Boys Day in Japan
Today is a national holiday, Boys’ Day, or to be politically correct it is “Children’s Day” Kodomo no hi (
). Carp-shaped Koinobori flags are raised on poles for the boys of the family. Everybody knows that the actual name holiday is Boys’ Day –Tango no Sekku but it was renamed in 1948 to Children’s Day.
Actually, it was hard for me for me to take any good photos of carp/Koinobori flags in my upscale Tokyo neighborhood, Denenchofu, where the average age of the residents is well over 55 years old….there just aren’t any boys or children here to raise up the carp streamers for their inspiration.
Besides the carp-shaped koinobori flags, wealthier families put up displays in their house of traditional Japanese military helmets/kabuto and Gogatsu Ningyo/ samurai armor to inspire the boys such as these fine examples of samurai armor displays below.
Modern KFC armor ………….. Traditional Gogatsu Ningyo
. 
related news story
Rather than traditional regalia, what I really like are these crypo-biology looking “carp” banners of recently-discovered, ultra-deep sea fish of Japan. See the original Japanese website in machine translation.
And, finally there just the farking bizzaro…A lady diver flogging her moray eel to line up underwater with Boys’ Day carp streamers at Tokyo’s SunShine International Aquarium.
- 
May 5th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Ok here’s some background Taro….
May 5th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Here’s the rest-of-the-story The Cardboard Colonel …
Modern KFC armor
