OBON
Obon is observed across Japan as a time to celebrate your family’s ancestors. We experienced its most explosive incarnation, in Nagasaki. Families create floats to honour any members who have passed away in the last year, from guinea pigs to grandmothers. These floats are paraded through the city streets to the harbour. However, this festival has anything but a funereal atmosphere, as in lieu of flowers every attendant carries firecrackers!
The whole evening is a cacophony of bangs and crackles, peppered with encouraging shouts of "jozu!" and "gambare!" from the crowds, many of whom were kind enough to share their drinks and pyrotechnics with us! The long-suffering police are tasked with breaking up the many matchstick bonfires and discouraging over-zealous sparkler waving, but otherwise leave everyone to enjoy the night as riotously as they like. The result is a beautifully apocalyptic night and an incendiary way to send off the spirits.
AWA ODORI
Over the August bank holiday while London was enjoying Notting Hill Carnival, Tokyo was holding its own music and dance festival, the Awa Odori. There was just as much drinking, at least as many drums, but somewhat less daggering. An impressive 12,000 dancers paraded through the busy streets in troupes, all singing one song*.
Often leading the pack were a group of cute children, combining expressions of intense concentration with a wonderful lack of coordination. Bringing up the rear were the drummers, sweating and leaning back into their taikos! In between were flutists, gong-ists and our favourites; dancers clad in bright skirts and folded rattan hats, balanced impossibly on the tips of their wooden sandals and singing in unbelievably high voices. In true Japanese style the spectacle ended promptly at 8pm, as advertised.
*Translated, the song is:
