Happy Girl's Day! Today is Hina Matsuri in Japan. Since we have a daughter, we have been displaying our hina ningyo dolls for a couple weeks now. Technically we should take them down before tomorrow. The superstition is that if you leave the display up after March 3, your daughter won't be able to get married. I think we're going to tempt fate, though and leave it up an extra day so that my parents can see it when they arrive on the fourth.
Our display is pretty simple and cost around 60 USD, but for really nice ones, they can run in the 10s, even 100s of thousands of dollars.
When I have a chance, I like to try and watch the second story/chapter of Kurosawa's "Dreams", which is set during Hina Matsuri and has a beautiful scene in the peach orchard where the dolls come to life and perform a solemn dance and music.
2009-03-02
Hina Matsuri - Girl's Day
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4 comments:
I like this concept of a 'holiday', especially for young girls to feel special for a day (I can imagine how teens/girls in their twenties would use it to their advantage)! Is there a Boy's Day, too?
Yep, Boys Day is May 5th. And it's a National Holiday, which Girl's Day is not. Although, May 5th is also called Children's Day, so the girls aren't completely left out of the picture.
To be honest, Brian, I really don't like these Japanese customs of separate gender celebration. I can't help feeling that the entire Japanese society wants to make sure that everyone is extemely aware of their genders. Look at all that crap about Valentine's Day and White Day - yes OK they are Hallmark holidays, but still... Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but you know, sometimes all this exclusivity gets to me.
I can't argue with you on that. I agree, that Japan tends to make a big deal about genders staying in their traditional roles. I have never heard of White Day outside of Japan, though, and although it does perhaps play a role in keeping the genders separate, I get the feeling that it was also created as a way to create more chocolate sales and gift sales, by splitting Valentine's Day into two separate days.
Oh well ...
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