Explore everyday life in Japan
It’s summer time in Japan. And that means that it’s festival time.
There are, of course, a wide variety of rare and locally exclusive festivals held in Japan throughout the year that are a bit strange—from fire-throwing festivals and naked festivals to penis festivals, etc. If you are at all interested in Japan, you have probably heard stories or read blog posts about at least one or two strange festivals that take place here and have thought to yourself, If I ever make it to Japan, I’m definitely going to this/that festival.
I have a list of such festivals, myself, that I hope to make it to someday. The reality, though, is that planning a trip to one of these obscure festivals can be a lot of work. You need to be available to travel on the dates that the festival occurs and you need to get yourself to the area where it is occurring. Doing so sounds (and is) simple enough, but when the everyday demands of life come into play, going to a bizarre and far-off festival easily gets puts on the continuously rolled over Maybe I’ll Do It Next Year list.
Much more easier to catch and participate in are the local summertime festivals that occur all over Japan, often some time between the third week of July and the third week of August.
If you are traveling through Japan at this time of year, while you will have to contend with the heat and almost unbearable humidity of this country, you are almost certain to stumble upon a procession of people in matching yukata carrying an omikoshi (portable shrine) while being followed by people either playing wooden flutes or beating on wooden drums.
In addition, you are almost certain to find parks and/or narrow streets filled with yatai (vendors) selling a wide variety of food and toys, and offering a wide variety of games to be played. In the evening, you may follow the sound of music to the surreal scene of a thousand people or more carefully lined up and spaced out along one or two kilometers of a single street doing a traditional dance. You will most likely have the good fortune of seeing fireworks at least once and, if you are lucky, you may stumble onto a blocked off rode where a fighting festival is taking place--teams of beer drinking yukata clad men smashing their omikoshi into their oponents’ and engaging in pushing contests. Maybe, you will even be asked to participate.
Recently, as I do every year, I went to a festival in Niigata City called Kanbara Matsuri.
While not quite a summer festival in the typical sense, this festival is always a sign for me that festival season has begun. Every year, it is held from June 30 to July 2 and has the distinction of having the most yatai (vendors) at a single festival in Japan—approximately 450 vendors spread out across a one kilometer stretch of road.
This street is very narrow and, especially at night, very crowded. If you go, you will find yourself packed shoulder to shoulder in a slowly moving crowd from which you and your friends will occasionally exit to buy and eat things like yaki-soba and snow cones, or fried chicken and yaki-tori, etc. When you are ready, you will reenter the mass and slowly make your way to a shrine that is surrounded by a variety of games and a haunted house. Here, if you so choose, you can try your luck at ring toss or a knock-the-bottle-down game. You can also go into the haunted house for laughs or maybe even scares (watch out for the person in there). And lastly, you can pay a visit to the shrine and make a wish of some sort while clapping, bowing, and ringing the shrine’s bell in the same way that the people did before you.
For teenagers and adults, beyond talking and sharing food with your friends and family, a lot of the fun of this festival is not knowing who you will run into.
This is a festival that many people go to, so you are almost guaranteed to run into an old friend, co-worker, or acquaintance that you haven’t seen in a year or more.
For children, the fun, of course, lies in playing games, getting new toys, eating special candies like caramel covered grapes and strawberries, chocolate covered bananas, and lollipops in the shape of famous cartoon characters, and possibly even coming home with a new pet like a goldfish or a turtle.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.