ひな祭り

Today is Hina Matsuri, the Doll Festival. Yesterday when I came up for dinner I was completely surprised by a small setup that my host mom had put up near the dining room table. She had the first tier of a doll display, the prince and princess (or emperor and empress, depending on who you talk to), and their furniture and bowls. They are really amazingly beautiful, I spent a lot of my surprise staring at them, which of course got me laughed at.






I'm not completely sure about the history of this festival, but apparently it is imperative that families with girls have these dolls to display. Families with only boys often don't have them, because the superstition is that if you don't have these dolls for your daughter, she won't grow up to marry. In fact, you have to acquire them as soon as possible after a daughter is born, I think. They're really expensive, but it seems that they're also something that gets passed down. My host mother said she had a display with seven tiers of dolls in her house when she was young, but she only has room to display these two now. It does seem like it's something that takes over the house - a full display would definitely take up more space than a Christmas tree. But like the tree, you can display it before the holiday but you have to take it down pretty soon after. My host parents are keeping it up for a little, but it's also bad luck for future marriages if you don't take it down by the fourth.

We had a special dinner too, with special sweets as well :) I had a daifuku with a strawberry in it, and Reiko had some kind of cherry blossom stickiness. My host mother made this really amazing rice dish with lots of things in it. It was a little sweet to eat a whole lot of though, unfortunately.




The restaurant we went to on Sunday had a display: