Tanabata Story

July 7th is TANABATA. There are a lot of stories about the origin of TANABATA. The most well-known story is as follows.

A long time ago, TEN-KOU, the god of the sky, had a daughter called ORIHIME. Everyday she wove cloth for the Gods with a special machine called TANAHATA. It is believed that the word TANABATA comes from the name of this weaving machine, TANAHATA.

TEN-KOU was worried because his daughter worked every day and did nothing but weave. So he introduced her to a guy on the other side of the river named AMANOGAWA (to us it's the Milky Way). His name was HIKOBOSHI or KENGYU. KENGYU took care of cows and was a workaholic. (I am not sure why he has 2 names. But I think KENGYU means cow care-taker, and HIKOBOSHI is his actual name.)

When they met each other, they fell in love immediately, and spent all their time together. As a result, all the cows became sick and the gods' clothes became worn out, but there was no new cloth to make more.

This made TEN-KOU very angry and he stopped ORIHIME from meeting KENGYU anymore by taking her to the other side of AMANOGAWA. This made the two lovers so sad that they couldn't work. TEN-KOU also felt sorry, so he decided to let them meet each other once a year on July 7th if they worked hard.

Now, they work as hard as before and look forward to seeing each other only once a year.

Traditionally, people wished the sky would be clear on that day so the two could meet over the Milky Way. If it rained that day, the water level of the river AMANOGAWA got too high and could not be crossed.

People wished this by writing the wish on a piece of paper and hanging the paper on a bamboo tree. Nowadays, people write their own wish on the paper.

This is the most well-known story of TANABATA, even though there are many others.. It seems this story originally came from China.

In the Chinese Calender, there is almost always a half moon on July 7th and they believe ORIHIME and KENGYU use that half moon as a boat to meet each other over the great river in the sky, AMANOGAWA.

Source: http://www.tokyowithkids.com/entertainment/tanabata_myth.html

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Koinobori

Koinobori (鯉幟), meaning "carp streamer" in Japanese, are carp-shaped wind sockstraditionally flown in Japan to celebrate Tango no Sekku (端午の節句), a traditional calendrical event which is now designated a national holiday; Children's Day. 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.

A typical koinobori set consists of, from the top of the pole down, a pair of arrow-spoked wheels(矢車 yaguruma) with a ball-shaped spinning vane, flying-dragon streamer (飛龍吹流し hiryū fukinagashi) that looks like a windsock, a black koinobori and a red koinobori. If more boys are in the household, an additional blue, green and then, depending on the region, either purple or orange koinobori are added. The red koinobori's color can be varied as pink. These carp sets are flown above the roofs of houses with sons, with the biggest (black) koinobori for the father, next biggest (red) for the mother, and ranging down to the smallest carp for the youngest son.

These koinobori range from a few inches long to a few meters long. In 1988, a 100 m longkoinobori weighing 350 kg was made in Kazo, Saitama.

There is a famous short Koinobori Song often sung by children and their families:

Japanese:

屋根より高い鯉幟

大きい真鯉はお父さん

小さい緋鯉は子供たち

面白そうに泳いでる

Translation:

Higher than the roof-tops are the koinobori

The large Carp is the father

The smaller Carp are the children

They seem to be having fun swimming.

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