Bon summer festival season starts in Japan

August 10, 2009

Bon summer festival season starts in Japan


The “bon” festival kid dancing contest started after sunset at a breezy small square in a shopping mall in a city near Tokyo, attracting about 50 summer kimono-clad children. The prize was to be awarded to the cutest dancers by a three-man judge. But it showered before the judges announce the result. The shower came so quickly that the kids, their parents and many viewers got wet before running under the eaves. But children looked happy and satisfied with the dance.
A series of bon festival events began across Japan early this month. The long “tsuyu” rainy season is over, and hot summer has come. The bon festival, a Buddhist festival, is dedicated to the dead, but Japanese have fun with related events, dispelling the heat of summer.
Japanese have developed items that can create coolness not only physically but also visually and auditorily to overcome the hot summer. They include “uchiwa” and “sensu” portable fans and “furin” small hanging wind bells. Set fireworks decorate the night sky in riverside and lakeside summer festivals.
The twitters of little cuckoos, a migratory bird that comes to Japan early summer, heralded the arrival of summer for people in the Heian Period 10 to 11 centuries ago.

A little cuckoo is singing just out there, reluctant to pass my house.
Because it is dark? or because he has got lost?
(A personal translation)

This is a waka poem composed by Ki Tomonori, a noted poet in the Heian Period, and included in the Kokinwakashu waka poem anthology compiled in the 10th century. People in the period looked forward to hearing the season’s first twitters of little cuckoos. People sometimes stayed awake throughout the night to hear their voices.
Japanese in the ancient times felt the nature just beside them. They knew how to live with the nature and how to be environmentally friendly. Japanese people are coming to realize today that they have to be more environmentally friendly, sometime at the expense of becoming inconvenient. In a recent government survey, 53 pct of the polled said Japan should switch to a recycling-oriented society even if its standard of living declines. More than 60 pct replied they use refillable products to reduce waste and refrain from free plastic shopping bags at stores.
“Uchimizu,” the water spraying custom, has been promoted as an effective means of cooling places around houses. A device called “suikinkutsu,” created by an Edo Period gardener, is drawing renewed attention. As the term literally means “water harp,” the device is designed to enjoy the echoing sound of water trickling down at the bottom of the basin buried underground.
Japan is a resources-poor country. The so-called three Rs campaign is going on to encourage the people to “reduce, reuse and recycle.”
More people may go out to enjoy evening breezes, rather than cooling in air conditioning at home. Summer bon festivals not only help people to stand the heat of summer but also give them “peripheral” effects including making friends and knowing more about the community. Bon festival events are hoped to be maintained for the coming generation because they have to be on good terms with the environment.