The dolls festival : Hina Matsuri

I got up this morning and after watching my favorite 15minute mini-drama, started making a salade nicoise, a la “student in Japan”. I had been invited to go to a friend of my ikebana sensei’s for a potluck lunch and to see the Hina matsuri doll display in her home. March 3 is Girl’s Day and the culmination of the Hina matsuri which dates back to Edo period and is a mixture of other festivals from earlier times, but is basically a day for wishing good luck (and a good marriage) to young girls and is celebrated with a display of dolls, either a single pair of Empress (O-Hina-sama) and Emperor (O-Dairi-sama) dolls, or a more elaborate display that can include up to 7 tiers with dolls representing court ladies, warriors, and musicians as well as house hold items like tea services, carriages and trunks and plates of mochi, all in miniature. Typically when a girl is born, her grandparents give her a Hina sama doll, or a set of dolls. Separate “little girl” dolls join the display but I’m not sure just when they are acquired. In the last few weeks, displays of dolls have cropped up everywhere: in store windows, in my school, on TV. My sensei’s daughter has a big one in her home, but the one I saw today is the biggest and most elaborate I’ve seen.

A little before 12 I rode my bicycle to a shopping center not far from my “home”, where I met my sensei and then walked on to our destination. The house was a lovely mixture of modern and traditional styles with western style rooms, but also the traditional entrance way and garden and a large tatami room where the doll display was set up in front of the tokonoma and where we ate at the low table traditionally used for eating. Even though I know better, I even made the classically gaigin mistake of forgetting to take off my slippers (kindly loaned to me when I went to the kitchen) when entering this room! While Japanese people usually where slippers around the house, always leaving outdoor shoes at the entranceway, they NEVER wear them in the tatami room.

Soon after we arrived we all sat down to lovely lunch. The hostess’ husband joined us, the only man at the event. There was delicious chirashi sushi (scatter sushi), sandwiches (ham and egg perhaps), some kind of huge black bean that was sort of sweet, o nigiri, (rice ball made with read beans and sticky rice, a holiday specialty), a potato and meat dish, pickles made from daikon and my salad. Later we had a “jelly and fruit” desert, sort of like Jell-O but less sweet. Once lunch was done, the hostess, also a kimono teacher, got out some yukatas (light summer kimonos, see my blog O bon) so they could teach me how to tie the obi (sash/belt). She also dressed up Sai Chan, sensei’s granddaughter! Before I had to leave to go to my calligraphy class, tea was served and we ate the special Hina sama mochi (rice cakes. It was great fun to be sort of “one of the family” and a special foreign guest at the same time.

I’ve put a few pictures here and a link to more, probably more dolls than you want to see!

Hina matsuri