Festivals

What can a foreigner say about Japanese festivals? I can barely describe American small town street festivals so any attempt to describe another culture’s take you have only seen once over the course of two days is extremely hard and I barely know where to start.

Similarities & Differences

The one thing I can say is that even though the food is at times extremely different (soba noodles and ginger beer) it is also exactly the same (meat on a stick, cotton candy & snow cones). Even though the clothing is as opposite as you can get (kimonos) it’s limited use clothing for a visual dramatic look that is not worn on a daily basis is very familiar to anyone that has gone to a Texas festival (formal snake skin boots, ten gallon hats, show belt buckles) so the idea is not that strange. The main thing I got from attending the Fuchu area 20 year anniversary, that feeling of comfort & familiarity, is the last thing I expected.

Environment

It was a very relaxed environment. In fact the most relaxed I have seen many Japanese in my entire visit. They were outgoing, gregarious, verbose with a grin on their face and a spring in their step, all of which was a far cry from the mean average. The one thing that grabs your attention more then anything is the Yagura (large bi or multi leveled tower or wooden turret with colorful decoration) that has dancers on the bottom level and singers/drummers on the top tier. With my complete inability to express myself in Japanese I mistakenly referred to it as a pagoda hoping to get the idea across and met many laughs over the mis-step. This structure is both the focal point of the festival and this article, the Bon dance.

The Focus

If you have seen Karate Kid part two then you will be limitedly familiar with the dance since it makes up so much of the plot points in that film. The dance is done in remembrance of dead ancestors to pay respect and seemingly more importantly it is where woman can freely dance and men can publicly drink (You can’t get more American then that). It can’t be understated how much the women love to dance, after talking to many it was the first request off their lips (everyone wants to see the large male American dance, it is quite funny and I can appreciate that fact). They especially wanted to dance if they had children and (I am guessing here) it seemed they could not dance since they had to watch after the children but if they had a guest to dance with that took precedence and it was ok then? Either way I had many different female teachers of all age groups more then willing to take turns teaching me the various steps or more accurately hand gestures and places to face while walking in a squared circle.

In the End

If you have a Teflon ego and enjoy having many different female teachers at the cost of every eye occasionally on and off you it is a fun way to spend a few hours. The festivals seem to end early which in my case was good since oddly like Karate Kid Part II after a few hours and an even smaller amount of ginger beer a group of teens decided to take over the Yagura and harass the dancers and drummer seemingly out of a drunken boredom. Still fun is had by all as you can hopefully see in the video above.