Dear ACE students,

  Happy New Year! 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful winter break!
It’s time for the everyone to celebrate new beginnings and new goals.
 New years is different in Japan and America.
I’ve noticed that Japanese New Years is typically for family time and Christmas is for couples and friends.
In America, it’s the opposite. Christmas is for family and New years is for friends and couples.
In Japan, New Years eve is more quiet and everyone goes to temple in the morning.
Americans have a very loud new years eve party and we count down the clock until new years midnight.
Additionally, Americans go to church on Christmas not New years day.
It’s very interesting to see the difference between the two.

   This year is the year of the dog but actually the year of the dog starts is a Chinese tradition in February.
 I learned that Japanese also has a calendar as well.
Many different cultures have different calendars and different ways of counting time.
The global calendar we use is the Gregorian calendar which corresponds with the ancient Mayan’s time system.
 Mayans are from present day Guatemala and they were masters of counting time.
We have the Mayans to thank for our unified system of counting!

Happy new year and best wishes!

Sincerely,

Andrew