Category: Traditional

Lately I’ve been enjoying “traditional Japanese festivals” (matsuris 祭り) more than ever. Matsuris are usually held next to a temple and one of the main activities is to eat. Omikoshi processions and traditional dances are common activities as well; but somehow I have the feeling that what is really important and brings people to the festivals is the food, the sake and having a fun time with family and friends. During the festival there are several food stalls, some of them with tables and chairs and some without them. These pictures are from the last festival I attended at the Hanazono temple (in Shinjuku), a temple dedicated to Inari, the Shintoist god of rice and fertility. It is a small, but quite enjoyable, temple trapped in between the skyscrapers of Tokyo; when you go inside it makes you relax and escape from the stress of the big city. If you want to enjoy some matsuri, in this Wikipedia page you can find the name, date and location of the most important festivals in Japan:

Yakisoba

Yakitori stall

Lanterns sponsored by local businesses.

More yakisoba

Spiritual bouquets blessed by gods; if you put them on your house or company they will bring good fortune.

More bouquets.

This woman was performing a weird show with snakes.

There is a snake in that box.

These idols dreessed as maids were selling candies and their DVDs (videos of them in bikini shaking their boobs). It was one of the most popular stalls in the festival.

Other festivals, matsuris:

• Kanamara matsuri – Japanese dicks festival
• Awa odori
• Azabu matsuri
• Asakusa samba
• Naked men festival
• Edogawa

Yabusame is considered as one of the most divine martial arts practiced in Japan. The Japanese government DOESN’T consider it a sport but a traditional ritual that consists of shooting with a bow to different targets while riding a horse.

Yabusame is practiced in a 255 meter long track where there are three targets that you have to hit with a special arrow. Hitting the three targets in a row is very difficult, you need many years of hard training to be able to do it; at the moment no more than 30 Japanese people can achieve the feat. It is such an exclusive martial art that the government doesn’t allow teaching yabusame in exchange of money. Yabusame masters teach it for the love of it, not for money; they choose their student very carefully because the only benefit they can get from teaching is to be able to improve their reputation. Failing to do it and choosing a bad student could be fatal for their reputation.

Yabusame was born in the kamakura era when the most important clans at the time designed the 255 meters and 3 targets test so that samurais could practice and improve their bow skills. Nowadays it is performed and exhibited in some important festivals where supposedly yabusame entertains the gods, who in exchange show gratitude bringing good luck to the people of the place.

This year, yabusame will be performed the 6th of September 2010 in Kamakura at Hachimangu temple (Detailed map) and the 3rd of November 2010 in Meiji Jingu.

If you are not able to be in Japan in those dates, in the movies Kagemusha and Shichinin no Samurai (Seven Samurai) by Akira Kurosawa some yabusame scenes can be appreciated where “yabusame bowmen” enter combat, in fact, some of the actors (for example, Toshiro Mifune) where trained during years by some of the most important yabusame masters in Japan.

You can also watch this documentary where Tim Ferris, one of the only foreigners ever to receive training in yabusame, tells his five-day experience of intensive training in the mountains of Nikko.

Photo by Kalandrakas

Yesterday, February 3rd, was the setsubun day here in Japan; which supposedly marks the end of the winter season (a little bit early) and the beginning of spring. According to tradition, in setsubun day you have to scare demons away and eliminate everything bad that happened the previous year; to achieve this you have to perform a series of rituals using beans.

One of the most usual ritual is the mamemaki, which consists in throwing beans around to purify the house or the company (it is usually done in the balcony or in the entrance hall). The beans frighten evil spirits away and bring good luck. While you throw around the beans you have to say loudly “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!”（鬼は外福は内), which translates to something similar to “Go away demons! Good luck come!

Another tradition is to eat as many beans as years you have lived plus one extra bean which will bring good luck for the incoming year.

This video in Spanish and Japanese of Ai and Ale/Pepino shows the setsubun rituals.