March 3rd in Japan is Girls' Day. All my girlfriends had these dolls. All of them. We didn't. "We aren't Japanese and we're not going to spend thousands of dollars on dolls that you see only several weeks a year. You can't even play with them." Something similar to this was my parent's reasoning for why my request was denied every year. In its place, just to be sure they knew I, too, should be properly celebrated as their one and only daughter, we made our own hina-ningyo. I remember this as one of the mostly truly horrific and unfair experiences of my childhood. Why? Tell any 8-year old girl to maker her own dolls out of eggs, and I guarantee she will cry foul. Everyone knows dolls made out of eggs, clothed in origami are just plain lame.
Opinionated and strong-willed as I was even as a child, there was nothing I could do to persuade my parents of the injustice they were making me go through. Dolls made out of eggs? Really. Truly pathetic. Not given a choice, I sat and poked small holes in two eggs (I only got to make the lord and lady--the two sitting on the top shelf--yet another injustice). I drained the eggs, let them dry, and drew faces on the shells, and then folded them clothes. Several eggs were "accidentally" crushed as I drained them, and I "pressed too hard" on the shells more than once in an attempt to make faces. This passive-aggressive act of "rebellion" did nothing, of course. I was most definitely being celebrated, regardless of how many eggs it took. I simply drained more eggs, and painted more faces.
Now that I'm an adult I realize with pain and regret just how right my parents were. I would never spend several thousand dollars on dolls for my (albeit non-existent) non-Japanese daughter--dolls she never actually played with, only because all of her girlfriends had them. I don't know that I'd make her paint eggs, but I know now I'd sure as hell not buy her these dolls.
Funny how I've never actually told my parents this before now.
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