Japan's Valentines Day!

Of course everyone has heard of Valentine's Day, and it's as big a deal here in Japan as anywhere else. Everyone loves receiving gifts like a dozen roses for Valentine's Day, right? Indeed it's a rare chance for the notoriously reserved Japanese people to show a bit of love. But how many of you know about White Day? No, it has nothing to do with racial pride or laundry detergent.

It's exactly one month after Valentine's Day and the two are a pair. In Japan, the Valentine's Day tradition is for girls and women to give gifts (usually chocolate or cookies) to the boyfriends, husbands, fathers, teachers, bosses, co-workers, guys they pass on the street...no, wait, it's not quite that extreme. But the concept of "giri-choco", or giving chocolates out of duty rather than love is common though not something most women really feel like doing. If the gift is to be seen as really heartfelt, it needs to be handmade. So department stores will do a brisk trade in the various ingredients needed to make chocolate confectionaries. With all the romantic hype in stores and the media, as well as the pressure of giri-choco, a guy who gets no chocolates on Valentine's Day is entitled to feel like something is seriously wrong with not just his social life but also his workplace.

Anyway, for the ladies the pay-off comes a month later on March 14, when it's the guys' turn to give something back. With the name White Day, I suppose the gift should be something white, and the only "tradition" I have heard regularly is that it was white lingerie. But I can't imagine that actually happens so often except between particularly romantic couples. The other rule, called "sanbai-gaeshiin," is that the guys are supposed to give a gift worth three times the value of what they received a month earlier (oh right, that's fair!). And certainly it's common to hear high school girls saying they give a couple of hundred yen's worth of giri-choco to their Dads only with the ulterior motive of getting a Gucci bag or something similarly extravagant in return. Such is the materialism of today's Japanese youth! But the most common gifts semm to be chocolates, cookies and flowers, all the way up to jewelry and those expensive accessories that many ladies hope for and hint at but don't ask for outright.

White Day, as you have probably already guessed, is a creation of marketing minds rather than anything remotely traditional. Though some sources talk about similar ideas in the mid-1960s, it's popularity only dates back to the early 1980's and so it doesn't have quite the marketing punch of its February partner. But if you got something from a young lady last week, you might want to consider the consequences of not giving something back...

Tea Ceremony- A Way of Life

A Japanese cup of tea is more than is implied by the name for the ceremony - cha no yu (hot water for tea). It is, in fact, a quiet interlude during which host and guests strive for spiritual refreshment and harmony with the universe. The Japanese Tea Ceremony captures all the elements of Japanese philosophy and artistic beauty, and interweaves four principles - harmony (with people and nature), respect (for others), purity (of heart and mind), and tranquility. It grew from the custom of Zen Buddhist monks drinking tea from a single bronze bowl in front of a statue of their founder, Budhidharma, during their act of worship. Over the centuries, rituals gradually developed around the religious significance and the use and appreciation of the utensils needed for preparing and serving tea.



Today, the ceremony may be performed in a specially designed room in a private house, in a tea house within a private garden, in a designated complex of rooms in the workplace, or in a public tea house.
A full tea, or Chaji, involves a meal and the serving of two different types of tea and can last for four hours, but shorter, simpler teas can be served to suit individual occasions. Some alternative teas to use in these ceremonies include Genmaicha, Kukicha and Hojicha (all very popular Japanese teas). Ceremonies are held to honour special guests, to celebrate particular occasions such as the blossoming of the cherry trees in Spring, to admire the full moon, or simply to gather together a few friends.

For each occasion, the flowers, vase, wall hangings, and tea wares are chosen carefully to suit the event, the time of year, and the desired atmosphere...




When the guests arrive, they are not greeted at the door by their host or hostess, but are guided through a series of open doors to a waiting room. Here they are served a small porcelain cup of hot water taken from a kettle in the tearoom as a foretaste of the water to be used in the tea making. They then make their way quietly and calmly into the garden and are met halfway at a gate by the host or hostess, who opens the gate and silently greets them with a bow. This gentle passage through the garden represents a breaking of ties with the everyday world and allows a clarifying of the senses through the enjoyment of the sweet sound of trickling water and birdsong, and the visual pleasure of trees, plants, and blossoms. Nearby stands a stone lantern to light the path when evening falls. The guests pause to cleanse their hands and mouth with water from a stone basin of running water.

The entrance to the tea room is so low that everyone must stoop to go through - a symbolic gesture of humility - and once inside, guests spend a few minutes admiring the kettle, the scrolls decorating the walls, and the flowers. They then kneel on tatami (rice straw) mats, sit back on their heels, and watch while their host performs the ceremony of the lighting of the charcoal fire. A meal of fine foods and saki is then served but although this can last for more than an hour, it is not the main event but merely a preparation of the body for the tea that is to come. After eating, the guests step back outside into the garden while the tearoom is freshened ready for the tea brewing ceremony. They then return inside and spend the next forty five minutes sharing a bowl of green tea (usually upper-end teas, such as Gyokuro, Sencha, or Matcha). A sweet cake made with bean curd is served and is eaten with little wooden picks that each guest has brought to the ceremony.



By this time, the fire has burnt low and the host or hostess performs a different fire-lighting ceremony and waits, while conversation continues, for the kettle to boil for a second time. Individual bowls of thin watery tea are then prepared and served to each guest in turn, again accompanied by little dainty sweets. Once this is over, final greetings are exchanged and everyone leaves.

Because the Tea Ceremony involves an understanding and appreciation of a complex combination of sensual and spiritual elements, the training to become a Tea Master is long and demands complete commitment. A student can learn enough of the basic movements and rituals to create a tea after three years or so of dedicated study, but becoming a true Tea Master is a lifetime's work and the training process is never really completed.

Because there are so many ways of creating a tea, and because the ceremony involves almost every aspect of Japanese life - architecture, history, food, craft, art - a student must bring to his or her training all the knowledge and skills learned and developed in everyday life as well as human qualities such as sensitivity, awareness, skills of communication.

Although the study is long and demanding, it is also fun and very rewarding... And whatever style of tea a host or hostess creates, each tea occasion links the people taking part to a continuous chain of 885 years of tea history.

Ukiyo-e Paintings and Prints

Ukiyo-e, 'pictures of the floating world', depict the Kabuki actors, courtesans and female entertainers (geisha) of the pleasure-quarters of urban Japan, where men (strictly, commoners, but also numbers of samurai) went to escape the rigid social hierarchy of feudal society.

The Ukiyo-e school developed out of early seventeenth century fūzokuga ('genre paintings') of the entertainment districts of Kyoto and Osaka. However, by the late seventeenth century, the centre of demand for these works had moved east to the Shogun's capital city of Edo (modern Tokyo), with the rapid growth of the wealthy merchant class there.





Ukiyo-e artists worked in a number of formats. Printed books (guide-books, picture-books, illustrated narratives, and illustrated poetry anthologies) grew in popularity as literacy rates increased. Many Ukiyo-e artists were also commissioned by rich clients to produce hanging-scroll paintings (nikuhitsu), often showing single figures of celebrated courtesans. However, it was the single-sheet woodblock print that was most readily available as a cheap memento or pin-up, and many thousands of designs were produced by a succession of highly accomplished artists.

 



Many of the earlier Ukiyo-e prints by artists such as Hishikawa Moronobu, Sugimura Jihei (worked about 1680-1705), Torii Kiyomasu I (worked about 1700-20), Nishimura Shigenaga (died 1756) were hand-coloured. From the early 1740s, Okumura Masanobu (?1686-1764) and others started to use a limited number of colour blocks.

The walk of life in Japan

These mountain paths date back to the 10th century and link the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, Tanabe and Wakayama to the three grand shrines of Kumano. These three grand shrines - Kumano Hongu Taisha, Kumano Hayatama Taisha and Kumano Nachi Taisha - started out as popular pilgrimage destinations for the imperial family and aristocrats, before gaining popularity with commoners during the 15th century.


In 2004, Unesco declared the Kumano Kodo along with its sacred sites and shrines to be World Heritage sites - making this only one of two pilgrimage routes to achieve this status, the other being the more famous Camino de Santiago in Europe.

Many sections of the ancient mountain paths have been restored and with comfortable traditional guesthouses along the way (known as ryokan and minshuku) it is now possible to undertake your own pilgrimage and walk your way into a small part of Japan's history.

The beauty in undertaking this pilgrimage is threefold - you get to see amazing mountain scenery and actually have the time to appreciate it; you get to immerse yourself in the traditional Japanese way of life, including how they sleep, eat and bathe; and you get to take part in something much bigger than yourself, a sense of achievement that comes from successfully completing your pilgrimage, whatever your motives, as others did so many hundreds of years ago.

We started our adventure by taking the train from Kyoto to Tanabe. Near the train station there is an excellent tourist information office where they will answer any of your questions (in perfect English) and have many maps and brochures on the Kumano Kodo. We stopped here to have lunch before catching a local bus to our pilgrimage starting point, Takajiri.

Our four-and-a-half-day pilgrimage took us 70km along the Nakahechi route, through remote mountain paths and forests, past innumerable oji shrines and, most importantly, to two of the Kumano grand shrines - Hongu Taisha and Nachi Taisha.

The pilgrimage does test your fitness and endurance, with many long, lung-cleansing inclines followed by steep and slippery, joint-jolting declines. The scenery throughout the whole trail is breathtaking - from pristine mountain vistas, to misty wooded forests, to bamboo groves and lush river valleys.

We stayed in five quaint little villages along the Nakahechi route, where our hosts were always welcoming and very helpful, even if they didn't speak much English. Our dinner each evening was a gastronomical delight, each meal cooked freshly by our hosts and consisting of pickles, noodle soups, fried fish, tempura seafood and vegetables, sashimi and sticky rice. We washed down all this wonderful food with delicious local sake.

Each guesthouse had a lovely traditional communal Japanese onsen for bathing. An onsen is a hot spring bath, which the Japanese believe to have healing properties. Whether it does or not, soaking in a lovely hot bath is the perfect end to a tough day of hiking and a great remedy for aching muscles.

Each night we stayed in tatami mat rooms and pulled our futon mattresses out of the closet to convert our living room to a bedroom. We would leave the window open to enjoy the cool mountain breeze throughout the night, and slept the wonderful deep sleep of those who have earned it.

Our pilgrimage came to an end at the grand shine of Nachi Taisha, in a lovely little tourist town called Nachi-san and which is also home to the sacred Nachi-taki waterfall. Here we had a communal dinner with other pilgrims and shared stories of our experiences on the Kumano Kodo. We all agreed; it had been a tough but highly rewarding experience.

Ōmisoka- Second-most important day in Japanese tradition.

New Year's Eve in Japan is observed by settling financial accounts (kake ), eating a special noodle dish known as okake, which is hot soup over noodles, and taking a hot bath followed by a well-earned rest. Widely celebrated on December 31, Omisoka marks the end of the preparations for New Year's celebrations, which go on for the next three days. It is a popular time for visitors to drop in to exchange New Year's greetings over cups of hot sake and decorated mochi cakes.

The city of Ashikaga, 50 miles north of Tokyo, is the site of the 1,200-year-old Saishoji temple, headquarters for the Akutai Matsuri, the "naughty festival," or "festival of abusive language." On New Year's Eve there, participants walk (or take a bus) up a dark mountain road led by a man blowing a horagai, a shell that is supposed to fend off bad tidings. Some carry lanterns and wear cardboard hats bearing the picture of Bishamonten, one of the seven gods of fortune in Japanese Buddhism. The Saishoji temple was built in honor of this god.

The festival originated more than 200 years ago so repressed workers could let off steam; therefore, this is not simply a midnight stroll. Those hiking toward the temple atop the 1,000-foot-high hill scream curses into the night. They curse politicians, teachers, bad grades, low pay, and any other complaints of modern daily life in Japan. They release pent-up frustrations with words they ordinarily would not say directly to anyone. Bakayaro is one of the words most frequently heard. It means, roughly, "you idiot."

After the 40-minute walk the crowd storms into the temple, the bell is rung, prayers are offered, and the cursing continues. But when the new year arrives at midnight, the curses end and more typical celebration begins. Then the celebrants turn to another unique ceremony: when the priest calls the name of each worshipper, the individual kneels with a wide red lacquer bowl at his or her lips. Sake is then poured onto the person's forehead, runs across his or her face, into the bowl and is consumed. All this occurs while the priest reads the worshipper's personal wishes for the new year to the pounding of a taiko drum. This ceremony is supposed to ensure that happiness will flow in the new year.

On Omisoka, people wearing kimonos fill the streets as they go to visit shrines. But millions watch the "Red and White Song Contest" on TV. This marathon song festival, first organized in 1950, has become an indispensable ritual of the New Year. The show, lasting up to four hours, usually has 50 performers, 25 on each team. The Red team is comprised of women, the White team men. When the performances are over, the audience and a panel of judges decide which team won. Typical past performances include an orchestra playing Mozart and a group singing Okinawan folk music; a bit less typical was a female singer in a gown of feathers that made her look like a bird; as she finished her song she flapped her arms and flew away, suspended by a wire.

The TV show ends shortly before midnight in time for an older tradition: the tolling of the great bells in Buddhist temples at midnight. Priests strike the bells 108 times, a reminder of the 108 human frailties or sins in Buddhist belief. By the end of the 108 strokes of the bell, the impure desires of the old year have been driven away.

An ancient folk ritual of a very different sort is observed on the Oga Peninsula, Akita Prefecture, on New Year's Eve. Young men play the part of hairy devils called Namahage, dressing in grotesque red and blue masks and straw cloaks. They stomp through the streets shouting, "Any wicked people about?" and then pound on people's doorways, the idea being to frighten children and newly married women so that they won't be lazy. After being admitted to a home, they sit down for rice cakes, first scaring the wits out of children with stories of what will happen to them if they are naughty.

Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

The hikikomori is considered a uniquely Japanese phenomenon. The hikikomori is typically a male (80% are male), teenaged to 30 years old, who has quit school, has no technical skills, and is unemployed, living in his room in his parents' house, never coming out, taking meals left at his door by his parents, passing the day reading, websurfing, viewing television, idling.

Hikikomori are not strictly hermits (who have a strong psychological or intellectual motive for solitude) and are more properly recluses. But the youth of the hikikomori, their radical withdrawal, and their dependence on the tolerance of parents -- especially the mother -- is considered unique to Japan. A related term or acronymn speciifically referring to the hikkikomori's social status (but including non-hikikomori as well) is NEET, meaining young people "Not in Education, Employment, or Training."

Michael Zielenziger notes in his book Shutting Out the Sun that [Hikikomori] cannot be diagnosed as schizophrenics or mental defectives. They are not depressives or psychotics; nor are they classic agoraphobics, who fear public places but welcome friends in their own homes.

Richard Lloyd Parry adds that neither is it the same as what in Japan is called "school refusal", although inevitably sufferers from hikikomori abandon their educations. Some are teenagers, but most are in their twenties or older.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which long ignored the problem, in 2003 defined hikikomori as avoiding social participation, including avoiding school attendance, compulsory education, entering the workforce -- including part-time jobs -- and associating with somebody outside the home; generally remaining at home for six months or more.

The Ministry also maintains that although as a general rule we define hikikomori as nonpsychotic phenomenon ... it is not uncommon that hikikomori includes schizophrenia before a definite diagnosis is made.

But according to the American Psychiatric Association's standard Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM4), there is no known psychiatric ailment from which hikikomori suffer. Other observers have argued for symptoms of Asperger's and for what the DSM4 calls "social avoidance disorder," but there is no clear evidence. Zielenziger also suggests post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which further identifies the key element within Japanese opinion, that hikikomori are suffering not a psychiatric but a social disorder.

Modern Japanese Society

To argue that social conditions are a chief source of a psychological conditions in specifically traumatized individuals is not favored by modern medicine or science. (A valiant exception is the physician Gabor Mate, M.D.). Yet this thesis is familiar to sociologists. Examining recent Japanese societal change provides a context for understanding the hikikikomori experience as a result of a long historical process.

Japan was always an insular nation until in 1853 United States gunboats under Admiral William Perry "opened" the country to Western domination. Japan was forced into economic dependence and regime change. With establishment of the Meiji government in 1868, Japan set out to centralize the imperial government and build a strong military in response to Western humiliations it had suffered, a fate paralleling recent European control of China.

Religious, cultural, and technological change overthrew Japan's semi-feudal ethics and culture. Militarism and rapid social and economic displacement grew, culminating in imperial wars (against Russia, Korea and China) and, eventually, World War II.

The humiliating defeat of Japan in World War II was compounded by subsequent U.S. occupation and thorough-going dismantling of Japanese institutions. Japan's elites effectively scorned the vestiges of a traditional agrarian economy and its social values to embrace not only industrialization (already dominant since the Meiji) but specifically, capitalism and globalization.

Post-World War II children were shunted into a high-stress school system, and the populace into factories and bureaucracies. Japan suffered speed, noise, urbanization, population shifts, and characteristic family breakdown from extended ie or stem structure families to Western-styled nuclear family as the defaul social unit. Suburban sprawl and ubiquitous technology became the norm in the crowding islands of Japan. The culture feverishly attempted to redress humiliation while technocrats exploited the Japanese character of cooperative stoicism.

In 1980's, the feverish economic bubble burst. But there could be no return to the past. Coincidentally, the hikkikomori phenomenon begins to emerge at this time, accelerating in the 1990's.

All observers have noted the relentless pace of schooling in Japan, rigorous entrance exams beginning before elementary school, high expectations of financial and career success placed on children (especially males) beginning in elementary school, career tracking of youth as early as junior high school/middle school for university versus technical training, 18-hour classroom and study days up to seven days a week, plus bullying, peer pressure, conformity, and burn-out. Maggie Jones notes: "As the Japanese saying goes, 'The nail that sticks out gets hammered in.'"

As the disparity between parents and children widens, so does the enormous disparity between the myth of hard work for success and the dismal economic and social reality of post-boom Japan.

If men, especially, were driven by a "manic defense" in striving for psychological redress after World War II, then post-boom Japan accelerated the relentless pace. For males especially, burning out by high school means no academic or social future.  

The dilemma of the hikkokomori is the initial experience of alienation followed by the psychological but also practical inability to reenter society. Zielenziger quotes one mother of a hikikomori as saying:

Hikikomori value the intangibles ... but cannot speak out because there is no place in Japanese society that allows them to. ... A person who challenges, or makes a mistake, or thinks for himself, either leaves Japan or becomes a hikikomori.

One articulate male hikikomori blogger writes that he is aging, that he knows his parents will pass away some day, that he should work as soon as possible. "I know," he admits. "But I'm not able to overcome my Hikikomori."

Conclusion

Hikikomori is in part a unique social and cultural circumstance of Japanese society, but no observer has perceived hikikomori as the transformation of a long history of eremitism characteristic of agraian, semi-feudal Japan -- and the apparent disfiguration of eremitism in hikkikomori. Granted that the psychology of modern society will not preserve this continuity. It is not difficult to imagine the modern young hikkikomori as the hermits, wanderers, and monks of a bygone era. As the mother quoted by Zielenziger noted, hikkokomori simply do not fit in the modern age, but cannot go back to the past either.

The great irony in hikikomori lost to Western observers is the theme of solitude and isolation in Japanese history, culture, and lore. The ancient Shinto creation myth describes the female deity Amaterasu lost in isolation in the emblematic world of the dead after failing to create a proper life for herself and her mate. She is forever destined to hide her disfigurement. This Japanese archetype culminates in the story of the contemporary Japanese Princess Masako (born in 1963), who lives in seclusion, said to suffer depression but, perhaps, suffering a too-realistic view of her world.

And now, the fate of the Japanese people so historically beset by disaster and tragedy, culminates in the unspoken probability of Japan's destruction by nuclear radiation and the ironic disdain of the West after centuries of hostile attention and exploitation, an entire nation ruefully represented in the hikikomori.

Japanese Clothing: YUKATA

The Yukata is a casual light cotton kimono for wearing in summer. Yukatas normally have very brightly coloured designs on them. Today thesekimonos are mainly worn to the traditional Bon-Odori and summer festivals. The relative simply design of Yukata means Japanese women can, with some practice, put thiskimono on unassisted. 

The name yukata comes from the word -yu- (bath) and -katabira- (under clothing). In the Heian era (794-1185), court nobles wore linen "yukata" which were draped loosely after taking a bath. The yukata was later also worn by Japanese warriors and by the Edo era (1600-1868), it was widely worn by the public when public bath became a popular recreation in Japan.

Today, the yukata is widely worn as a casual wear in summer, as well as in festivals. Further, the yukata is also widely worn in "ryokan" (traditional Japanese inn). The yukata is loved for its lightweight cotton material. Fabric designs vary from the traditional plain cross hatch pattern to the more colourful designs. A cotton sash is usually worn with the yukata for casual daily or nightly wear. In attending festivals and public occasions, the yukata is worn with a wider belt, which can be simply wrapped around the waist and tucked in at the end. For a more formal appearance, the yukata is worn with an obi belt, along with a matching geta (wooden sandals) and purse to complete the attire.

Today, the yukata is widely worn as a casual wear in summer, as well as in festivals. Further, the yukata is also widely worn in "ryokan" (traditional Japanese inn). The yukata is loved for its lightweight cotton material. Fabric designs vary from the traditional plain cross hatch pattern to the more colourful designs. A cotton sash is usually worn with the yukata for casual daily or nightly wear. In attending festivals and public occasions, the yukata is worn with a wider belt, which can be simply wrapped around the waist and tucked in at the end. For a more formal appearance, the yukata is worn with an obi belt, along with a matching geta (wooden sandals) and purse to complete the attire.

Japanese girls and young Japanese women both here in Australia and in Japan enjoy the opportunity to dress in their Yukatas. Today there are not as many suitable chances to wear this colourful traditional Japanese outfit.

Japanese Antiques- NETSUKE

Japanese people used to hang their everyday articles such as small money pouches, tobacco pouches, and seal or medicine cases (inro) from their sash or belt (obi), because the Japanese traditional garment (kimono) has no pockets. To prevent it falling to the ground, the hanging object was attached to a small toggle with a cord, and the toggle is called netsuke.

Netsuke were probably simple pieces of wood or whatever was useful as a toggle, it developed into a craft art with great artistry and playful ideas through the Edo period (i.e., from the early 17th century through the mid 19th century). Netsuke in a considerably wide range of subjects and materials were made by thousands of artists; early craftsmen specializing in other fields such as metalwork or sculpture and made netsuke as a hobby, while many of the later carvers devoted all their career to netsuke production.

However, around the mid 19th century, the popularity of netsuke started to wane due to the changes in fashion and cultural situations. A relatively small number of netsuke artists continued to create netsuke of high standard through the mid 20th century.

From the mid 19th century onwards, westerners became interested in netsuke. A large quantity of those miniature carvings began to be exported to the West. Since then, netsuke have been actively traded, collected, and studied by westerners, while they attracted little attention of the majority of Japanese people.

Netsuke made until about that time are called "antique netsuke," while those carved later are referred to as "contemporary netsuke." This latter term means more than just "netsuke made in modern time": some western collectors and dealers have encouraged Japanese artists to create netsuke with their original ideas and modern sense, not just to imitate antique pieces. Recently, the number of netsuke artists have been growing in Japan, and in other countries as well, and there are approximately one hundred Japanese and non-Japanese artists whose works regularly appear in sales and exhibitions.

Today, the netsuke, both antique and contemporary, is internationally appreciated as a unique and fascinating art form. At present, it might still be better known in the West, but there is a growing interest among the Japanese (some Japanese actually carry netsuke by attaching them to their cell phones).

The netsuke is still evolving, and you can explore this exciting art form by just looking at them, holding them in your hand to enjoy the feel, collecting them, studying them, and even carving them!

As of now, the modern netsuke is the keychain. The term has evolved over the years without knowing that it has been netsuke before. One of the popular designs as of now has been Hello Kitty. 

Japanese Dolls- OKIKU NINGYO

Ningyo is the name for a traditional doll in Japan. Word-for-word ningyo means "human shape" and there is a story long ago in Japan about a doll that its hair is growing, it is called the Okiku Ningyo.

The kimono-dressed doll was purchased during 1918 by a young boy named Eikichi Suzuki for hir 2-year old sister named Okiku. Okiku played with the doll everyday but she died in a severe cold the following year. The family placed the doll in their household altar and prayed to it everyday in the memory of Okiku. 

Okiku Ningyo in the altar

Later, the family noticed that dolls' hair is starting to grow. They've seen it as sign of Okiku's restless spirit has taken refuge in the doll. They took the hair in the lab and result is its a real human hair. 

 In 1938, the Suzuki family moved to Sakhalin and they put the doll in care at the Mannenji temple where it has remained ever since.

The hair continues to grow every year and the people in Japan started to have a ceremony in memory of Okiku. They trim the hair each year. 

Nobody has every explained why is the doll's hair continues to grow but one scientific examination was held and it is concluded that the hair is indeed a hair of a young child.