All dolled up

March 3rd is traditionally Hina Matsuri or Girls' Day, where families bring out sets of kimono-clad hina dolls and display them in their homes or businesses. Almost all the shops on the central street of the city were festooned with the dolls, comprising of a prince, princess, three serving ladies, five musicians, court attendants and even furniture. The dolls are really pretty, and each painstakingly handmade from ceramic and fine silk. The price of each one is pretty too; when I asked the guys at the Board of Education how much I could expect to pay for one they told me it was in the range of about ¥20,000 (around AU$200) for a run of the mill, average quality doll. It's a little bit out of reach for me, but it does set me thinking if anyone's bothered to make a set of hina dollfies, and how much one of those would cost. $_$

Since I'm kind of a cheapskate (and proud of it too!), I decided to go the eco route and make mine out of origami paper. Good thing I bought a heap of origami instruction books a long while back which had diagrams for the main pair of dolls and some nice looking printed paper:

There's a cultural museum in the city as well, and as luck would have it, they were holding an exhibition of antique hina dolls from up to a century ago. Here's an overall view of a 2 metre tall hina doll display, including dancers, archers, miscellaneous court ladies, furniture, tableware and even a weapons cart and ox-drawn carriage:

The attention to detail is really quite amazing, down to the mulberry paper screens and Chinese style knots on the carts.

To learned individuals, the dolls from the Edo, Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras probably have distinct differences in design and construction, but to a savage like me (heh) its all just pretty silk and somewhat scary looking faces.





Standards of beauty and general attractiveness here sure are different. ^^;

Some of the smaller dolls were on open display, allowing me to take some close shots. The really old and detailed dolls were behind glass though, which is a pity since their kimono and accessories were truly something to behold. One can only imagine just how luxurious and opulent real royal kimono must be.

Anything in miniature holds quite a fascination for me, especially those that need a lot of effort to put together. I really wouldn't mind owning at least the prince and princess dolls, but it seems that silk ages badly and requires proper storage to maintain its colour and texture over the years. I haven't got a permanent place to store things, which makes this a bit of an issue, so it looks like I can't really buy them for now, even if I do come across a suitcase full of unmarked bills on the street sometime soon. Until then it'll be paper dolls all the way!