Wajima Tai Sai

I had intended to tell you the story of my very first Japanese festival tonight, but alas, it is late, and I still need to make a worksheet about My Dream Day for the 7th graders. So in the mean time, you will have to settle for a facebook album. I am going to do my best to go chronologically through all of the crazy of the last few months, starting with the Wajima Tai Sai in which large lantern floats (don't let the word lantern fool you, those things are HEAVY, particularly when running barefoot across a bridge carrying one) are carried by drunken hordes through the sleepy city of Wajima from gigantic torch to gigantic torch. Enjoy the photos, amusing anecdotes and tall tales to come soon...

Wajima Tai Sai Album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035828&id=19402168&l=b7fafc6fd0

28/10/09 - update

What follows is a partial description of the madness that was my first festival, or what I thought was madness until I remembered that I am living in Japan now. This isn't madness, it's life.

Wajima Tai Sai - August 22nd to the 26th

One very hot and sticky week in Kanazawa, I decided to get out of my unairconditioned apartment and head on up to Wajima to experience my very first Japanese festival, the Wajima Tai Sai, which basically means Wajima's Big Festival. It goes on for four days and although I am sure there is some cultural significance, it seems to follow a pattern that is becoming very familiar: eat lots of food, drink even more alcohol, carry gigantic heavy things, drink more alcohol, make gigantic fire, run around said fire carrying said heavy things, repeat for next three days and countless generations. It was fantastic. In the age of globalization, my only question is this: why haven't we globalized this?

The first night that I was there a couple of other JETs managed to get themselves involved with one of the teams of kiriko carriers (each neighborhood gets together a team to carry their lantern float on the parade through town, you get bonus points if your team can run full speed and/or spin whilst carrying said kiriko). About half way in to the seven hour ordeal I think they may have been reconsidering their decisions, but that's where the women rolling the cooler of beer and the old men with two liter bottles of sake come into play. They did receive a bit of respite when the parade stopped twice to regroup a light a several story torch on fire, think Olympic games style, but with a tug if war for burning bamboo poles once the entire thing inevitably comes crashing to the ground. The first one actually came crashing down on some poor man's head, but after someone died at this festival a couple of years ago, they always have paramedics on hand. Safety is obviously a huge priority at these events.