Inspired by Japanese Dolls and a Celebration of Girls

By Suzanne Kamata

In February in Japan, where I have lived for the past 35 years, households with young daughters display hina ningyo, beautiful ornamental dolls representing the Emperor, Empress, and various courtiers. The dolls are arranged on tiered shelves, with the Emperor and Empress on the top. The full set is expensive, costing thousands of dollars. Typically, they are gifted to baby girls by their grandparents, and they are rarely passed on from generation to generation. 

Hina dolls are displayed until Girls’ Day (Hinamatsuri) on March 3. On that day, it is traditional to have a little party before them, with chirashizushi (vinegared rice mixed with vegetables, seafood, and egg), clear soup with clams, sweet sake, and arare (sweet colored crunchy rice snacks). According to superstition, if the dolls are left up past this date, the daughter will not be able to get married.

The title story of my just-published collection, River of Dolls and Other Stories, refers to these dolls. The dolls are displayed as a wish for the health and happiness of daughters, and are said to absorb unhappiness and protect daughters from harm. I wrote the story after learning of the custom of floating such dolls down the river to symbolize the release of bad luck and misfortune.

This story is special to me for several reasons. For one, I worked on it while attending a writers’ conference in the Netherlands, which was held at a castle. I sat near a moat, watching swans gliding along the water, as I pondered my revisions. At the time, I had been married for a few years, and was longing for a child. My stories seemed to be filled with women preoccupied with babies.

When I finally did give birth to twins – a boy and a girl – a couple years later, my mother-in-law presented us with a brand-new set of hina dolls. She made sure they were delivered to our house on an auspicious day on the Japanese calendar. The first couple of years, my daughter was too small to help set up the dolls, so I did it myself, taking care to refer to photos and diagrams to get everything just right. But later, we assembled the display together.

My daughter is now grown and living on her own in a tiny apartment too small for such a display. My husband and I remain in the house with two cats, who would probably destroy the dolls’ wigs if given the chance. We haven’t displayed the dolls in a while, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to get rid of them. 

This year, I’m thinking of putting them up to celebrate the publication of my brand-new short story collection. Many of the stories are about women and girls, including mothers and daughters, female friends, fairytale princesses, and heroines from history. I hope you will take the time to enjoy these tales, too. Happy Girls’ Day!

from “River of Dolls”

   Junko hauled a big carton out of the closet. Every February she did this – pulled the box out of the closet where the spare futons were stored, opened the cardboard flaps and began taking out the dolls, the multi-level stand, the red cloth, the miniature plum trees and tea set. For years she had prepared the display alone, in silence, knowing that there would be no little girl to admire the crowned Empress doll in her layers of brocade kimono, nor the finely-crafted instruments of the more lowly musicians.

    As a child, Junko had watched her mother set up this very same display. She kneeled on a cushion at the base of the stand as her mother arranged the dolls one by one – the Emperor at the top; then the imperial guards in their suits of armor; the ladies-in-waiting, who brushed the Empress’ long hair and wrote poetry on gilded fans; down to the court jesters and the bearers who transported the royal couple in a palanquin hefted onto their shoulders. When the last courtier was in place, when the archer was positioned with his bows and arrows, and the tiny lacquer mirror had been prepared for the Empress, Junko’s mother turned to her with her favorite doll.  

    “Here, I’ll let you put this one on top,” she said.

    Usually, Junko was not allowed to touch the fragile and expensive dolls. But her mother trusted her for as long as it took to lift the Empress with two hands and set it next to the Emperor. Then she would sink back into the cushion and dream herself into the dolls’ world.

    When she grew up, she would marry a prince. It was possible. Look at Empress Michiko. One day she was a commoner playing tennis at a resort in Karuizawa, then, not long after, a bewigged bride in twelve layers of kimono. Michiko-sama’s story was like a fairy tale and little Junko believed that if an ordinary girl could marry a descendant of the sun goddess, then perhaps an old childless couple really could split a peach and find a baby boy inside. Maybe there really was a rabbit making rice cakes on the moon.

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RIVER OF DOLLS AND OTHER STORIES

These stories, many of which riff on traditional Japanese folk tales and lore, explore the lives of individuals caught between desire and duty, as well as the conflicting expectations of different cultures. For example, in ‘Day Pass,’ a college student in South Carolina befriends a female prisoner on a work release program, thinking that she will be a good influence, but then realizes that she has gotten in over her head. In ‘Blue Murder,’ a Japanese farmer troubled by the crows eating his pears becomes besotted with a kingfisher. The narrator of ‘Down the Mountain,’ a descendant of the Heike clan, recounts the tragic life and death of her beloved sister as she urges her own daughter to leave their secluded mountain village and go out into the world, and in the title story, ‘River of Dolls,’ a Japanese woman struggles with infertility. Ranging from dirty to magical realism, the stories collected here are often infused with humor, while exposing universal truths.

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Suzanne Kamata is an American, but she has lived in Japan for over half of her life. During that time, she has modeled for a textbook cover, done the voiceover for a TV commercial, and planted trees with the Emperor. She has also written many books and won many awards. Besides reading and writing, she loves chocolate, cats, and figure skating.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing