The sixtieth year is our grand climacteric, after which a man must be prepared for death at any moment; but this age is treated as one for congratulation and never for sorrow or anxiety, because it completes our cycle of years. To each year is assigned an element of nature, namely, wood, fire, earth, metal, or water, each of which is divided into two kinds, elder and younger, so that there are practically ten elemental signs by which the years are successively designated. Again, there are twelve signs of animals, which are also applied to years; these animals are the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, ape, fowl, dog, and boar. The years are designated in order after these animals. Since, then, the years are named in succession after the ten elemental and twelve animal signs, the same combination of an elemental and an animal sign recurs every sixty years; the year of the first sign of metal and the sign of the rat, which last coincided with the year 1852, will come again in 1912, that is, sixty years after the other. Our cycle, therefore, comprises sixty years; and a man who has completed this sexagenary cycle is supposed to return to childhood, and often wears red under-garments or red-lined clothes and a red cap after the manner of children. He invites friends and relatives to a dinner to celebrate the occasion. The next celebration takes place when a man has reached his seventieth year, which is named “a rarity since antiquity,” after the saying that man has seldom since antiquity reached seventy years. The septuagenarian distributes among his friends and relatives large, round, red and white rice-cakes with the character signifying longevity written on them. The seventy-seventh year is celebrated as the fête of joy, because the characters for seventy-seven resemble the character for joy when written in a certain style. On this occasion fans, cloth wrappers, and rice-cakes with the character for joy written on them are distributed among friends and relatives. The eightieth year is celebrated in the same manner as the seventieth; and the celebration of the eighty-eighth year, which is called the fête of rice because of the resemblance of the characters for eighty-eight to the character for that useful cereal. The ninetieth and hundredth years are also celebrated when such opportunities occur.