A coloring page of a koinobori — the carp-shaped streamer that families in Japan fly for Children’s Day on May 5. A single plump carp hangs from its pole below a set of ribbon streamers, and the scales are drawn as separate rounded shapes, so a young child can fill them in one at a time and stop whenever they like. The difficulty suits roughly ages three to five with a grown-up nearby. The background is plain white and the outline is easy to cut around, which makes the finished sheet useful as a wall decoration in a nursery or classroom.
They go up for May 5, Children’s Day, carrying a wish that the children of the house grow up strong and healthy. The carp was chosen because of an old Chinese story in which a carp that fights its way up a waterfall is turned into a dragon — a fish admired for swimming against the current rather than with it. The custom of hanging cloth carp from a tall pole is usually said to have spread among townspeople during the Edo period, though accounts of exactly how it started differ.
Do the colors of the carp mean anything?
The reading most families use today is that the black carp at the top stands for the father, the red one for the mother and the blue one for the child, with further carp added for further children. That family reading is a fairly recent convention, though. Older sets flew the black carp alone, and when the red carp was added it stood for the son rather than the mother. The ribbon streamers above the fish are usually explained as a charm against misfortune.
Any tips for coloring this sheet?
The sample shows a red carp, but any color works, and this is a good sheet on which to let a child choose freely. Changing color from scale to scale keeps a young child at the table longer than filling the whole body in one shade, and the ribbon streamers take rainbow colors well. Grey or silver finishes the pole. If the sheet is headed for a wall display, two alternating shades on the scales read more clearly from across the room.
