It’s festival season in Japan! Field research in springtime Kyūshū

by Cornelia Reiher

In March and April, I again had the opportunity to travel to Japan for field research. Spring is not only the most beautiful season with its cherry blossoms, but also a time of festivals to celebrate them. As the number of covid infections has been declining for some time, many of these local festivals were held for the first time since the pandemic began. I attended cherry blossom festivals (sakura matsuri) and markets, and although most people were still wearing masks, it was wonderful to see people once again doing hanami, enjoying food and drink, listening to live music, watching plays, and taking photos of the most beautiful cherry trees in the area.

Cherry tree in full bloom
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

Most of the festivals I attended were rather small matsuri organized by individual villages and usually attended by locals. At one of the sakura matsuri, there was not only food and drink, but also kagura, a ceremonial dance theater that recounts the myths of ancient Japan. In the play we watched, the hero had to fight two dragons and planned to get them drunk on sake so they would fall asleep. He put a big barrel of sake on the stage, and when the dragons drank it, they fell asleep. The hero came back to kill them in their sleep, but they woke up and started a fight. In the end, the hero succeeded in cutting off both of their heads and celebrated himself quite a bit. The performance was characterized by great costumes, pyrotechnics and colored smoke. The dragon actors really enjoyed suddenly running from the stage into the audience to scare the few small children watching with their parents and grandparents. Although most of the festival attendees were older, the actors were quite young. I enjoyed the kagura, the music, and the relaxed atmosphere while eating strawberries and drinking sake with the locals very much.

Kagura at a local cherry blossom festival
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

While literally everyone wore a mask at this sakura matsuri, another festival I attended was a mask-free area. The Deera Matsuri was a small market-like festival in a beautiful private garden in the mountains owned by ijūsha. It was idyllically situated on a mountain overlooking fields with flowers everywhere. When we arrived, live guitar music was playing on stage, and before we could enter, we were asked to exchange Japanese yen for a local currency (chiiki tsūka) called deera, which inspired the name of the event. Equipped with deera, we walked around and met many friends and acquaintances, most of them ijūsha. There were about ten stalls selling pastries, tea, knickknacks and bread. I bought tea from a young couple who had just moved to Taketa from Tokyo. The tea was picked during the full moon. Coffee and chai were served in the house where many children were running around screaming happily. There was a boisterous and relaxed atmosphere in the beautiful surroundings and with guitar music playing. At the end of the event, we looked at the organizers’ artwork in the gallery they run in a former warehouse next to the building where they live.

The Deera Festival in an idyllic garden in the mountains
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

One of the larger festivals I attended was the Okajo sakura matsuri, which features a parade of residents dressed in Edo period costumes. In the morning, all the participants gathered in their robes at the ruins of Oka Castle in Taketa. The parking lots nearby were crowded, and the city government staff had to show the visitors, who had traveled from all over Kyūshū, a place to park. We joined the crowd and walked up the hill to arrive just as the parade was to begin with a taiko performance. The parade then moved from the castle ruins down to the old castle town, where it was enthusiastically greeted by residents, tourists and friends of the participants. The colorful customs and music were very impressive.

Before the parade: Gathering for the Okajo Sakura Matsuri
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

When I returned to Arita at the end of my fieldwork, I was very surprised to see that preparations for the Ceramic Fair (tōki ichi), the biggest festival of the year, were already underway, even though it did not begin for another two weeks. We already saw tents selling porcelain at a discount. In the parking lot in front of the guest house where we were staying, there was a tent and the staff from the kiln across the street was setting up shelves and racks. Everyone told me that this was only the second tōki ichi after the two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, and that everyone was very excited to enjoy the Ceramic Fair. Since there was no food and drink sold last year due to the pandemic-related restrictions, it was not as much fun as usual. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the tōki ichi this year due to teaching obligations, but I hope it will be as nice as it has been in the past.

Getting ready for the Ceramic Fair during Golden Week
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

Visiting festivals and talking with people who were preparing for and looking forward to future events made me aware of the importance of these festivals for communities, social relations and cohesion, local businesses, tourism and local identity. The excitement about the festival’s return showed how much people had missed working together to prepare the food, organize the program, and set up the stage and booths. But even more important was the opportunity to meet people they hadn’t seen in a long time. I heard so many people shouting: “O hisashiburi!” (Long time no see!) and catching up on the last three years. On the other hand, I also heard of villages where the pandemic served as an excuse to abandon festivals because of the aging of the population, which made it very difficult to find people to organize local events. Since local festivals are important for rural areas and their residents, I hope they will survive, and I am very much looking forward to participating in more festivals next year.

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