March 3 is Girls' Festival in Japan. Our school, like most households in Japan, pull out and display a beautiful set of dolls. These dolls are a re-creation of the Emperor's court during the Edo period. Our program assistant at BSCIS particularly loves this time because it reminds here of a similar sized collection that she was given by her grand-father at her birth to celebrate. She loves looking at our school's display because, due to the vicissitudes of travel, moving and small apartments she no longer has her set.
Each doll is intricately dressed with period outfits and each face is quite expressive and detailed.
Here are the Emperor and the Empress, at the top of the display:
Underneath them are various ministers and Samurai, wearing the appropriate head coverings:
Each layer of the display has progressively less powerful people until, finally, at the base, there is a display of the huge dowry that comes with any bride.
Each layer is well described in this link here.
Kumiko describes the various parts of the display and explains that this is linked historically to ensure that the household's daughters have a good marriage. The superstition is that if the dolls are not put away on March 4, this will delay the marriage of the daughter. She laughs about that part!
The role of women in Japanese society continues to be a hotly debated and challenging conversation in this society. From generation to generation, things are changing but it is interesting to note that even in the language of Japanese, the character for female is associated with negative words. Check out this article if you are interested in a more in depth conversation about this.
This is our second Girl's Day celebration and we learn more about Japanese culture the longer we live here.
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