Do you need a reason to celebrate during these crazy pandemic times? How about celebrating Kodomo no hi, or Children’s Day? It’s a national holiday celebrated in Japan on May 5 to celebrate the happiness and health of children. I’ll give you 5 easy ways to celebrate Children’s Day on May 5 or any other day.
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History
Children’s Day is the last holiday celebrated during “Golden Week,” a week in Japan during which citizens celebrate four national holidays. Until 1948, Children’s Day was called Tango no Sekku, or Boys’ Day. On this day, citizens celebrated the strength and courage of boys. Even though the holiday recognizes both boys and girls, some of the traditions of Boys’ Day are still included in Children’s Day festivities. By the way, girls still have their own holiday on March 3, called Hinamatsuri (Doll’s Day).
How to celebrate
Okay, so full disclaimer up front, this is not a post on how to traditionally celebrate this holiday. This is more about how to celebrate the spirit of Children’s Day and learn a little bit about Japanese culture along the way.
Celebrate with food
Mochi
On Children’s Day, people eat Kashiwa Mochi, which is a rice cake stuffed with red bean paste. The mochi is wrapped in oak leaves to symbolize good fortune and prosperity.
Mochi is hard to come by, so if you want a cheater substitute, you can try kakimochi. Kakimochi is basically rice crackers. Usually you can find rice crackers at your local grocery store. Sometimes it’s part of a trail mix. Amazon sells some basic rice crackers, but they are definitely more pricey than at a local store.
If you really want to splurge on kakimochi, I highly recommend this chocolate covered variety. When we were in Hawaii, you could find this product everywhere. It’s only available online on the mainland, so I was sure to bring a few, okay 5 bags, home with us.
Simpler food
If you want to skip the whole mochi experience, how about stirring up some fried rice? You don’t really need a recipe for it, but if you would like one, click here.
To make things really easy for yourself, you can try out this recipe for baked fried rice. It is a favorite for my family and a breeze to make. It does take a bit of time to bake, so make sure to plan ahead.
A recommendation I have for either kind of fried rice, is to use butter instead of oil. If you have sesame oil, I’d also use a little drizzle of that as well as it packs a lot of flavor.
I got the idea for using butter when I watched a chef make fried rice at one of those “cook at your table” restaurants (it’s called “teappanyaki” or “hibachi”). He used copious amounts of butter, which is what made it taste so good. I hold back somewhat on the butter at home, using just what’s required…and maybe a tiny bit more.
Celebrate with language learning
Over at Fluentin3months.com, you can read a post giving you 17 online resources to help your kids learn Japanese. To learn some basic vocabulary, you can watch this 37 minute video on YouTube.
If you ever watched, which I didn’t, any of those wildly famous toy review videos by a kid named Ryan, you’ll be happy to see him here.
Celebrate by watching
Along with the Japanese language videos, you can find videos about both Children’s Day (Boy’s Day) and Girl’s Day. In addition, you can watch a series of videos featuring a little girl giving you glimpses into life in Japan. The channel is called “Life where I’m from.” I have shown her videos in co-ops when I’ve taught on Japan. The only one you might want to preview first, is the segment covering Japanese toilets, just in case you’re not into potty humor.
You can take a 360° tour of Japan here. Be forewarned, there is a clip of sumo wrestlers. If you don’t know, the wrestlers wear very limited clothing. Not so bad from the front, but you will get quite an eyeful when they turn around. You might want to forward through that part if you don’t want your kids snickering and pointing it out. Maybe your kids wouldn’t, but mine certainly would. (By the way, if you are interested in more 360° tours, you can look at my post of factory tours here.)
Celebrating with crafts
Japanese carp
If you watched the video I mentioned above about Children’s Day, you saw the carp flags that families display to celebrate the holiday. The carp are called “koinoburi” To the Japanese, the carp represents courage and strength. On Children’s Day, families hang carps representing each member of the family. Boy, I would need a lot of carps! You can purchase a carp here
or you can make your own with this kit. I used the kit with a co-op as it comes with enough materials to make 24 carp.
If you don’t want to purchase a kit, Pinterest is full of ideas to make carps for free. I liked the relative simplicity of this project which utilizes toilet paper rolls, tissue paper, and double sided tape (for less mess, a plus for me).
You can also print out fish templates to color and cut out. I really liked this guy from mainlyhomemade.com as he is smiling and looks so happy. Or you can print out this koinoburi from Education.com. This was actually one of my most often repinned pins on Pinterest for a while. I like the smiling guy more, but that’s my preference.
Origami
How can we talk about Japan and crafts and not include origami? Again, you can find loads of origami tutorials and printables online. For beginners, I prefer templates that are predesigned, printable, and of course, free. Easypeasyandfun.com lists out 20 cute and easy origami projects for kids that come with free printables. Redtedart.com also showcases free and adorable printable origami projects. We had fun making the monster corner bookmarks.
Another origami project you might want to try is the warrior helmet. On Children’s Day, families will display replicas of samurai helmets. Origami-fun.com has easy instructions you can follow (and print out) to make an origami helmet. The site is full of other origami projects you can make as well. If you’d like to watch a video instead, click here.
Celebrate by reading
Here are a few recommendations:
If you are reading this and May 5 has already passed, celebrate anyway! International Children’s Day is celebrated on June 1 in the United States and November 20 by the UN, You can also use those holidays to implement these five fun ways to celebrate Children’s Day. Enjoy!