Masumi at the Daikokuji Tea FestivalWhile Japan is called The Land of the Rising Sun, my personal preference actually would be The Land of the Festivals. The entire calendar is littered with fascinating, extremely entertaining, family-oriented festivals.
I can think of no equivalent in the U.S. to what goes on here. Yes, we have rock festivals and various other extravaganzas. But they are very specific to a type of event and usually local. Here in Japan, the festivals are both a local and a national phenomenon.
Festival of the Portable Shrines
Some local festivals are unique to a town or region. Here in Sasayama, we have the Wild Boar Festival that fits into that category. Not really too many wild boars running loose in Osaka or Tokyo that I know of. We also have our Black Bean Festival, because Sasayama is renowned across Japan for the quality of its soybeans (black beans are soybeans which have ripened and dried on the vine and are black in color).
Cherry Blossom Festival
The big festivals are national. Yes each locale or region has a celebration. But the festival being celebrated usually is being celebrated across all of Japan at the same time. Examples of this are the Cherry Blossom Festival early April and the Festival of the Portable Shrines in late October.
Obon is yet another national celebration, actually an annual Buddhist event first half of August, commemorating one's ancestors. It is one of the three busiest times of the year in Japan for travel and taking a holiday break. Everywhere in Japan, there are Obon festivals being held.
This year, my wife Masumi and I headed north to Tohoku for two weeks of camping and attending some of the most famous of these Obon events in the country.
Everywhere we went, there were fireworks, parades, singing and dancing. Here are a few of the highlights.
Aomori
This is reputed to be one of the most spectacular festivals in Japan. The giant internally-lit paper floats are astonishing. The crowd is rowdy -- well, as rowdy as it gets here in Japan -- the drumming tribal. Quite a show!
Yamagata
This was my favorite festival. The participants sang and danced. I loved the song they were singing. The costumes, the choreography, the town itself ... superb!
Sendai
Sendai -- famous for its proximity to Fukushima -- was more of a gallery affair than a rollicking good-time festival. Hanging in the promenades which are ubiquitous in urban settings here in Japan were beautiful hanging paper sculptures, literally thousands of them.
We returned from our excursion just in time for the Dekansho Festival, this one unique to our town and one of my favorite local annual events. The music is traditional and live, and everyday folks perform the Dekansho folk dance. The event celebrates the harvesting of the rice and is hundreds of years old, representing the long agricultural roots of this community.
[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]
Life In Japan: Festivals
