Crafty!

Today was craft day.... wooohoooo!!!! (Jumping for joy, yelling from the rooftops, rolling on the floor with excitement.... ok, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, BUT I was pretty excited about craft day!Today at craft class (woooohooo) we made little origami Hina dolls (as seen to the left on my fingers... as finger puppets of course!) OK, before I even begin to explain Hina Dolls I have to tell you about "Girl's Day" and "Boy's Day" here in Japan! Girl's Day is celebrated in Japan on March 3rd every year (the 3rd day of the 3rd month) and Boy's Day is celebrated on May 5th (the 5th day of the 5th month) each year. Japan sets aside these days to respect children's personalities and to celebrate their happiness each year!!! These used to be celebrated together on 1 day, but now they are split to make sure both the boys and girls are celebrated specially! These days are National holidays and there are lots of different traditions for both!

Since we just had Girl's Day here in Japan a few days ago I will tell you ALL about it... The Hina Dolls can be made from many different materials... the ones we made in craft class are obviously made out of paper and not nearly as fancy and ornate than other ones here in Japan. The girl on the left holds a fan and the boy on the right has a stick of some sort... I assure you they look really cool close up! Hina Dolls are representations of the Emperor and Empress and often there are other dolls to accompany them that represent their court etc... Today, making only 2 dolls was a task in and of itself! It used to be thought that these dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits so after the festival, people would take these dolls (made of straw in ancient times) and float them out to sea on a little boat to get rid of bad spirits... BUT the fisherman were having a problem with these dolls getting caught in their nets so this practice was mostly stopped. In some places they still symbolically place them on a boat to send them out to sea, but then take them out of the water and put them away. Families of girls will have a set of Hina Dolls that they symbolically put out for display in their house by mid-February each year. ***Superstition alert: Leaving the dolls up for display after the festival is over (anytime after March 3rd) will result in late and maybe even NO marriage for the daughter! YIKES!!!!

The moral of the story is.... put these dolls away immediately after Girl's Day or your daughter's prince may never come... I know it is just a superstition, and I really wanted to put these cute Japanese Hina Dolls out in my house, but I can't have any bad luck, so I will have to wait for Girl's Day to come around again next year! This is a picture of the box we made to store our dolls in... and TRUST ME it was harder to make than it looks! Craft class was a blast as usual and tomorrow we are going on another adventure to finally get the 8th stamp on my 7 Gods of Kamakura tour!

Japanese Word of the Day:
Heiki (hay-key): It's ok, I'm alright, It's all good... It can mean LOTS of different things depending on the context... I even found one meaning that meant "weapons".... basically I am going to go with the first meanings and use it when I trip and fall and someone tries to help me... I will just keep saying heiki heiki... brilliant!