Dosojin Himatsuri - The Festival of Fire

Though Nozawa is a notable place for snow sports such as ski and snowboard, we gladly settled for only three or so hours on the slopes. We weren't even there for the hot springs, which otherwise keep Nozawa active throughout the warm seasons. We had a different objective in mind.
The reason we came to Nozawa Onsen town was to experience firsthand the events that were to take place on that night of January 15th, as they did every year, while most of the rest of Japan is completely unaware.


 Every Winter, a truly wonderful festival occurs in this snowy town - the Dosojin Himatsuri. The festival celebrates newborn children, casts out bad luck, and brings in the good. In and of itself, that's nothing unique in terms of Japanese matsuri festivals. But while you might be right to point out that fire festivals happen in several dozen towns across the Japan archipelago, many of which are larger than Nozawa and draw bigger crowds, it's the way in which Dosojin is celebrated that makes it stand out from the country's other fire festivals.

The Dosojin festival is peculiar right from the get-go. As 7 o' clock in the evening nears, villagers gather towards an open area in the center of the town. It's a merry procession; sake is offered in cups to any one who's willing to take it, free of charge. Leading the procession of villagers and tourists are men charged with carrying items of cultural value to the site. These include lanterns and banners, but also a number of things that are hard to describe outside of context. But amongst these men are also those charged with carrying the flames.These men, for the most part drunk on sake already, brandish bundles of dried bamboo the size of their own bodies, the end of which is aflame. They twirl these enormous torches around and about their body, with little to no regard for their own safety and that of even onlookers. In the case where it looked like someone hit by the torch was about to be set ablaze, guards ran in to pat them out and clear them out of the area where the flame bearers were passing. But otherwise, there was no reproach at all to the flame bearers, and it was even a common occurrence. This happened to Kazue!

When at last everyone everyone had made it to the site of the main event, the poles and banners and lanterns were assembled, but one structure towered over all others. A wooden tower was erected at the center of the square, made of tinder and branches and wooden beams. I'm sure you can see where this is going, but you'd only be half right if you guessed the tower was to be set ablaze.

On top of that very same wooden tower were all the men of the village who had turned 42 years old in the previous year. At the bottom of the tower, defending them, were all the men who had turned 25. There was a beating of drums, a blast of fireworks, and, around 30 meters away from the wooden tower, the flame bearers set off a blazing bonfire.

 And the villagers, each with a torch in hand, set off to burn down the large wooden structure with the men still atop it, as the giant bonfire itself was slowly being dragged towards it. And only that handful of 25 year old defenders stood between them and their mark. It felt like war.

The onslaught was savage, vehement beyond belief. The 25 year old defenders, numbering no more than twenty in total, took on wave upon wave of villagers whose sole goal was to burn the tower - and they stopped at nothing in their attempts. Everything was permitted, from throwing their torches to downright bludgeoning the defenders with them. But this was mutual - defenders threw punches at the attackers. The air was filled with taunts and threats, and once they began, the attacks did not stop for any longer than a dozen seconds, as villagers who failed retreated and brought new torches, regrouping and renewing their attacks - and this would last three whole hours.

The defenders, in the smoke after a successful defense.

 The defenders stood unwavering, some of them holding on to ropes secured to the tower, so tired were they that they could not stand. Their camaraderie was remarkable, even as their odds grew more difficult. Many of them sported burns and cuts across their faces, and the large bonfire itself crept closer and closer to the main structure they were sworn to defend. This meant that, while initially villagers who attempted to renew their attacks had to walk 30 meters to claim a new torch, that distance was gradually shrinking to 25 meters, then 20 and so on. The charges were growing more frequent.

Still, the 42 year old men of the village welcomed the attackers to test their defenders. "Bring on the fire!" they chanted. "Bring on the sake!" But still the attackers were fought off.

The final bonfire.

 And after what must have been the longest three hours in those young mens' lives, the assault finally ended. The 42'ers were brought down, the 25's cheered by the crowd for their valor, and at the very end, the flame pushed under the tower.
 And we watched the biggest bonfire I had ever seen in my life blaze up, throwing cinders and smoke into the night sky. The banner poles, too, were thrown into the fire, feeding it further, and after 20 minutes there was a deafening crash and a searing heat wave as the structure collapsed in an explosion of fire, to the cheer of a crowd that had to look away for the heat that was unbearable to even face.

The tower explodes.

The danger of it all, the cheering and shouting and taunting, and the silhouettes of the defenders being celebrated by the very villagers that looked as if they were trying to kill them minutes ago, were imprinted into my memories as I walked back to our ryokan. Now that's a festival well done.

Art on the Streets of Montreal

My yearly visit to Montreal has been rather quiet this time around. The friends I had when I initially left almost three years ago are slowly drifting away from each other and myself, so it's been harder to gather them together like I used to during earlier visits - but I guess that makes me grateful for the ones who do show up. That being said, I ended up a lot less busy than I had originally thought I would be.
 Thankfully, though, my visit this year was in Summer, coinciding with the yearly line-up of festivals that take place in Montreal one after the other during the warmer season. My hometown of Montreal is nothing if not a city of celebration, with high media-attention-gathering events such as the Just for Laughs festival of comedy, or the Jazz Festival. There's always something going on in Montreal, unless it's too damn cold.

 As it so happened, practically just out my doorstep, the city-wide "Nuit Blanche" event took place. Nuit Blanche (literally "White Night" but signifying "All-Nighter") is an event spanning three nights in a row where the streets fill with art and performances during the hours between sunset and sunrise. The trains run continuously, uninterrupted by their usual curfew, allowing commuters to get home easily. My friends themselves did happen to have a curfew, though, so I didn't wander the streets too late into the night, but I did get to see what was happening in my own area as part of the event.

Princess Mononoke!

On Mont-Royal street, painters were turning the very pavement into their own canvas, boldly displaying large pieces of art. This year, the theme was cinema posters. It was a little inspiring to see people go at it, with each artist or set of artists in various stages of completion, surrounded by crowds of wandering in between them. Though many apply for the chance to have a spot on which to paint well in advance, very few do get chosen, so it's a great honor to be chosen by the city to have the spotlight shine down on you.
Unfortunately, it appeared two artists chose the movie poster for "Jaws" as their subject. They must've been quite exasperated to find out afterwards. Like my friend said, that's kind of like finding someone's wearing the same prom dress as you are on the night of the event. Ouch.
 Regardless, I'll probably walk up the street one last time once the event is done with, just to see what the finished results ended up being.

Let's Try This Bon Odori Thing

Shredded ice and my jimbei.

Obon is kind of a big deal, as far as festivals go. Though it isn't treated as an affair as grim as it sounds, at the very root of it, it's a celebration of the memory of the deceased, be it the recently deceased or ancestors long gone. And Japan being such an ancient country, you can bet there's a lot of ancestry involved. On the surface though, it's a rather cheery thing! Children are somewhat abundant and little booths sell water-filled balloon toys and shredded ice with syrup. Go figure.
 Rather than being a single concentrated event, Obon festivals take place in every corner of town, large neighborhoods and small ones alike, on many nights throughout the Summer. My neighborhood had theirs recently! So I delved in.
 I came equipped! I actually got to pull out my jimbei, which is a form of traditional clothing much easier to wear than the yukata, which is the Summer kimono. Though it isn't absolutely necessary to wear traditional clothing during Obon, most people do.

 In a nutshell, here's what happens: a large stage is erected in the center of a square and lanterns hung. Up on the stage, drummers play music to the beat of very ancient songs, and a procession of dancers (everyday people from the neighborhood, mostly the elderly) dance around the stage, usually clockwise. The motions to the dance vary from song to song, and the songs vary from region to region, but most of them are tied to the area in which the festival is taking place. A region with a history of mining may have a dance that looks like shoveling. 

Altogether, it's a merry little thing and quite a few kids also join in.
 I actually very briefly joined the dance and gave it a try. I suddenly felt very awkward and jumped out like a man on fire. I'm sorry for all those whose ancestors I've shamed! There's a video of it, but I'd much sooner take it with me to the grave. I'll try harder if I go next year!

The Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival

You don't know fireworks until you've spent a Summer in Tokyo. Festival upon festival mesh into a single ongoing event, and the moment the rainy season is over, every weekend day sees the skies become the canvas of a thousand colorful explosions, from every end of the city and sometimes in two, even three places simultaneously, for anywhere between 60 to 90 minutes at a time.
 When the Japanese do fireworks, they mean business.

 And never more so than when it comes to the Sumidagawa fireworks.
 Streets close and drove upon drove of onlookers fill every inch of ground they can find until there is literally nowhere to sit anywhere remotely close to the side of the Sumida river. Police patrol the streets so that no one can trespass onto people's apartment roofs (which I sure as hell tried.) So I settled beside an old couple on the hard concrete ground and waited, and then they lit the sky on fire.

Pikachu!

 The Sumidagawa Firework Festival is a tradition 300 years old, pitting rival pyrotechnic groups against one another to see who can create the most impressive series of explosions. The results can be breath-taking - as often times, firework shows have a beginning, a rising point, and a climax, the Sumidagawa fireworks cycle through those stages within the span of three minutes, over 30 different times in over 30 different styles and themes, with some included shapes as complicated as famous cartoon characters' heads. You can imagine my surprise when Pikachu exploded into the sky.

 The sensation of sitting elbow to elbow with millions of people and feeling the rhythmic drum of the fireworks vibrate in your chest is an experience you can only really get in Japan, and the feeling is unforgettable.

An Hour at the Sanja Festival

 It came as a near miss this year too. With all my attention focused on the move, I came close to forgetting about one of the biggest festivals in Tokyo - the Sanja Matsuri. By the time I managed to free myself to get there, the big event was all but over, but I did manage to catch some of the magic of the festivities.

 Sanja Matsuri is held in honor of the three founding priests of the Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, and is celebrated through the worship of three portable mikoshi shrines, over the course of three days. The first day (a Friday) is dedicated to dance, the second (Saturday) to the 100 lesser shrines, and the third (Sunday) to the three main shrines. It's a wild, bustling affair and certainly is crowded, with an estimated 2 million visitors coming in during the combined three days of the festivities.

 I unfortunately caught only the very end of said festivities, having shown up on Sunday evening, but managed nevertheless to catch sight of an important event - the return of the main mikoshi to Sensoji Temple, hoisted upon the backs of men and women chanting as they carried it back to its starting point.

 Against the light of the Sky Tree in the night sky, it's a good reminder of the sharp contrast between modern times and tradition in Japan. I couldn't help but feel inspired by the chants of the mikoshi carriers, heard from such a long distance away and echoed by the surrounding crowd, as they marched towards and eventually through the kaminarimon - the thunder gates. Really, it sounds as epic as it looks.

 I followed them a certain distance through said gates and the musical float too, with the musicians inside banging drums and piping flutes. One of the musicians even had a little girl on her lap, who no doubt will be expected to carry the tradition through one day.

 Unfortunately, I can't go without saying that I did miss the best of Sanja Matsuri, which is also known for having yakuza transporting their own mikoshi on the second day of the festival while displaying their tattoos to the public (a rare occurrence), and its Geisha performances ranking among some of the best in Japan.
I'm crossing my fingers, though, and hoping I won't get sidetracked from next year's festivities.

Kanamara Penis Festival: Dicks, Dicks Everywhere

The time has finally come.
 Twice in the past have I missed out on the Kanamara Festival due to work, but that streak has finally been broken. This year, I took all precautions necessary to not miss my third chance. And I'm so glad I did. The Kanamara Festival - or the Festival of the Iron Phallus, as it would be named in English - is fascinating, fun, and a worthwhile experience, on top of being something I've heard about long before I had even come to Japan. This is the stuff of legend. What a good time it is.

"I bow only to you, Lord Cock and Balls."

Let's start off with a little bit of history. The site of the festival is a small shrine in the town of Kawasaki, now located right beside a preschool establishment. It's a strange choice of placement (the kindergarten was, of course, built after the shrine itself,) but a little context can help clear things up.
 In the olden days, people would come to the shrine and pray for all things sex related.
 Some accounts have it that prostitutes were the most numerous visitors, praying that they not catch any diseases. Often, too, did people pray here for their marriages, or for an easy childbirth, or for fertility. However, the most well-known story is more of a legend, with a lot less fact involved. Stories tell of a woman with a demon hidden in her vagina, who would bite the penis off any man who would dare have intercourse with her. In a last resort attempt to rid herself of the curse, she went to a blacksmith, who broke the vagina demon's teeth with a penis forged of iron. Hence, the Iron Penis Festival!

Dicks EVERYWHERE.

 On to the excitement. On the day of the Kanamara Matsuri, the first Sunday in April, all matter of stands are put up, just like any other Japanese festival. However, on top of selling the regular food items such as chicken or squid on skewers, a whole plethora of dick-related items are also sold! There are wooden dildos and toys and key-chains, but particularly popular are the (in)famous penis lollipops, which sell in great numbers - leading, of course, to a bunch of people sucking on penis shaped lollipops on the festival grounds: men, women, and even children!

Notice my less popular vagina pop.

The festival easily draws thousands of people. Most of them are young adults just looking to soak in the happy, fun atmosphere, but there are also numerous curious foreigners, and the occasional daring person seeking to take advantage of the very sexually-liberated ambiance to do something they couldn't get away with elsewhere. Enter a woman in latex with a hole cut out to expose her ass, a man with a giant dick hat, an old guy with no pants. And people still bring kids here? Truly, anything goes on this day. Ask anyone if they mind you taking pictures, and they generally don't.
 And of course, no great festival is complete without a giant float being carried across the streets. After a very ritualistic prayer by an important priest, the floats are blessed and the go is given for them to be lifted off the ground and brought out of the shrine grounds.
 The procession is actually beautiful, with young maidens leading the way, giant colorful banners being flown, holy priests marching along, and, of course, the giant penis floats. First comes the holiest one, a black penis the length of a grown man's forearm, carried along by any one who volunteers to, as they chant to give their companions and themselves the strength to bolster the heavy, enshrined float. But it's the next one that draws the most attention. The most well-known one float is a one meter-and-a-half tall pink penis. As if that's not enough to draw the eye, this float can only be carried by transvestites in pink garb. That's right. The float is carried by drag queens.
 The Kanamara Matsuri is lots of fun, guys. You really don't get a chance to see anything like it elsewhere in the world (though there is another penis festival in Nagoya.) I simply wouldn't recommend missing it. It's fun, it's free, and it's unforgettable.

Bellybutton Pride (Say What?)

What comes to mind when the 20th of July is brought up?
The Moon Landing? Colombian Independence Day? What about bellybuttons?
What, you didn't know? Shame on you.
 July 20th is the annual bellybutton festival - Heso Matsuri, in Itabashi, in Northern Tokyo. You know, that day where you affix fake arms to your waist, take your shirt off, draw a face on your belly and dance in the street. I know, right? July and August are full of diverse festivals, but this one's just bizarre. And yet, Heso Matsuri has been an annual thing for the past 43 years.

Despite having history, it ain't really a well-known thing. Itabashi isn't exactly downtown, and even on-site reporters covering the event let out a "What exactly are we celebrating?"
 I did a little research and apparently it all stems from a tradition in Northern Japan, on the Hokkaido landmass, where the tradition was born to reunite the people of a city through humor.
 Tokyo's Heso Matsuri isn't a huge event, but there were still a few things happening here and there, such as belly-dancing, the traditional aforementioned Heso dance, and a parade of 80-or-so children marching down the streets with the fake arms. Apparently the giant curtain hat thing is supposed to cover your face as well as hide your arms for added effect, but none of the kids were quite good (or even tried) at the Heso dance unfortunately.
Alright, alright. They were cute regardless. Here's a video of them parading in the street.

The Takayama Festival

It was upon the noon of the second day into our road trip that we arrived upon our destination of Takayama. The very purpose of our trip lay here: to attend the famous Takayama festival, renown throughout Japan. Well rested after our stay in the Kiso Valley, Ken, Lo, Dario and I found the streets of the city packed with tourists both from abroad and within Japan, the crowd growing denser and denser towards the epicenter of the festival grounds.

The enormous floats of the Sanno Takayama Festival

In a nutshell.

The Takayama Festival is held twice a year with very slight variations - once in Spring and once in Fall, with each of the festivities lasting two days. During this time, enormous yatai festival floats are pulled into the town square, and a procession of 200 men, women and children dressed in varied traditional outfits can be seen parading across the town. Some are dressed as oni - Japanese demons, children play instruments such as bells and flutes, and others still wear the outfits of Shinto priests, carrying large flag-like standards.

Holy crap it's crowded.

At different points during the festival, the crowd gets extremely densely packed around the festival floats as ancient puppet show over 300 years old begins, puppets emerging from the top of the floats themselves. The three puppets themselves are beautifully crafted and controlled by 12 strings each, requiring 3 puppeteers to man a single one. I later learned the springs in the puppets are carved out of whale. Hoowee. Each puppet gets the limelight for a part of the show, with each segment having an impressive turning point. For instance, the last puppet, that of a maiden, had a dragon burst out of her ass. I kid you not. This part was deemed too obscene for the Japanese public until only 30 years ago.

Hey, even the festival aside though, Takayama is a nice town quite worth a visit. It doesn't at any point feel like a metropolitan city. It has a charming market street with oldish shops, but even nicer still is the presence of rivers running through the town, spanned by scenic bridges from which, looking down, the likes of koi fish can be seen swimming around.
At the extremity of the central part of the city is a park and a mountain from which one can see the whole of Takayama. I was reminded at once of Montreal.

It's quite charming!

The first thing I did in Takayama.

All in all, Takayama was a charming experience and another window into Japanese culture. The festival was worth the trip, but my tip-toeing across central Japan didn't end at Takayama.

As you'll soon see!

Nezu - Azalea Flowers and Faregrounds

The Azalea Garden of Nezu Shrine

This month of April is having me catch up with all the major temples in Tokyo I've managed to miss so far, and apparently, next on the list, is Nezu Shrine. Bringing along Ken and Lo, I went to check it out on the first day of its Azalea Festival. More renown for its garden that the actual shrine house itself, Nezu Shrine plays the major part in the Azalea Festival taking place from early April to early May. During this time frame, hundreds upon hundreds of the azelea flower bushes go into bloom, further cementing the coming of spring and attracting locals and tourists alike. A walk across the azalea garden costs nothing but 200¥ and doesn't fail to impress. I'm a sucker for nice flowers, sue me.
Flowers aside, even out of season the shrine has some nice sights to offer, such as ponds filled with koi and turtles and ducks. It's a peaceful place brimming with a simple, docile nature. 

There's a lot going on in this picture.

A nice afterthought, more likely than not unrelated to the azalea festival itself, was the small fare taking place in what seemed like the backyard of the Nezu shrine, which connected into the Komagome shrine nearby. Standard in temple grounds throughout Japan at various times of the year, fares like these offer a welcome distraction from the hustle and bustle of the city itself. One can expect to find charcoal-roasted foods and traditional snacks and desserts offered by various stands packed together in close proximity.
 A number of games are also present in fares like these, challenging children and adult alike.

Credit to Lo for the nice picture at the top.

Zojoji - Buddhist Devotion and Unborn Children

Zojoji Temple

Not too far from the foot of the Tokyo Tower is Zojoji, a sizable Buddhist temple with strong ties to the once powerful Tokugawa Shogunate. These temple grounds are actually known for quite a number of things, despite me and my entourage never having heard of this place for the longest amount of time. Drawn here by an event Aala made (but later on cancelled due to lack of attendance and an otherwise busy schedule) I got to get a good look at the temple.

The event in question was Gyoki, the Buddhist Devotion ceremony, where, in early April for the duration of a week, every day at 12:30pm, monks gather in ceremonial garb and perform an ancient dance accompanied by equally ancient music. The ceremony lasts a half-hour, after which the monks silently march in line and disappear into a tent. The ceremony commemorates the death of Honen, the founder of the first independent branch of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism.

With the accompanying backdrop of the now-waning cherry blossoms, the ceremony's quite a sight.

That aside, Zojoji is actually known for one more thing, however grim. The grounds house a garden dedicated to the souls of unborn children, including the aborted and the miscarried and the stillborn. Parents of such children can dress a statue and often leave a gift to Jizo, the guardian of the unborn, to assure that they are brought safely into the afterlife. Each stone piled next to such a statue is intended to shorten the suffering of the child during said passage.

For those interested in seeing it, here's a video of the Gyoki ceremony I managed to take.

Montreal's Zombie Walk

While relatively small for a city, Montreal is known for its great number of festivals and municipal events taking place throughout the year. The annual Jazz festival and Just For Laughs festival are examples of events that draw people from around the world, but many smaller events also take place that are relished by the locals.

 Due in no small part to the approach of Halloween, it just so happened that my stay coincided with Montreal's annual Zombie Walk. This year, the event drew an approximated 3000 people. Yikes.

And so I left home after throwing together a quick outfit, and joined my (usually) lovely lady friends, Roxanne and Marie (pictured) for their own preparations. Shortly after, we were off to join the horde.

It would feel very authentic if not for the photographers!

With my trusty frying pan in hand, I went dressed as a struggling survivor, and that was great fun. I had a blast running up to photographers and just yelling stuff like "evacuate!", "run!", and "they're coming!" in their faces at the top of my lungs, while darting in and out of the zombie horde. I was often chased around by rather outgoing individuals who took their role-play to heart, and I safely assume that I can treasure those moments as some of the few where I'll ever have several women on top of me at a time.
 Once in a while I would also encounter another rare survivor who would grab me by the arm and we would go running together.
 I fancy the thought that there may have been some people who woke up at this time and looked outside and thought this was actually happening.

Game over?

The Gishi-sai Parade

Oh snap, here come the samurai.

Today was the Gishi-sai Parade at Sengaku-ji. You may recall that I had briefly visited the graves of the 47 Ronin here before.
The Gishi-sai parade relates to the story of the 47 Ronin (which you can read in the linked article.) It celebrates the day the band of samurai brought the head of their mortal enemy to their master's grave, before committing suicide themselves. Today, unlike the last time I was here, the temple grounds was buzzing with activity including traditional open-air cooking and small fare games. A lot of people were assembled to pay their respects to the samurai, who symbolize undying loyalty to a cause.

Oh, he knows he's a badass.

However, the main event of the parade is the arrival of a band of 47 men, dressed as the Ronin, who bring to the grave the "head" of their enemy. We attempted to follow them to the grave site, but this proved impossible due to the sheer number of people swarming the already cramped fair grounds. Still, it was neat to see and hear them coming with the sounds of the beating drums.

Tori-no-ichi

Those hanging things are the lucky charms.

The other night, Julian and I went into the Tori-no-ichi fare in Asakusa. The event usually happens twice on the month of November, but this year it happened three times. Yesterday was the third.
 Basically, during the fare a bunch of booths put colorful good luck tokens on display, allowing for people to purchase them for their homes. At the entrance to the fare, people bring the ones from last year, and they are gathered and burned.
The fare opens right smack on midnight and stretches on for the whole day. You wouldn't think there would be people there at 1 in the morning, but the attendance is enormous. You can barely walk because of the sheer number of people.

Julian emerges from a sea of people.

The luck charms themselves come in many different shapes and sizes, but all of them are very cluttered and colorful. They usually feature traditional folkloric things such as the maneki-neko cats, but some of them are much more contemporary and have instantly recognizable icons such as Hello Kitty. They're also quite expensive, making it a small wonder that there are so many people who buy them every year. Julian bought a small one (three inches large) for the equivalent of 20$, making me wonder at the price of the standard ones, which are around a foot wide and high.
I wish I could have taken better pictures, but the gigantic crowd made such a thing impossible. Woe is me.