I once heard that in Japan, women who were 26 years old and unmarried were referred to as “Christmas cakes” (meaning, nobody wanted them after the 25th,) and women who were 32 years old and unmarried were referred to as “New Year’s noodles” (meaning, nobody wanted them after the 31st.)
While such a term of reference is obviously insulting, was it ever true that Japanese society referred to such women this way?
It was actually women who were 25 since Japanese eat Christmas cakes on Christmas ever, so no one wants them on the 25th. After it became normal to marry later, they changed to New Year’s noodles.
Yes, these were a standing joke, or at least all the reference I heard were as jokes. Of course, I wasn’t a 32-year-old single woman with a desperate, worried mother, either.
A propos of nothing, France used to have the same thing going on with the Catherinettes. It was traditional, on St Catherine’s day, for 25+ year old girls who still weren’t married to wear special hats, indicating that they were still looking ; a special ball was also held where they could meet potential suitors. It was part public shaming, part dating aid.
The tradition has, thankfully, died out ; but to this day some people still “ironically” buy cakes to “old maids” on St Cath’s, or “playfully” remind them of their Catherinette status. It’s all in good fun ! Right ?
I suppose that the nearest we have in the UK and the US is “spinster”. It used (until remarkably recently) to be the legal description of an unmarried woman. I imagine that on both sides of the Atlantic, describing any woman as a spinster would earn the speaker a sharp retort at the very least.
I’d always considered ‘spinster’ to apply to someone old and unmarried - and by old I mean 40/50 plus - someone unlikely to ever marry. Maybe the difference is just cultural? I don’t think there’s really a stigma anymore in western countries for people to still be single in their twenties or even thirties.
The legal definition of spinster - at least in the UK - is somewhat different, it just used to mean ‘woman who has never married before’. My ex wife was described as a spinster in our marriage certificate - she was just 20 at the time! 
In northern Germany unmarried women on their 25th birthday sometimes get “honoured” by decorating their entry door with a “Schachtelkranz” (a wreath of boxes). With a lot of tongue in the cheek this is meant to suggest that they now are “alte Schachteln” (old boxes), which is a derogative term usually given to unpleasant old women.
Likewise, at their 30th birthday unmarried men have to sweep in front of a public building (usually the town hall) wearing ridiculous costumes and on their 40th birthday they would have to ride a donkey through town while facing backwards. This last custom is very rare and I have never actually witnessed this. The other two can be seen from time to time.
I don’t like these customs which aim at making fun of people due to their marriage status at a certain age - German Schadenfreude at its worst.
The tradition is still living and well in the fashion, dress-making, etc… industries, as far as I know. It was still celebrated in my company (financial sector) ten years ago or so. And it was neither shaming nor dating aid, especially since 25 yo are pretty much all unmarried nowadays. That was a festivity including dressing up with some fancy/outrageous headgear (including the colour yellow, IIRC) and generally costume too, with a prize for the best headgear,and yes, a ball.
It also sometimes includes unmarried men aged 30 called the “Nicolas”. Those dress up as millers, IIRC.
Like pretty much everybody here, I regret this has been cancelled. Not because it was shocking or antifeminist, but in the name of efficiency : it costed money, people attending the pageant obviously weren’t working, there were legal and safety issues (what if there was an accident during the celebration?), etc…
It should have been Christmas Eve, of course.
The reference to Christmas cakes is old, from at least the 1970s when the average age of a first marriage for women was 24, so obviously it would not be that big of a deal to not unmarried at 25.
Likewise, the average age for women is now 29, even older than in the US, so 32 isn’t that much of a stretch.
To clarify, I don’t think the people who try to maintain the tradition today always do it deliberately for those two purposes ; but rather that the tradition is, anthropologically speaking, inherently about those things whether people realize it or not. If only because, well, why else would you require “eligible old maids” to identify themselves publicly ?
I don’t want to sound all social justice warriory about it, but it’s kind of the same deal as the Miss/Mrs dichotomy. Which the overwhelming majority of people use without any ill intent, because that’s just tradition and so on ; but if you stop to think about it for two seconds it’s kinda fucked up, isn’t it ? On the one hand you have women, who must identify as either sexually available or “out of the market”. On the other hand a guy is “Mister” all his life regardless of marital status, which implicitly means that the sexual restrictions of (traditional, monogamous) marriage don’t really apply.
It’s a tiny, tiny thing ; but within that inconsequential little detail ingrained deep within our daily lives still lies a microcosm of WTF. I feel the same about Catherinettes.
Although I might be biased there, admittedly - I only got exposed to the tradition twice IRL - once was a friend who had an honest to god “my biological clock is ticking”, “what the hell is wrong with me ?!” freak out when some guy bought her a slice of cake on her 25th St Cath ; the other was a hateful shrew of a CEO personal assistant/secretary who made it a point, every year, to single out each and every unmarried intern in the company on that day and sent them passive-aggressive little notes because while everything about her life (and job) was a disaster, at LEAST she was thoroughly unhappily married and could rub that in their faces.
These rituals and nicknames all help explain why there were so many sour and grumpy “old maids” out there. After a few balls where the women wore special hats, and being called old noodles, and having a wreath of boxes on my door, I’d be in a crappy mood, too.
I have heard Christmas Cake -kurisumasukeki [クリスマスケーキ] quite often referring not only to women who are unattached/unmarried at age 26 but also as a response to younger women/girls who reject the advances of a guy, typically not an acquaintance, trying to chat them up on the street.
[Guy] - “Hey, little sister, want to get a coffee?” (Japanese guys usually address unfamiliar girls they try to chat up as “little sister”)
[Girl] - Silence, continues walking.
[Guy] - “Hey, did you hear me?”
[Girl] - “I am a little…” puts head down, walks quickly away.
[Guy] - “Fuck off Christmas cake bitch!”
I have never heard anyone use New Years Noodle in real life.