14
May
In Search Of… The Kanda Matsuri
Topic: Japan 2007
[mpiphoto=265,leftclear,scale,640]
On Saturday we wasted a couple of hours trying to find the Kanda Matsuri:
Also known as “tenka matsuri (Shogun’s festival),” Kanda Matsuri is a major festival at Kandamyoujin (Kanda Jinja) Shrine and is one of three major festivals that have been held since the Edo period. As it falls on a year of the biannual main festival this year, the festival presents parades that are more gorgeous than last year. On the day of Shinkosai festival (May 12), a festive parade that features three horen mikoshi, kanko dashi floats, shishi-gashira dashi floats and others walks through 108 local parishes (including Kanda, Nihonbashi, Akihabara and Ote Marunouchi), followed by a cavalcade of samurai warriors, more dashi floats and a samba team.
[mpiphoto=264,left,scale,200]As you can see in the picture above and the video to your left, we did come across one mikoshi (portable shrine), but that was it. We had planned well: we found the Japanese web site with information on the festival, and printed out their detailed route map for the festival. This being a Japanese event, exact times were provided for various locations along the route. We got a late start and would have missed the start by an hour at Kanda shrine, so instead we headed to Akihabara, where we would arrive in time to see everything there.
But when we arrived, traffic was flowing normally on the streets, and there was no sign of the festival, other than a bunch of other people like us, walking around looking confused with maps in our hands, trying to find it. It turns out the Japanese trait of punctuality was being overridden by another penchant of the Japanese: drinking heavily during a festival. Maria participated in carrying a mikoshi once, and she said it was quite painful as the heavy mikoshi slams down on your shoulders as it’s shaken (it’s believed that shaking the mikoshi will bring good luck to the neighborhood). Most get through it by being drunk. And when you’re drunk, you’re usually not too worried about being on time.
We hung around for an hour and one mikoshi came by, and then that was it. We scouted around the corner to see down the road, but nothing else was coming. No more mikoshi, no floats, no one dressed up as samurai - nothing. By then my back was acting up and Eidan was tired, so I took him home for his afternoon nap. Maria, Kai and Maria’s friend Andrea gave up on the festival and headed to Asakusa for the day, as Andrea hadn’t seen that neighborhood yet.
Footnote: In the interests of journalistic integrity, I should point out that I don’t really know if drunkenness had anything to do with the festival not coming through Akihabara on time (or anywhere close to on time) - it’s entirely conjecture on my part.
[tags]Japan, Tokyo, Kanda, Matsuri[/tags]
Print
