Children's Day (Japan)
5 May 2026 — Swim bravely against the current, little carp!
Kodomo no Hi (Children's Day) is celebrated in Japan on 5 May and has been a national holiday since 1948. It grew out of the older Tango no Sekku, the festival of the fifth day of the fifth month, which was linked with spring purification and wishes for good health. Today it honours the growth and happiness of children and expresses gratitude to mothers. Its best-known symbol is the koinobori, cloth carp streamers flown on a pole. According to a Chinese legend, a carp that climbs a waterfall becomes a dragon, so the fish stands for strength, perseverance and success. Traditionally, families fly a large carp for the father, a smaller one for the mother and one carp for each child. Homes may also display kabuto helmets, and people eat kashiwa mochi and chimaki, sweets wrapped in leaves. Baths with sweet flag leaves (shobu, often mistranslated as iris) are taken in the belief that they protect health. Today the festival follows the Gregorian (solar) calendar, although the older Tango no Sekku was dated by the lunisolar calendar. It falls at the end of Golden Week, and the spring wind is part of the very image of the day.
Flying across the sky: Ethereal, bluish-silver carp-shaped streamers drawn as a constellation of luminous dots and thin connecting lines, swimming and undulating across the night sky as if filled with wind
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