The New Zeland Herald is reporting that an ancient Japanese ‘Naked Men’s Festival’ where men loin-clothes vie for sacred sticks turned tragic when a participant later died.
Video of the event is here. The accident in question is not visible on the video. It took a little bit to load for me so you may […]

Setsubun Festival celebrated with a fanfare of bean-throwing exorcisms

A pair of Japanese Devils terrorize kindergarteners
Once again devils have been driven forth from the homes and workplaces of the Japanese with a hand-full of tossed beans in the age-old rite known as Setsubun. Setsubun, which occurs on February 3, is kind of like Halloween, New […]

Participants clad in traditional white happi coats take part in the Okihiki event in Tokyo’s Roppongi district February 4, 2007.
Okihiki is when participants pull a cart loaded with cypress trees which will be used in the construction of new Ise Shrine. Man I’ll tell yeah, the Japanese really know how to throw a matsuri (festival!)
REUTERS/Yuriko […]

Here is a video from the water purification festival that I wrote about below.

Warm Winter Weather Portents Of Severe Global Warming?

Less Blue Skin Than Last Year
“From the earliest period Shinto exacted scrupulous cleanliness … It is not uncommon for the very fervent worshipper to invoke the gods as he stands naked under the ice-cold rush of a [waterfall] in midwinter.”
- Lafcadio Hearn, Japan: an Attempt at […]

Participants wearing the traditional ‘fundoshi’ or loincloth carry a ‘mikoshi’ or portable shrine during the festival of Enoshima midwinter mikoshi chastening meeting on the coast of the Sagami Bay in Fujisawa, south of Tokyo January 21, 2007.
This festival is part of Japan’s Coming of Age Day celebrations and is a midwinter ceremony in the sea […]

Here is some video of the Taiko drum festival that I wrote about here.

REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao(JAPAN).
Women splash themselves with ice-cold water during a winter season purification ceremony at the Kanda Myojin shrine in Tokyo January 13, 2007. Some 28 people endured the cold to take part in the annual event.
This reminds me of the Polar Bear festival in North America. The only difference though is in North America the […]

Have you heard of the Akutai Matsuri? It’s held in late November in Kasama city in Ibaraki prefecture.
This shinto festival starts with a priest and 13 tengu goblins, all dressed in white, parading along a path, chanting and making offerings at small shrines along the way.
Onlookers then traditionally scream obscenities at the parade group […]

Kodo Taiko Group Celebrates the Earth with Music

A Taiko Drummer playing in front of a Shinto Shrine
In olden days, going to Sado Island generally meant one of two things: exile or gold. Sado Island, the 6th largest island of Japan, was for a long time not the pleasure excursion that is today. During the […]

Now that Christmas is over and behind us, the cake has been eaten, the romantic evening is over with, its time to start focusing on the first, or last depending on how to see it, party of the year! That’s right, get your beer mugs out again because its time for a  Shinnenkai  新年会 party.
On New […]

A Bonenkai, for those of you not yet familiar with the term, refers to a year-end party. Often times, work places will throw one to celebrate and they are generally a good way for everyone in the company to look back at a year with a measure of pride in what was accomplished.
I have had […]

Hirosaki presents finely painted floats of war and peace

▲ A Traditional Fan-Shaped Neputa Float
The Neputa Festival of Hirosaki, in northern Japan, suffers from being overshadowed by its more famous sister festival, the Nebuta Festival of Aomori City. Even many Japanese have never heard of it. Many think the word “Neputa” is just […]

Here are some videos of the Uchiwa Matsuri that I reported on here.
Zhang Fei Float

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Turning big float around

Drums and Flutes

Nebuta Hanto Dancers

Dancers and Float

Dragon Drum

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Fujin the Japanese God of Wind
“Dragons, griffins, reptiles, fishes, birds there are, all dancing, waving fans, shouting, howling, singing, noising, in one form or another, in chorus perfectly bewildering.”
- Amy Michael-Carmichael, American Missionary to Japan, 1895.
Every summer, Aomori City’s Nebuta Festival brings in flocks of tourists from all over to gaze and wonder at the […]

Here are some video scenes of Morioka’s sansa odori festival that I reported on the other day.

Click here to read more. . . »

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Morioka’s Sansa Odori Festival rolls out the Drums
A Devil’s Flight - A City’s Delight

Young Girls Give a Drum Demonstration before the Station
Tohoku - the northern region of mainland Japan - likes its summer festivals (matsuri). The whole area in the first week of August seems to erupt with big and grandiose festivals - each one […]

Here are some videos of the Uchiwa Matsuri that I reported on here.

A visit to the Uchiwa Matsuri in Kumagaya, Japan, makes for a pleasant surprise
Summer time is the time for matsuri — or festivals — in Japan. It seems like just about every city, town and village has some form of matsuri going on throughout the summer. Some matsuri are famous and pull in people […]

Most soccer fans worldwide whose attention and passion were lavished on the recent World Cup are likely unaware that the Japanese (and Chinese) have been playing different forms of football for more than a millennium. They’re not alone—a lot of Japanese don’t know that either!

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