March 3rd is girl’s day or doll’s day in Japan, coinciding with plum blossoms and arrival of spring. It is an old celebration of girls and young women, focused around a display of dolls, mainly a wedding couple said to be the emperor and empress. Everywhere you go, there are the hina-dolls in different shapes and forms decorating displays, letters, notes from the kindergarten, and on and on. Our kindergarten always make beautiful and fun seasonal decorations by the entrance and it is such a delightful way to follow the flow of Japanese traditions during the year, being met by the display when coming to the kindergarten.
Though we have a little boy, I could not resist buying a little hinamatsuri-doll-set made of glass when we moved here. I so enjoy decorating our house according to the different festivities and seasons in Japan, and I thought that I could have a little doll-display for my wife at least. And speaking of my wife, when she was a kid she got a big big doll-display from her grandmother. It is a display on many platforms where the couple is sitting on top and lower platforms are filled with a court ladies, musicians, and other characters. I have yet to see the whole thing, when we came to Fukuoka from Tokyo my wife’s mother brought the two big dolls to our house, and I cannot wait for us to bring the rest of the display and decorate our Japanese room.
When I met my son at the kindergarten bus Friday afternoon, he showed me a plastic bag with hina matsuri candy – small rice-sugar-crackers in pink, white, yellow and green. His teacher told me that my son had been talking on the bus about eating them with his dad when he got home. And so we did! But we saved most for today, Sunday. After all, there will be no proper hina-celebration without mum.
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