The Inch Boy by Junko Morimoto is a great book for elementary school kids learning about Japan.  I read this to my daughter’s 3rd grade class and they loved it!  The pictures are good for reading to a class – nice and large so the kids can see them even if they’re sitting in the back of the group. 

The story is similar to the Tale of Tom Thumb.  It’s about Issun-boshi – a boy who only grows to be 1 inch tall.  He wants to be a samurai.   His mother gives him a sewing needle for a sword, a bowl for a boat and chopsticks as oars so he can go to Kyoto to prove himself as a brave warrior.  The boys in my daughter’s class loved that there was a samurai in the story.

Tom Thumb

Eventually, Issun-boshi has to fight a demon to prove himself.  It’s a great big red demon that’s called Oni in Japan. 

Statue of an Oni Demon

This is a good lead-in to talking about the Japanese festival called Setsuban.  In the festival, people throw soybeans at Oni demons to get rid of evil spirits.  The kids loved to see that connection!

You can read the tale of The Inch Boy online (here’s a 2nd version).

You can also watch an illustrated version of the tale told on YouTube.

Enjoy!

Mama Lisa

Note: Issun-boshi comes from Otogi Zoshi, a collection of about 350 tales written in the Muromachi period (1392-1573).

Here’s an interesting note in Cicero’s De senectute et De amicitia, about the meaning of the word ides.

The Romans divided their months into three parts, by Kalends, Nones and Ides. The first day was Kalendae or Calendae, (a calando vel vocando,) from the priest calling out to the people that it was new moon; the fifth day, Nonae, the Nones: the thirteenth, Idus, the Ides, from the obsolete verb, Iduare, to divide, because the Ides nearly divided the month. The Nones were so called, because counting inclusively [including the day you're on], they were nine days from the Ides. In March, May, July, and October, the Nones fell on the seventh and the Ides on the fifteenth.

They had a complicated system of reckoning the month!

The origin of the sinister meaning of the Ides of March is based on the fact that it was the actual day that Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC by Roman Senators. The actual saying comes from Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, “A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.”

The ides of a few different months had special significance in Roman times according to The Mirror of literature, amusement, and instruction, Volume 23 by Reuben Percy…

The ides of May were consecrated to Mercury ; the ides of March were always esteemed unhappy after Caesar’s murder; the time after the ides of June was reckoned fortunate for those who entered into matrimony; the ides of August were consecrated to Diana, and were observed as a feast-day by the slaves ; on the ides of September, auguries were taken for appointing the magistrates, who formerly entered into their offices on the ides of May, and afterwards on those of March.

Today is March 15th. Beware the Ides of March!

Mama Lisa

PS The image comes from “The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare” (1826). Thanks to Joanne Ladd for reminding me about today!

Thanks to Stephanie Batzer for reminding me of this great day!

Now, go eat some pie!

Mama Lisa

When Ben Franklin lived in Paris, he suggested that Parisians wake up earlier (when it’s light out) to save on the cost of candles.  He wrote an essay about this in 1784.

George Vernon Hudson is the person who came up with the idea of actually changing the clocks.  He wrote a paper about it in 1895.

William Willett campaigned for Daylight Savings time in Europe.  He wrote a booklet called “The Waste of Daylight” published in 1907.

During WWI many European nations finally adopted the idea of changing the clocks in order to conserve coal.  The US followed suit in 1918.  The decision was repealed in the US a year later due to unpopularity.  Daylight savings time was reenacted in the US during WWII.  After the war it was left up to each State to decide, until 1986 when Congress mandated Daylight Savings Time in the US once again.

Many thanks to Joanne Ladd for pointing out Benjamin Franklin’s connection to Daylight Sayings Time!

Mama Lisa

Emanuela Marsura, an Italian schoolteacher, pointed out that March 8th is the Feast of Women, or Women’s Day, in Italy.  It’s called "la Festa della Donna" in Italian. 

Originally, it was a recognition of the social achievements, and the political and economic conditions of women.  It has its roots in the US suffrage movement over a century ago.

Nowadays, the main tradition in Italy is for men give the women in their lives a branch or sprig of yellow mimosa flowers.  Sometimes the mimosa will be with other flowers like yellow daffodils or other bulbs. People also serve yellow sweets, including a mimosa cake.

Photo from Wikipedia

Joanne L. Ladd shared her feelings about Daylight Savings Time:

On Sunday March 14 we will go into Daylight Saving Time…
the second Sunday of March
we will set our clocks ahead 1 hour (spring forward)
we will go from EST (Eastern Standard Time)
to EDT (Eastern Daylight Time)
to me…that will be the real world!
and would love to have it just stay there…EDT year round.”

I agree with you Joanne!  Thanks for sharing the wonderful photo and your thoughts.  One more hour of daylight is nearly here.

Mama Lisa

The photo is by Sam Rohn of NYLocations.com.

Dedy said: "They do a dance of traditional java that’s called Jaranan or Jatilan (Horse dance)."

I asked if it was performed for any specific event and Dedy wrote: "Yes it is, usually in a traditional ceremony or to celebrate a birthday and big events such us weddings, independents day of my country (soon)."

He wrote: "I don’t know exactly the name of the crowns, but in my language we call them bando and they’re made of Jasmine.

Indonesia has a lot of traditional dances from our archipelago. We have more than a hundred dances. There are no specific songs its just dance, and there are many songs that go with these dances."

I found the YouTube video below that said: The Traditional Dance call is"Jaranan Kediri":

Here’s a second video that shows people dancing to a song that Dedy said is "the dance song of jaranan. It is the famous jaranan dance in some cities in Java Island."…

Thanks for sharing this with us Dedy!

Hi Lisa,

March 3rd is the Doll Festival that families with daughters express wishes for their daughters’ good health and growth by displaying hina dolls as you know. 

Hina dolls are traditionally displayed on stepped shelves, but I found hina dolls lined flat.  These are smaller than usual too.

 

 

The other day my friend taught me how to make hina dolls with Origami. It is so complicated that it took me about an hour to make them, but I think they are pretty!  They are a prince and princess.

 

I offer peach flowers and Hishimochi, diamond-shaped rice cake to hina dolls. That is the Japanese tradition. 

Hishimochi consists of pink, white and green rice cakes. The pink tastes sweet, the green smells good.

The pink represents peach flowers, the white means snow, and the green means Yomogi, a Japanese green of early spring. [Yomogi is Japanese Mugwort.] 

So it means: Under the snow, the green comes into bud, and over the snow, the peach flowers are in bloom. It shows an image of early spring in Japan.

Also the pink means charm, the white means purification, and the green means to drive away bad spirits.

Hope you enjoy our tradition!

Ayako

Thanks so much for sharing that with us Ayako!  I love how you made your Hina Matsuri display and the origami of the prince and princess.   What a lovely saying: "Under the snow, the green comes into bud, and over the snow, the peach flowers are in bloom."

I found a page of Recipes for Traditional Food for the Dolls Festival, including one for Hishimochi in case anyone would like to try making food for the Dolls Festival.

Here are links to all our posts about the Japanese Doll Festival if anyone would like to learn more about it…

Enjoy!  Happy Hina Matsuri!

Mama Lisa

UPDATE: Some people were looking for instructions to make Origami Hina Dolls. You can click the link for a visual guide and/or watch the YouTube below…

You can draw a face on the head at the end if you’d like (some people do this)! Good luck and enjoy!

Tokyo, Tuesday, March 4.

…Yesterday, to begin, was spent thus: It was the famous festival of dolls… (A family) invited me in to see their exhibition. Some of their dolls are two hundred years old from their mothers’ family… But it is true that one begins immediately to get the passion for dolls; they are not dead things like ours, but works of art symbolic of all the different phases of national life. The little girls were delighted with their possessions…

In the afternoon I was invited to go to the best or one of the best collections in the country and that was a great experience… The family that owns this famous collection is very old and the wife is the daughter of a Daimyo, hence the dolls are very old. And they are wonderful, and more wonderful still their housekeeping equipment of old lacquer and porcelain and glass. The doll refreshments are served in tiny dishes on tiny tables while the guests sit on the floor, the hostess and her family doing all the serving. We had the thick white wine made from rice poured out of wonderful little decanters into tiny glasses. We drank to the health of the family and the stuff is delicious, with an aroma such as no honey can excel. After these refreshments we were shown the room for the tea ceremony and then taken back into the foreign part of the house for real refreshments, which consisted of many and wonderful varieties of cakes. The tea was served in cups with saucers decorated with plum blossoms, this being the time of plum blossoms. Then tea cups taken away and cups of rich chocolate placed on the tables. These tables were high enough for the ordinary chairs… The Baroness urged us to eat special cakes and we left stuffed. One kind is in the form of a beautiful pink leaf wrapped in a cherry leaf which has been preserved from last year. The leaf gives the cake a delicious flavor and also a cover to protect the fingers from its stickiness. Then three little round brown cakes looking some like chocolate-on a skewer. You bite off the first one whole, then slip the other two as you eat them. Those alone are enough for a meal and very nourishing. All cakes are made from bean paste or like our richest pastries. When that second meal was finished, we said good-bye. The Baroness and her three pretty daughters and her sister all followed us to the outer door and when our auto drove off the last thing we saw were the bows of the butlers and these pretty ladies, all saying one more harmonious good-bye. The young girls dress in kimonos of wool muslin…

The garden is indescribable. I had some fancy of what a Japanese garden would look like, but find it is nothing at all beside the reality. This place is big and the grass is now brown. Most of the grass is covered with a thick carpet of pine needles and at the edge of the pine needle carpet a rope of twisted straw outlines graceful curves. The use of the big stones is the most surprising part of the whole. They are very old and weather-stained, of many shades of gray and blue-gray, with the short shrubs for a background, and the severity and simplicity of the result has a classic beauty which we may attain in centuries, and only after we have consumed our abundance of things material.

This description comes from Letters from China and Japan by John Dewey and Alice Chipman Dewey.  I edited it down from the original longer version.

Hello Mama Lisa,

I came across your web page, excellent site! Attached please find two mp3 files of two kids song of Two Tigers.

Two Tigers MP3
Two Tigers MP3 #2

 

The lyrics and translation are as follows:

 

Traditional Chinese:

兩隻老虎 兩隻老虎 跑得快 跑得快

隻没有耳朵

隻没有尾巴 真奇怪 真奇怪

Simplified Chinese:

两只老虎 两只老虎 跑得快 跑得快

只没有耳朵

只没有尾巴 真奇怪 真奇怪

Two tigers   Two tigers   Run fast.   Run fast.
One doesn’t have ears. One doesn’t have a tail.  
Really strange!  Really strange!

 

Happy New Year of Tiger – 2010!

 

Frank

*****

Here’s the Mandarin Transliteration:

liang3 zhi3 lao3 hu3
liang3 zhi3 lao3 hu3
pao3 de kuai4
pao3 de kuai4
yi4 zhi3 mei2 you3 yan3 jing1
yi4 zhi3 mei2 you3 wei3 ba
zhen1qi2 guai4
zhen1 qi2 guai4

James Yannucci gave us this key to the numbers in the transliteration:

The numbers are the tones used for each word. The Chinese use 4 different tones:

1. Is a high level tone (almost like your singing the word)
2. Is a high rising tone
3. The tone starts at a neutral point then drops down low then returns.
4. Drops fast and abrupt

*****

Thanks to Frank for this rhyme and recordings and to James Yannucci for the transliteration!

Happy Year of the Tiger!

Mama Lisa