OMATSURI!
Omatsuri is the Japanese word for festival. Everybody at the dorm was invited to join in a traditional local omatsuri and to help carry the 'mikoshi' around. A mikoshi is what you see above. It is a shrine that is suppose to house a God. The purpose of the festival is for the local people to work together to carry it through the streets, and end up at the nearby temple to receive some sort of blessing. After the temple, you carry the mikoshi around the streets a couple more times.
You may be thinking, how long could this take? Probably at most an hour or so. Oh how wrong and innocent you are.
Let me give you an idea. Our group of 5 exchange students (most didn't feel like coming) made our way down the street to meet up with the people who invited us at about 1:30pm. We started the festivities at around 3pm and ended at approximately 9pm. NONSTOP
Well we did stop for refreshments and snacks. A 15 minute break here and there, but then back to work! It wasn't work, geez. It was fun! Lots and lots of fun! Just typing this out reminds me of the blinding pains.
Carrying a mikoshi is hard work!
So how did we come about to join in this local festival where we had no idea what a mikoshi was, let alone why this festival was occurring, blocking traffic and disturbing the peace?
One of the exchange students, the night before, was invited on the streets to participate in the omatsuri. The same one that we partook in the day after, because you see, it's a 2 day event. Everybody knows that.
So after that night, the very nice Japanese people invited the rest of his dorm mates to join in the next day, where they will do it all over again! So, Alex is the students name, he came back and invited us. Of course I said hell yea! This is a once in a life time event and it only happens twice a year! But then I saw other omatsuri's around town do this too. They must not have known that it should only happen on certain days twice a year...
Anyways, so the next day Alex could not join us on account of being sick and throwing up all night. Understandable. Hey, if you didn't want to carry a 500 pound shrine all day again, just say so. No but seriously, he was really sick. Maybe it was because of that fact that instead of water, the festival guys gave him beer instead.
Yea so when we first met up with the guy who invited us, he offered us all a beer. It was a really cute beer too. Like half the size of a normal can. Apparently it's okay to drink in the morning if you're gonna be carrying around a mikoshi all day. It's rude to refuse right? Down the hatch it goes. Delicious!
All day they offered us either beer, a mixed drink with alcohol in it, tea or pop. Tea? Pop? Haha, who drinks that? Leave it for the kids.
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| This was really good. Peach flavoured, yum. |
The festival started with an awesome drum show. They bang those drums with vigor! All the while making a nice beat for the crowds. I really enjoyed this, but too bad we missed most of it.
How the carrying of the mikoshi works is that, there are hordes of people carrying the thing, while more people are walking alongside it, waiting for the chance to join in or to relieve some people. So you're always seeing some people leaving or joining the carrying of the mikoshi. It's hard when there are too many people, you get squished and it gets hard with each step because you don't want to step on the heels of the person in front of you, or get stepped on by the guy behind you! And at the end of it, every man's shoulders are bruised, but you should carry that bruise proudly cuz it's a thing of beauty.
For girls it's a slightly different matter. Although I did get a bruise on one shoulder, it was when they had the great idea of all girls to the front to carry! When there are men everywhere and only a smattering of girls, the girls are just for show...seriously. The men are too tall so they hold it up high. When I get to join in, my shoulders are probably a good foot below the beam. Ha! So I just drape my arm around it, and chant and raise my hands like a good girl. Fun!
But then, when they shouted for all girls at the front, we all felt the weight! When you're carrying it, there's a beat you follow. One two, one two, one two. On one you lift with your legs as you take a step, on two you take another step and lower yourself. So the mikoshi is bobbing up and down while you're walking. If you're not stepping with the beat, the mikoshi bounces up and down on your shoulders and that does not feel good, lemme tell you.
Thankfully, after what felt like hours of pain, some of the men decided to lift our burden, literally! One guy came to the front, and lifted the mikoshi and all our shoulders were freed! It's nice to be short. My friend Michael wasn't so lucky, he lifted almost the whole time. Poor guy. Carrying backpacks the next day was torture.
Sometimes they lifted this young girl onto the front of the mikoshi, and she would be holding two fans and swing them and directing the mikoshi in the right direction. The people holding the mikoshi could care less about watching where they step, so there were guides to push the mikoshi left and right, and the job of the fan girls is to give the direction. She would be blowing a whistle along with the beat and doing a little dance with the fans whilst giving directions! She was really great. You could tell she was dedicated to her work.
And then these guys had the great idea to be lifted up to the front to do what the girl was doing earlier. I was actually helping to carry the mikoshi at this point, but then that guy in the yellow hopped on up, which made the weight even more unbearable, and don't forget his exposed butt cheeks. Those weren't very pleasant to look at...especially when you're in the position that when you look up...you can see the freckles. So then I got the hell outta there, and then took this picture to show everyone what I had to see. It's quite common to wear a thong type thing and that's it. For men of course. Butt cheeks everywhere.
And then this little guy goes up there! At one point the mikoshi swayed a bit, and the little boy starts to cry! But he still plows through his direction giving routine, with tears running down his face! He was too precious.
So after parading up and down the same street for what seemed like hours, the mikoshi finally stopped! At the end we were all invited to join all the members to sit down and have a bite and a few more drinks. We couldn't refuse, even though we were dog tired. So we sat down in an empty parking lot which doubled as their base for the day, and had some snacks and chatted with the locals.
Finally it was time to leave. We gracefully made our farewells and started down the road towards our dorm, whilst thinking about all that transpired during the day. This really was a once in a lifetime event and I will never forget it! Everyone there was so nice and accommodating! This festival truly was unique and super interesting. Words don't do it justice. Even to watch it would be inspiring.
I hope you now are familiar with omatsuris and mikoshis! If you ever come to Japan, look out for them on the streets! And if you ever see one, take the time to watch for a bit and maybe they'll ask you to join! They love foreigners!
That's all for today. Ja ne!
-Jenn
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