Yo Ya Sa! It's Festival Time!

I've been to a lot of festivals in the last month! So, please enjoy the photos and videos from them!

Takasago Light Up Festival

This festival was actually in September, but I haven't had the time/internet to share about it. It took place at night in the Takasago area, which is near Himeji. The streets were lined with small candles, and many parts of this town had gorgeous light displays. The sunset was lovely, and I really enjoyed watching all of the bats come out as the night wore on. It wasn't an overly crowded night, and there were performances set up along the different routes. Some of the singers were quite good!

 Alas, my camera is a bit finicky when it comes to taking night photos, but I did my best.

One of the main temple complexes; this one featured a live jazz band from the local high school. 

One of the main temples lit up during the festival. 

A lot of the lanterns were made out of cut-up slices of bamboo, and they looked really cool in the darkness. 

Shinzaike Festival

This is our local neighborhood's festival, so all of the Shirasagi ALT's helped out! The men helped carry our shrine, and the rest of us lent our voices to chants of "Yo Ya Sa!" (It's apparently the equivalent of a "Heave-Ho!" without any real meaning to the words, but the sounds help motivate the shrine-carriers. Each area has different variations of this chant, so it's not the same at every festival.)

The autumn leaves were just starting to change on October 12th, so it was a very pleasant day. After the shrine carrying, there was several performances at the park on top of the hill next to Shirasagi Residence. The coolest one was the "Ladder Dance," which featured one brave boy and two "lions" climbing and dancing their way up a big ladder (which needed to be propped up by a lot of men, and thankfully Shirasagi has a good supply of them). 

Shirasagi Residence is the brown-brick building in the background. I photographed them coming up the hill pulling the shrine. Everyone was wearing their Happi coats! 

The ladder dance at the beginning. 

Lion 1 is making its way up the ladder, chasing the boy. 

Lion 2 steps onto the ladder, while Lion 1 does some tricks. 

Lion 2 makes it to the top and does some tricks, while the boy and Lion 1 work their way down. 

Nada Fighting Festival

The Nada Fighting Festival was held on October 14th and 15th, however I was only able to attend on the first morning. It was in the Nada area of Himeji, and a total of seven different neighborhoods participated with their massive shrines. These shrines were so big that they could sit four junior high school students inside; a few groups had an additional four men standing on the corners waving bamboo fronds. Nearly all of the men participating in this festival were wearing fundoshi, which are Japanese-style loin-cloths (think sumo-wrestling, but without as many decorative strings on the sides). 

The reason this is the Nada Fighting Festival is because on the second day--which I couldn't attend--the neighborhoods bring out smaller, destructible shrines and smash them into smithereens. This is apparently quite dangerous, and usually someone dies every year. So I didn't get to see those shrines, but I did see some fighting nonetheless. The groups of men would get so worked up that occasionally fists would start flying in a hectic free-for-all--and it wasn't always among competing groups. The "yellow" team kept dropping their shrine (it was horrifying), and after a few times some of them lost it at their teammates. The police not only had to keep the streets clear, they also had to go in and break up the fights. 

This festival goes back at least 500 years, with other elements being nearly 1,000 years old (like a log used to make one of the drums inside the shrines). At dawn the men purified themselves in the nearby ocean, where in years past they would begin the festival. The purpose of this particular festival is to wish for a bountiful fishing harvest for the next year, by thanking the local spirits and gods; the energy generated by the jostling of the shrines is how the town goes about praying. It's a very cool tradition, and especially neat the way that its been maintained all these centuries. There are a lot of areas in Japan that have kept their traditions alive for centuries and centuries, and it's a real privilege to take part in them today. I hope that the Nada Fighting Festival, as well as other local traditions, can continue to be preserved for the next millennium as well! 

The temple area where the Festival was being held had around 100 small shrines around it, each one featuring a small carved stone buddha. The effect of the rows and rows of them was very neat! 

A giant horse statue outside one of the main buildings. I imagine it's related to the fact that right now it's the Year of the Horse according to the Chinese New Year. I wonder if they'll bring out a sheep statue for next year? 

The autumn leaves are turning! Look at the yellow on the ginkgo tree! 

I nearly got run over by this shrine, it came out of nowhere as I was making my way to my seat on a rooftop. 

All of the shrines would jostle around the temple gate before eventually working their way inside. And yes, the shrine is indeed bigger than the entryway. 

I'm always impressed at how the four drummers inside the shrine can maintain their rhythm during all of the jostling. 

Before the shrine can actually pass through the gate, men have to climb up and remove some of the ornamentation. They'll put everything back on once inside the temple complex, only to repeat the process when they leave it. 

To give you an idea of the crowds down there... 

They really do look like they're having fun, don't they? 

Aboshi Lantern Festival

The Aboshi area is the area neighboring the Hirohata area, so it was pretty easy to swing by there after school on the 21st. I saw many of my students there! But first I stopped at a shopping mall to have dinner (Teriyaki Burger at McDonalds... mmmm! Only in Japan are McDonalds as nice as a Starbucks.) and ran into even more of my students there. One of the cashiers thanked me for putting up with some rowdy sixth-grade boys ahead of me in line, once they explained that I was their English teacher. Someone has to do it, right? 

I don't know as much about the traditions of the Aboshi Lantern Festival, but it does have some unique twists compared with typical Harvest Festivals. For one, the portable shrines are lit up with all kinds of lights, which makes them even more beautiful (and also really really difficult to photograph). But the true draw of this festival is the lantern-smashing! Groups of locals of all ages, from elementary school to seniors, would chant and bounce their bamboo poles, before smashing various lanterns into oblivion. There were even some giant lanterns shaped like Olaf from Frozen and Kuroda Kanbe; and although Olaf was able to escape unscathed, Kanbe was not nearly so lucky. 

One of the portable shrines. It's very brightly lit! 

A lantern struggling for survival...

Olaf and Kanbe, looking great!