"Goroawase" and West Day

One of the anniversaries on February 4th in Japan is West Day 西の日, a lighthearted commemorative day created from the wordplay 2‑4 → ni‑shi, meaning “west.” It a perfect example of "goroawase" in Japan. Goroawase (語呂合わせ) is a popular form of Japanese wordplay that assigns phonetic readings (on'yomi or kun'yomi) to numbers, allowing them to be read as words or phrases.

The idea behind West day is simple and charming: good fortune is said to come from traveling west, and people are encouraged to get along with those who come from the west. Although playful in tone, the day offers a chance to reflect on how the concept of “west” appears across Japanese language, culture, and geography.

In traditional orientation, west is the direction of sunset, a meaning rooted in the old expression ini‑shi (“the direction where the sun goes”). Because the sun sinks in the west, the direction has sometimes symbolized decline or even death, while in other contexts—such as Western countries being called the Occident—it simply marks the place where the sun disappears. Interestingly, in Okinawa, west is "iri" and you can see that reflected in places names, such as, Iriomoto-jima, meaning the island on the western side.