I thought you had powers. you read it in wiki. at the same time as me? It was a challenge to prepare something for my blog, I just finished translation in german...I hope you'll like it.. Thanks for Dolls, beautiful and great movie, every detail has a meaning. Japan. trad. dolls are known ningyō, which literally means human shape.In the early 11 century several types of dolls in Lady Murasaki's novel The Tale of Genji.

8 March is International Women's Day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women's_Day It started in 1911. Happy centenary.

Thanks Niall, I didn't know that, in the year or so I went to japanese school, only saturdays, I left because every 2 or 3 saturdays I had to work and I lost 3 hours and afterwards I was lost, I didn't understand anything anymore, but we learned that there are a lot forms of counting also..But the speaking is easy for spanish people. Your post is getting very nice, yes maybe it should follow one post about japanese toys, so we'll remember more things about our childhood

Men and women use slightly different spoken Japanese http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_...poken_Japanese

No, I don't remember anything that only say women or only men. So Spain deserves its 11 place Here we say for both you have lost your papers or your course, and on the island we say, you are like a little goat in a kind manner for beeing crazy.

Thanks Carina. Old marbles are beautiful. When I was a boy I liked the red oxblood and milky white and blue ones. In English if you say someone has lost his marbles it means he is crazy. I don't know if you'd say it about a woman (back to that earlier point about boys and girls playing different games). I think you could say it but it wouldn't make much literal sense.

............... I have a box full of nice glass marbles in all colours..

Yes Carina, it looks like Spain does a great job combatting machismo. There are some vestiges remaining on the internet.

Thanks for your evocative comments, Peter. I can picture polished conkers now. Smooth glass marbles too. Maybe I should do a post about Japanese toys...

Hi Niall the global gender equality index is very interesting, Spain on place 11........ I have a video of a puppet show my daughter made for the university, she also wrote the story and it is about a princess called caprice and a boy called humility, so it fits in your post and is valid for aikido too

Niall, We called the game snobs. And then there was conkers, using the horse chestnuts dropped from the trees outside the school. PAG

Hi Peter. I don't think I ever cracked the code. Jacks was another one of those impenetrable games...

Hello Niel, Eddie Izard must have had a sheltered childhood, for I used to play hopscotch at school. It was a co-educational elementary school with all of forty children. PAG

Thanks Carina! That's very interesting. I liked that quote by Eddie Izzard. There's a mysterious world that men can never understand! Japan is only #94 on the global gender equality index (you can download the WEF Gender Gap report here http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Gen...eport_2010.pdf). Apart from the inequality there is an economic price in not using the best resources effectively. Many European countries, the USA and Canada are in the top 20 (not that they are equal yet).

This interesting post remembers me when I played hopscotch in Argentina, if we had no chalk, we used a stone to paint the numbers on the soil. The spanish name Rayuela is the title of a known book of Julio Cortázar. But the dolls floating in the river reminds me the hindu festival divali, in my childrens school were always many hindus and they put small lights in the rivers to signify the triumph of good over evil.