Yakudoshi are calamitous years, counted in the traditional way that makes a person one at birth. For men they are 25, 42 and 61; for women 19, 33 and 37, with some traditions adding 61. The years before and after each are also observed as approaching and trailing years, so a bad year is really three. Forty-two for men is the great one because the digits can be read shi-ni, to die; thirty-three for women reads san-zan, disastrous. People go to a shrine at the start of the year for yakubarai or yakuyoke — sitting inside the hall while a priest waves the haraigushi wand over them and reads their name and address to the kami — and take home an arrow or a talisman. The rational defence offered by priests themselves is that the ages sit where health, career and family responsibility genuinely turn, and the rite gives people an occasion to pause and be attended to. Insurance companies and health clinics in Japan advertise around them.