As I've mentioned earlier, the entry of Baby Sunshine has started to expose the Salaryman family to more traditional Japanese customs than we otherwise would engage in. On March the 3rd, the traditional "Hinamatsuri" (doll festival for the little girls) takes place. As a warm up to that, the in-laws came over with a huge cabinet with dolls in it to be placed from now until the festival (see the picture). Apparently there was also some long family history attached to it as well, handed down through the generations, I didn't listen that closely since my mind was more occupied with trying to figure out where to fit in that huge cabinet when we had to put it away again in March... As we set up the cabinet and promptly placed Baby Sunshine in front of it to gaze upon it's glory (it's for her after all) she responded with a few seconds of silence, staring at the dolls, followed by frightened crying. I can't really blame her as I also find the white faced dolls of the emperor and the court distinctively creepy. It's probably an issue with cultural frame of reference, but I do not associate these type of dolls with a fun festival, more with J-horror movies such as the Grudge, the Ring or other stuff. I'm sure the hair grows on these dolls as well.
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7 comments:
Lol. Your child is human and has normal emotional balance. If she had started slowly touching the glass and laughing you woulda felt like you were IN one of those creepy movies
+2 for kid passing "
the "I'm scared too daddy" test
and
-1 for having to take down that freaky glass cage in a month and worrying if any of those voodoo dolls fall over, your life will suck forever...good luck with that;)
Yeah I'm not a fan of the dolls either, sensible (and very cute!) girl you've got there!
The boy versions are way cooler, they have swords you can battle with! Of course Japanese relatives don't look kindly on this practice...
Hmm... I wonder if your baby likes Barbie dolls more...
make sure the cabinet is solidly constructed and locked, or you may have "rats" running loose at night.
Maybe get the local priest/monk to perform a ceremony so that the dolls won't go feral?
Just stumbled across your blog searching Japan related consulting info. Started reading and had many a laugh. I have little girl in 2nd grade and we also had the inlaws over with the hina-matsuri thing. Been forced to put this up every year.
I was actually interviewing last year for the consulting firm you worked at before. Reading through some of the blog post it must be the same place. The characters match except the former leadship with MR K in charge now. Seemed like a nice bunch but i ended up at a different larger firm.
Chris - Yeah, considering how creepy those dolls are, it's probably for the best. We had to move the cabinet out of the field of vision from her nap place since she didn't appreciate them...
Corinne - Yeah, more swords and stuff and less creepy black hair is a big plus, I should get some of those anyway to balance things out!
Eva - At this stage, her favorite toy is a green strap that she like to chew on, barbie dolls probably will come later on ;)
Aimless - Having the dolls go feral in the night is ok, as long as they stay downstairs and clean up after themselves. I'll leave the local shinto priest to do more important stuff!
Anon - Well, that does sound like my previous little consulting company, best thing about them was the working hours (which can be quite abhorrent at other managment consulting firms). Glad you found some stuff amusing over here!
I concur with Chris- "Freaky glass cage... your life will suck forever".
Do you ever get rid of the cage? Perhaps when baby sunshine moves out/have children?
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