May 5: Children's Day in the flower month

Vocab: hana - はな。。。花　flower; flowers
            tsuki - つき。。。月　month
            kodomo - こども。。。子供　child; children
            hi - ひ。。。日　day
            kodomo no hi - こどものひ。。。子供の日


May is a beautiful month, one of my most favorite months.  Flowers bloom all over. Their colors are just magnificent; I could not help but thank and praise God for the wonderful privilege He has given man and animals to appreciate His works.

 At the same that I am feasting on them like I'm viewing a kaleidoscope, the nation is celebrating a series of important events.  Japan celebrated Constitution Day on May 3; Green Day on May 4; Children's Day on May 5(It used to be called Boy's Day as March 3 is Girl's Day or Hina Matsuri in Japanese); last but not the least, Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May. The first week has 3 holidays so people take a break and if possible, cover the whole week.  This is called "Golden Week".  Families or friends spend a longer period of time together.  Some of them even go overseas to relax from their everyday routine.  Others, though, choose to stay home and enjoy the long period of rest.  March 5 is particularly a dear time for families.  Starting April, a lot of houses display silk, nylon or vinyl-made banners or streamers of carps made with various colors.  This tradition is very well explained and shown in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koinobori. 


The following is an excerpt from the link:
                      "Koinobori (鯉幟), meaning "carp streamer" in Japanese,
                        are carp-shaped wind socks traditionally flown in Japan
                        to celebrate Tango no Sekku (端午の節句), a traditional
                        calendrical event which is now designated a national holiday.
                        These wind socks are made by drawing carp patterns on
                         paper, cloth or other nonwoven fabric. They are then
                         allowed to flutter in the wind. They are also known as
                         satsuki-nobori (皐幟).  Children's Day takes place on
                         May 5. Landscapes across Japan are decorated with
                         koinobori from April to early May, in honor of sons
                         and in the hope that they will grow up healthy and strong."

*Note:  There are lots of links showing photos of koinobori. 

My family also celebrated Children's Day.  My boy was given a "carp" cake by a cakemaker so we thought of celebrating his special day.  It's our policy at home not to hang any carp streamer outside the house.  Anyway, we can enjoy looking at them elsewhere because they are very visible wherever we go.  What we have in our hearts is this: to continue to inculcate faith in God to our son and pray for him everyday of our lives. 


Figure 1. Ready -to-fix goodies to go with the carp cake: spaghetti (my son's favorite is tomato sauce with lots of cheese powder - this is edam cheese powder), soybean sprouts, takoyaki (squid balls) and taiyaki (thin pan-cake like pie snack shaped into a fish called "tai" or the Japanese sea perch; it's filled with red or white bean or sweet potato paste or custard ) and sliced bananas.



Figure 2.  The "carp" cake was lovely.  It has hyuganatsu flavor in both the sponge cake and in the sugar icing. Hyuganatsu is a yellow variety of orange.  It is specially grown in the Kyushu area, particularly Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures.