Old Toys Theatre

Last weekend I was fortune enough to see a children's theatre performance with my Japanese family. The show was very cute, and introduced a Japanese folk tale about the zodiac and old Japanese toys. It was a very engaging performance.




The toys they forced on was Kendama. Kendama is a ball and stick game were the object is to get the ball onto the stick. Another one was a Koma. Koma is the Japanese form of a spinning top, but instead of spinning it with your finger you have to whine it up with a string and than let it fly. Just getting the string to whine properly was difficult, getting it to spin was a whole other story. They also did lots of juggling tricks. After that they introduced a batabata, which is a line of picture boards that have two sides to them and make a banging sound as you change them to the other side. Its really cute.




After the show we all got to play with the Japanese toys. Surprisingly they were a lot harder than they looked. I kind of want some of them now.

Hinamatsuri

Hinamatsuri or doll festival in English, is a day to celebrate girls. Its a day all for the ladies of the family. Boys also have a day for celebrating them but, its in summer.

There are certain things that you do to celebrate this day. One of which is setting up a display of dolls. Some displays are huge and other displays are small. These displays are handed down generation to generation so they tend to be quite old.



Another thing is the eating of certain foods, such as sakura mochi and chirashisushi. Both of which are SUPER tasty. The leaf on the sakura mochi is from actually sakura trees, and it tasty a bit salty. The combination of salt, and sweet make it prefect to celebrate girl's day. Sakura mochi, I was told started in the Edo period and has been made ever since. Its made from the past years leaves that they freeze and hold onto until the next spring.





Some times in school lunches they even give sakura mochi, or cake or something special to celebrate the day. In the end its like most Japanese holidays, it has lost it original meaning and has become more about the food. Its still a very fun holiday though, and I think it would be great to celebrate it in the states too. :)