Tag: India

Celebrating Hinamatsuri and cultural connections

On March 3rd, my wife and I celebrated Hinamatsuri with our baby daughter.

Hinamatsuri, also called “doll’s day” or “girls’ day”, is one among the many beautiful traditions of Japanese culture. With preparations usually made over the preceding month, Hinamatsuri is an occasion to celebrate the health and happiness of young girls in the family.

The good wishes are expressed through the consumption of specific foods and intricate displays of hina-ningyō (ornamental dolls) representing the Emperor and Empress, their attendants, and musicians in the traditional court dress of the Heian period.

Wait, let’s back up…How did this all start?

Legend has it that the practice began in China where small paper or straw dolls were used as a medium to offload and absolve people of their sins and misfortune. After rubbing the dolls over their bodies, they would then be set off on the river and float away into the ocean or the neighboring village; the point being that one’s sins were gone or quite literally swept away. These practices were emulated by Japanese aristocrats (and continues to this day in the Tottori Prefecture of Japan).

Hinamatsuri, as it is celebrated now, became fashionable during the Heian period (794-1181). The belief that one could absolve themselves of their sins expanded to include hina-ningyō and the dolls were forever symbolized as vessels for prayers of hope and prosperity.

As dollmakers got better and better at crafting hina-ningyō, their increasing prices, value, and quality also leapt correspondingly. Families no longer were keen on absolving their sins with the dolls and chucking them into the nearby river. Rather, the dolls began to be placed on show, with increasingly intricate displays.

The hina-ningyō were first recognized and used in the manner they are now as part of the Peach Festival, Momo no Sekku (as peach trees typically flower around this time), when Princess Meisho succeeded the throne following her father Emperor Go-Mizunoo, in 1629.

Public domain

As female emperors were not allowed to marry, Empress Tokugawa Masako created a doll arrangement showing Meisho as being wedded. Hinamatsuri, as a festival, would officially become recognized in 1687.

So, how do we display the dolls?

It all depends on how many you have!

The entire set of dolls and accessories is called the hinakazari and can include up to fifteen dolls and various accessories for an enormous tiered display.

The most expensive dolls are placed at the highest tiers to keep them out of the reach of young children.

So, to start, the number of tiers and dolls a family can display depends on their budget. Generally, a set of the two main dolls including the Emperor and Empress is ample enough. The dolls are seated on red cloth amidst accessories that complete the representation of a Heian period wedding.

It is common practice for the dolls to be gifted after birth, with every girl in the family getting her own set of dolls. My wife was gifted her very own set when she was a baby by her grandparents (or my daughter’s great-grandparents). Our baby daughter got her own set (below) this year as a gift from her grandparents.

Enough about the dolls, what about the food?

My daughter asked the same question.

An assortment of treats are usually made for the occasion including Hishi mochi (multi-colored rice cakes), Ichigo daifuku (strawberries wrapped within adzuki bean paste), Sakuramochi (rice cakes with bean paste wrapped in a picked cherry blossom leaf), Ushiojiru (clam soup; the clam’s two sides fit perfectly to represent a strong marriage), and Amazake (sweet sake and non-alcoholic as we have kids involved).

-FYI, I felt real hungry as I wrote this-

Now, you don’t have to make all of this. It is difficult enough running after the little ones at home. Multi-tasking to make all these dishes, especially without assistance from other family members (as in our case, when our in-laws and immediate family live on the other side of the planet) would be a nightmare.

With our daughter mostly governing the house at this stage, we focused on creating one perfect dish, the Chirashizushi. This dish usually includes a combination of raw fish, veggies, and rice arranged in a bento box.

My wife’s chirashizushi included cooked shrimp, eggs, cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms, salmon caviar, and flavored sushi rice (all of which our daughter absolutely loves).

What happens to the dolls afterward? How about the boys?

Superstition states that the dolls must be put away the day after Hinamatsuri, as keeping them up any longer would result in a late marriage for the daughter. No worries here though, as this practice largely originated to protect the dolls from the rainy season and humidity that followed Hinamatsuri. Some families even keep the dolls up for the entire month.

Now, you may be wondering if this is “girls’ day,” what about the boys? Well, the boys don’t miss out as they actually have their own celebration a little later in the summer on May 5th, now known as Children’s day in Japan, but historically called Tango no Sekku or “Boys’ day.”

What’s the cultural connection?

I’m Indian and my wife is Japanese-Canadian, and we are very set on exposing our daughter to traditions from all three cultures. Whenever we discover a cultural parallel (and there are many), we are all the more excited to learn more ourselves.

In celebrating Hinamatsuri, I discovered that the festival and its Chinese counterpart share parallels with an ancient South Indian festival observed during the greater annual Hindu festival, Navaratri, in the honor of the goddess Durga. Known as Bommai Kolu, or Doll Festival, it is an occasion where young girls and women display dolls and worship the three Hindu Goddesses: Parvathi, Lakshmi, and Saraswati.

Much like Hinamatsuri, the Bommai Kolu is an occasion promoting creative expression for women and the fostering of family bonds, the difference being it is celebrated in the autumn festive season as opposed to spring.

What did we celebrate?

The family road so far has been a rough one for my wife and myself. As happy as we are in the company of our baby daughter, her birth came in the wake of a very difficult pregnancy, various health scares, and multiple hospital visits over the last two years.

Thankfully, our daughter is now hale and healthy, and living her best life while running an empire at home. She is our little queen with a big attitude, and an even bigger heart.

So, this Hinamatsuri we celebrated her good health for many more years to come, our happiness together as a family, and the joyful chaos she will be doling out on our lives.

Observing traditions in a multi-cultural family

Growing up in a Christian family in India meant we had a slightly different schedule of festivals to celebrate throughout the year compared to our neighbors who were predominantly Hindus. That didn’t stop my family from engaging in a few of the Hindu festivals and traditions.

Indian culture is a multifaceted entity with thousands of unique traditions and customs present in the country. A lot of these traditions, while built within a religious foundation (Hinduism), are often interpreted as setting the norm for daily life, especially surrounding family. When my family left India, all the way back in 2001, my parents strived to maintain those traditions at least within the circle of our own religious beliefs. As I grew up, those religious beliefs were molded by my personal experiences in life.

So, there I was in Christmas 2021, singing along to the Gunter Kallmann Choir Christmas playlist while packing up our apartment with the help of my baby daughter. This choir was a favorite of my grandfather’s and the carols brought back nostalgic memories of celebrating Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ home.

Draped over the chair, in the opposite corner of the living room, I recognized the veshti I had worn just a few weeks back when we had celebrated Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

One of the most popular festivals in Hinduism, Diwali symbolizes the victory of good over evil, and is celebrated between mid-October and mid-November.

I had cooked a traditional feast for my wife and daughter (who indulged as much as possible for her age) while wishing family and friends to share in our joy, much like we would later do on Christmas Eve.

These celebrations were followed by several others, this time from my wife’s side of the family, who are Japanese. We observe our last meal of Toshikoshi soba on New Year’s Eve,

Toshikoshi soba is a noodle dish eaten on New Year’s Eve, and isa customary practice to let go of the hardships of the year, represented by the soba noodles that are easily cut while eating.

followed by Nanakusa no Sekku or the Festival of Seven Herbs, on January 7th.

Nanakusa no sekku is a custom where one eats seven (nana)-herb rice porridge to ward off evil and celebrate longevity and good health.

A week after that, we would once again come full circle, by celebrating Pongal, a multi-day Hindu harvest festival observed by Tamils in India.

Pongal celebrates the first harvest of the New Year. The festival is named after the ceremonial dish “pongal”, which means to boil or overflow, prepared from the new harvest of rice boiled in milk with jaggery or raw sugar.

What was the point of all of this? Why celebrate so many different festivals of varying origins?

The answer has to do with my struggles to find the best of both worlds in balancing my cultural norms with those of others I grew accustomed to while living in Egypt, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Canada. Now, as a father, I wished to create a family tradition for my baby daughter that was open-minded, contrasting to the chaotic nature of discussions in the name of religion, while providing a platform honoring and respecting people’s religious choices and faith.

By integrating these different festivals and celebrations, I wish to create an environment that would hopefully allow my daughter to embrace different cultures and respect their traditions, as she grows up. Christmas, beyond the religious stipulations, always represented happy memories with family. It was a period of time when we could all come together, revel in trivial pursuits and games, and just be happy for each other. 

That emotion of familial joy became permanently affixed to many of the other celebrations my parents had observed, outside of our religious circle, in festivals like Diwali and Pongal. Diwali, for me, was just a different kind of Christmas, and Pongal was a different New Year’s celebration. Together, they both meant being with family and being happy. Growing up, I realized that just because my family identified with one religion didn’t necessarily mean I couldn’t embrace or observe the traditions of another faith. To that end, I met a perfect partner in my wife who shared the same opinion.

While we can’t guarantee what our daughter will remember about how we celebrate the holiday season, I’m happy that we have started a dialogue of sorts where she could explore at her own pace the similarities and differences that various faiths have to offer. As she grows older, we will support her desire to explore the world in her own way whether it meant celebrating Hindu festivals, learning the meaning behind Shinto rituals and traditions, or simply lighting up the Christmas tree in the living room.

In the meantime, Christmas 2021 and New Year 2022 provided the perfect ending to our journey in Edmonton (for me and my wife) and the beginning of a new adventure in Calgary. In the years to come, I hope to continue engaging in this open dialogue with my daughter as we observe traditions from both sides of the family.

Through it all, I have one hope for her: that she will one day grow to remember, much like her mother and father, that by embracing something new and different you are not losing yourself but expanding and learning on what you already have.

Seeking Perspective…

Curiosity is a defining characteristic of human nature. More often than not, our curiosity leads us to be engrossed in the minor details of our daily lives. This is particularly evident in this modern day and age where social media has become a prevalent source of knowledge, and entertainment. It is in our nature to ask questions, and seek answers. From an evolutionary perspective, we associate such traits as attributive of the “survival-of-the-fittest,” helping our species to provide and support for its survival, and reproduction.

The more we learn about our world, the greater do we struggle to define our existence.  Who am I? What is my purpose? These are questions we all ask at some point in our lives. We strive to find answers to said questions through the scope of our experiences. This allows us to examine and interpret our lives relative to those of others, such as our friends and family. By doing so, we gain perspective. Life is filled with dichotomies but it is within the structure of these relative measures of “compare-and-contrast” that we enrich our thoughts, and find a means to define our identities as unique individuals.

Returning to India, my homeland, was an experience that provided much needed perspective. It was a journey that had long been overdue since my arrival in Canada, eight years earlier (2009), for post-secondary studies. Up to that point, my life was a collage of the experiences I had at Egypt (where I completed my elementary education), and Sudan (where I completed my secondary education); experiences that now serve as the foundation of my identity. My life in Canada supplemented this foundation, further motivating my future dreams and aspirations.

While in India, I was frequently asked to express my opinions and observations on the state of things, under political and social contexts, in the country. Initially, I was inclined to believe that such inquiries were an inevitable motion of my status as an “outsider”, but this was a naive conclusion. In retrospect, I identified that such queries were simply another means to an end, in this case, an aggregation of knowledge via perspective. It is a facet of the curious case of cultural diffusion in India, a concept I am largely familiar with, in an identity crisis amid the divisive cultural and social experiences of my past and imminent future. Apart from enjoying my time with friends and family, my journey home allowed me to put this problem to rest.

Differences shouldn’t be a cause for silence or division but an incentive for discussion. Such an idea is applicable to the personal dynamics of a family, and other hierarchical structures as that of a government or a society. In observing my country and its culture, I had openly stated my surprise for the lack of active change and progress within the society.  I was motivated to blame the established bureaucracy which I felt had embezzled the citizens from what they deserved. Though civil services and liberties provided for the general run-of-the-mill needs and requirements of the common man and woman, the citizen’s willingness to call for active progress and change had been woefully bargained away by the existing political atmosphere, and the natural course of life. At the same time, in light of my statements, I felt a hypocrite. Though I was voicing my opinions, I hadn’t necessarily acted upon them. Vainly, I had reaped judgment, and deferred the call for action.

This prompted an awakening. The keyword was change, and thankfully enough, I built the courage to enact upon the differences that had once set me apart from my family. By openly communicating my thoughts, and feelings I paved the way for understanding and reconciliation. In this manner, I could voice my opinions, and prove them in action.  Now, back in my fortress of solitude in Edmonton, I can’t help but look forward to a brighter future where I intend to act upon the answers I’ve gained in my personal journey.  Having struggled to balance my past, and my future, I have come to realize that both these states of time are largely a measure of the present that I interpret. My trip to India offered a unique, and worldly view into these very dichotomies that now define the person I am. I hope to take this lesson, and apply it fruitfully in my aspirations to change the world for the better.

While the actions of our past may have implications for the future, we may find balance by being attentive to the present. This is a notion that is applicable to the individual as well as to the collective society, for rather than defer to alternatives in response to a problem it is imperative that we seek solutions through open communication, in the spirit of the inherent curiosity that makes all us different individuals, and yet one human species.