{"id":31117,"date":"2015-03-18T00:30:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T03:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=31117"},"modified":"2016-11-25T00:31:46","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T03:31:46","slug":"troops-participate-in-japanese-hinamatsuri-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/18\/troops-participate-in-japanese-hinamatsuri-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"US Troops Participate in Japanese Hinamatsuri Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>US service members from Misawa Air Base recently participated in a local <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dvidshub.net\/news\/155755\/misawa-air-base-service-members-and-families-take-part-japanese-hinamatsuri-festival\">Japanese Hinamatsuri festival<\/a> hosted by the local town:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Capt. Keith Henry, commanding officer of Naval Air Facility Misawa, gave opening remarks that highlighted the importance of sharing Japan and American cultures at events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a great event because it not only taught base families about Japanese culture but we had Japanese students and parents working side by side with American students and parents which allows them a deeper understanding across both cultures,\u201d said Henry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The students and parents were working on <em>hina<\/em> dolls:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We display a set of dolls and pray for <!--more-->the sound growth of the girls in our families&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The origins of this event started during Japan\u2019s Heian period when they believed that dolls had the power to contain bad spirits. Straw dolls, known as hina, were put in boats that were placed in a river to drift out to sea supposedly taking troubles and bad spirits with them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There are actually a host of Japanese events <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/17\/us-marines-experience-buddhism-in-japan\/\">like this<\/a> in which members of the US military and their families participate.\u00a0 They almost certainly provide unique cultural opportunities for many Americans unfamiliar with Eastern traditions.<\/p>\n<p>Some people complain when US troops participate in events with even the mildest Christian connection.<\/p>\n<p>No one seems to mind US military participation with Eastern religious ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Wonder why that is.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US service members from Misawa Air Base recently participated in a local Japanese Hinamatsuri festival hosted by the local town: Capt. Keith Henry, commanding officer of Naval Air Facility Misawa, gave opening remarks that highlighted the importance of sharing Japan and American cultures at events. \u201cIt was a great event because it not only taught base families about Japanese culture [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,5057,1263,5056,2,4767,10,171],"class_list":["post-31117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-christian","tag-hinamatsuri","tag-japan","tag-keith-henry","tag-military","tag-misawa","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}