ひなまつり (Hinamatsuri)

Hinamatsuri (Girls' Festival, also known as Dolls' Festival) and formally called Momonosekku (Peach Festival) occurs on March 3rd and is an occasion to pray for young girls' health and growth, good marriages, and happiness. Homes with girls as well as schools display dolls for the festival and dedicate to them peach blossoms, rice cake cubes, hishimochi (special colored diamond-shaped rice cakes), shirozake (sweet white sake), and other items. Leaving the hina display out too long is said to delay marriage. So it is customary to put them away soon after March 3rd.

The origin of the hinamatsuri is an ancient Chinese practice in which the sins of the body and misfortune are transferred to a doll and washed away by setting the doll in a river to drift away. When this practice spread to Japan, it was linked to girls playing with dolls and in the Edo Period (1603-1867) was developed into the hinamatsuri. Originally, the dolls were made of paper. Today, the dolls and the displays are quite intricate and can cost upward of 330,000 JPY (over 4,000 USD using today's exchange rate) for a seven-tiered display, such as shown in the top picture, which contains (from top platform to bottom platform) the emperor and empress, three court ladies, five musicians with different instruments, two guardians with hishimochi, three fellows, the bride's dowry, and transportation and obento boxes. The emperor and the empress alone can cost 85,000 JPY (over 1,000 USD).

To learn about this traditional aspect of Japanese culture, two friends and I attended an international communication society event. There we made our own origami hina dolls and ate hinamatsuri cuisine. I think I did a pretty good job making my lady, if I do say so myself. As a gift for all 30 of us in attendance, our origami sensei made each of us a lord for our lady.

The hinamatsuri feast was quite good -- an informal style of sushi whose name I can't remember along with specially-prepared cucumbers, strawberries, and amazake (a sweet, non-alcoholic drink made from rice). But my favorite part of the feast was the sakura mochi dessert -- pink-tinged mochi (sticky rice cake) with anko (red bean paste) wrapped in a preserved sakura (cherry) leaf. Many foreigners, as previously mentioned, don't like anko. And the flavor of the sakura leaf is quite sharp. But I love it!

To learn more about the hinamatsuri, I strongly recommend reading about it on Wikipedia.

'Til next time...

So this is Christmas.

I've always struggled with the saying "Jesus is the reason for the season." Many years ago I heard that the early church appropriated a winter pagan holiday and renamed it Christmas so that Christians wouldn't feel badly about celebrating alongside their neighbors or so that those neighbors might become Christians. I've heard sermons preached that explained how Jesus had to have been born on December 25 as well as how He couldn't have been born on December 25, let alone in winter. And I don't think it's unfair to say that the commercialization of the holiday has distorted the remembrance of Jesus' birth in the collective American Christmas experience, even that of Christians. So since I've never found a Scripture that mandates an annual birthday party for Jesus and I remember His birth (and, more importantly, His life, death, and resurrection) on a more-than-once-a-year basis, I've always viewed Christmas as a holiday to be spent enjoying time with my family. Thus, when it became apparent back in November that I was going to be in Japan for Christmas, I didn't have much optimism for how my first Christmas away from family would be... especially once I learned more about the Japanese celebration of Christmas.

One of the things I am most passionate about is learning about other people's languages, cultures, and histories. So my ethnocentrism level is typically very low. As two very minor yet related examples, when I learned that some German families hang a pickle ornament on their Christmas trees, I found this to be intriguing rather than weird. And I really want to know what Christmas is like in the Land Down Under, since Aussies celebrate Christmas in a season when there's not even the slightest chance for snow. (Does Santa wear a tank top, Bermuda shorts, and flip flops?) But when I heard about Christmas in Japan I became saddened, for Christmas here, though it has an appearance that is familiar to me, is substantially different. (Yes, I know why that is. No, knowing why didn't help me think more charitably toward Christmas in Japan.) Christmas lights decorated the station road. A few of my students had Christmas trees in their homes. And Christmas music played rabidly in the stores. But Japanese Christmas is a kind of Sadie Hawkins' Dance/MORP holiday in which women ask men out on dates before they head to KFC (no lie) for dinner. So can you see how I was having difficulty getting into my kind of Christmas spirit, even though I knew I wouldn't be spending it alone? (For an even more detailed posting about Christmas in Japan, see Kelly Osato's Christmas 2008 blog post.)

Thankfully, my actual Christmas celebration turned out to be far better than my imaginings had led me to fear it might be. I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with eight other Japanese and North Americans at the missionaries' house. On Christmas Eve, we enjoyed each others' company over yummy snacks while talking about anything and everything and watching White Christmas, although I can honestly say I have never seen that movie since I fell asleep as it was starting. On Christmas Day we ate a German-style breakfast, opened stockings, exchanged gifts, played all kinds of games, listened to Christmas music, shared in cleaning responsibilities (even the guys!), had an amazing Christmas dinner, and ran out of hot water, which reminded me of so many family holidays when something would go wrong with the house. So while I was sad to be away from my family during the Christmas holidays, I am so happy that I had an amazing Christmas with great friends here in Japan. If this next school year is my last year to be in Japan, I most likely won't go home for Christmas 2011 since I'll be returning to the States just three months later. But I won't dread that since I know now that I can have a wonderful Christmas here in Japan.

Until next time...