Chinese People by Yi S. Ellis and Bryan D. Ellis, published by China Intercontinental Press in 2012)
