“Hina” doll displays enliven calm rural town toward Girls’ Day festival

“Hina” doll displays enliven calm rural town toward Girls’ Day festival

Feb. 27, 2013

Yoshii Town is a calm community in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, but it becomes busy from February to early April with attractive “Hina” dolls publicly displayed at dozens of houses and shops. Yoshii flourished as a stage town in the Edo era to the middle of the 19th century. Its traces of prosperity can be seen in areas around its main street, lined by big “dozo” storehouses with white fireproof plaster walls.
The traditional “Hinamatsuri” doll festival celebrates the Girls’ Day of March 3. In recent years, town-wide festivals of its kind are held in many regions across the country. But the Hina doll festival in Yoshii is unique. Visitors can casually see time-honored and relatively new cute Hina dolls while strolling and shopping on the street.
“When we saw a Hina doll festival in a town in Oita (the neighboring prefecture) over 20 years ago, a good idea hit me,” a local old man recalled. He and his friends then believed, “This can be done in our town, too." The man, who is in his 80s and runs a small restaurant and café with his niece, said there are a number of families and shops with old Hina dolls in the town.
“These dolls, displayed beautifully here and there in the town, can be attractive to tourists,“ he said. The 21st Yoshii Hina Doll Tour, launched Feb. 10, continues until April 3. “We had a lot of tourists on the first weekend after the start of this year’s festival,” his niece said.
Visitors can see old Hina doll sets, some of them made in the Edo era, at a ceramic ware shop, a confectionery store and elsewhere. Passers-by may also find Hina dolls and their miniature belongings displayed at a bank’s windowside. Tourists can also enjoy riding in a rickshaw on 15 to 30 minute courses on Sundays during the festival.
Yoshii, with a population of about 17,000, became a part of Ukiha City, a largely rural area in Fukuoka Prefecture, in 2005. People’s life in the town is less bustling, but they look well satisfied with their daily life as it is fillled with centuries-old, rich tradition and culture.