Life In Japan: Festival of the Portable Shrines

Every year during the third week in October we have a most unique and marvelous festival here called the Festival of the Portable Shrines.

I don’t exactly know either its “purpose” or how to describe it.  Hopefully the photos and video will offer some idea what an exhilarating two days we have here in Tambasasayama, as the streets fill with colorful costumes, huge shrines either on wheels or being carried by the heartier men — many of whom are extremely inebriated on local sake — and visitors from all over who come to enjoy the festivities.

We see a lot of unfamiliar faces.  This festival coincides with the soybean harvest, and our town is known for having the most delicious soybeans in Japan.  So we see Japanese from all the surrounding prefectures — the Japanese equivalent of states in the U.S. — even from as far as Tokyo, which is over 500 kilometers (320 miles) away.  There’s also a decent mix of Westerners in town.  ALTs — Assistant Language Teachers who typically teach English in the area junior and senior high schools — converge from the entire region.  This is also the time that the exchange students arrive from Walla Walla, Washington — which is Tambasasayama’s sister city in the U.S. — to experience a two weeks concentrated dose of Japanese culture.

Here are a few photos.

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And here’s a short video compilation from just last week.

See you next year!  Bring your smiles.