Sept. 27, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
(video1) Young samurai meets goddess in exciting Yame mechanical doll play
Sept. 27, 2011
Young samurai meets goddess in exciting Yame mechanical doll play
The three-story structure used for the Toro Ningyo play in Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture, is fabricated each time and dismantled after the end of the event. On the upper level of the house are singers and a band of musicians, including drummers. The stage on the medium level has a separable bridge on which two dolls are operated with eight long sticks extended from both wings of the stage. Another doll also performs on the stage, but this is moved by operators from the lower level under the floor. Each doll is operated by six persons.
The doll play shown this year is based on a simple, happy story in which a young samurai from Satsuma, the old name of the current Kagoshima Prefecture, visits Itsukushima Shrine in the current Hiroshima Prefecture to pay homage to the Goddess of Benzaiten and sees a beautiful woman as the goddess incarnate emerge with her maid from the shrine and dance on sweet music while granting his wishes.
Young samurai meets goddess in exciting Yame mechanical doll play
The three-story structure used for the Toro Ningyo play in Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture, is fabricated each time and dismantled after the end of the event. On the upper level of the house are singers and a band of musicians, including drummers. The stage on the medium level has a separable bridge on which two dolls are operated with eight long sticks extended from both wings of the stage. Another doll also performs on the stage, but this is moved by operators from the lower level under the floor. Each doll is operated by six persons.
The doll play shown this year is based on a simple, happy story in which a young samurai from Satsuma, the old name of the current Kagoshima Prefecture, visits Itsukushima Shrine in the current Hiroshima Prefecture to pay homage to the Goddess of Benzaiten and sees a beautiful woman as the goddess incarnate emerge with her maid from the shrine and dance on sweet music while granting his wishes.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Small quiet town excited on traditional mechanical doll play in autumn festival
Sept. 27, 2011
Small quiet town excited on traditional mechanical doll play in autumn festival
Yame City is a quiet town which lives on a variety of small handicraft industries in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, but a joyful mood spreads among local people toward the end of September when a time-honored mechanical doll play is performed every year.
The Yame-Fukushima Toro Ningyo show is one of the most existing events in a three-day town-wide festival around the Autumnal Equinox holiday. The doll play, designated as an important national tangible folk cultural asset in 1977, is performed by a company of more than 60 local ordinary people five times every day.
The stage for the 30-minute show is a three-story knockdown house, called “Yatai,” which is set up in the precincts of Fukushima Hachimangu Shrine in the heart of the city. The event attracts a few thousand spectators from around the town, but local people look forward to seeing the last performance on the last night because it is played with all sliding paper doors and shutters around the stage removed to show doll operators, singers, musicians and others to the audience. Local people call the doll play “Tapponpon,” never call it “Toro Ningyo,” as it is officially named. While saying “Let’s go to see Tapponpon,” they gather at the shrine in high spirits.
The event started in the middle of the 18th century as part of “Hojouye” life-releasing rites dedicated to the shrine and later, a mechanical doll play began with a method introduced from Osaka. The doll play used to be performed by residents of about 10 neighborhood blocks around the shrine, but it is currently performed by a company formed by local residents to preserve the cultural asset.
One of major products from Yame is a Japanese green tea brand. Local people also live with traditional handicraft shops, such as “chochin” paper lanterns, candles, papermaking, arrows and stone garden lanterns. They also boast of a group of old two-story houses with hipped gables and white walls on Monmachi Street in front of the shrine, which was lined with banboo lanterns in the evening during the festival.
The last performance this year attracted fewer but more excited spectators than those in the daytime. Every time an MC introduced members of the company one by one at the start of the last performance, shouts of cheer arose from among the audience, spreading a relaxed, friendly atmosphere in night air around the stage. The local economy in Yame is less impressive than ever, as is the case with many other regions across Japan, but local people are determined to preserve and inherit the doll play and other time-honored cultural assets in the town over generations.
Small quiet town excited on traditional mechanical doll play in autumn festival
Yame City is a quiet town which lives on a variety of small handicraft industries in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, but a joyful mood spreads among local people toward the end of September when a time-honored mechanical doll play is performed every year.
The Yame-Fukushima Toro Ningyo show is one of the most existing events in a three-day town-wide festival around the Autumnal Equinox holiday. The doll play, designated as an important national tangible folk cultural asset in 1977, is performed by a company of more than 60 local ordinary people five times every day.
The stage for the 30-minute show is a three-story knockdown house, called “Yatai,” which is set up in the precincts of Fukushima Hachimangu Shrine in the heart of the city. The event attracts a few thousand spectators from around the town, but local people look forward to seeing the last performance on the last night because it is played with all sliding paper doors and shutters around the stage removed to show doll operators, singers, musicians and others to the audience. Local people call the doll play “Tapponpon,” never call it “Toro Ningyo,” as it is officially named. While saying “Let’s go to see Tapponpon,” they gather at the shrine in high spirits.
The event started in the middle of the 18th century as part of “Hojouye” life-releasing rites dedicated to the shrine and later, a mechanical doll play began with a method introduced from Osaka. The doll play used to be performed by residents of about 10 neighborhood blocks around the shrine, but it is currently performed by a company formed by local residents to preserve the cultural asset.
One of major products from Yame is a Japanese green tea brand. Local people also live with traditional handicraft shops, such as “chochin” paper lanterns, candles, papermaking, arrows and stone garden lanterns. They also boast of a group of old two-story houses with hipped gables and white walls on Monmachi Street in front of the shrine, which was lined with banboo lanterns in the evening during the festival.
The last performance this year attracted fewer but more excited spectators than those in the daytime. Every time an MC introduced members of the company one by one at the start of the last performance, shouts of cheer arose from among the audience, spreading a relaxed, friendly atmosphere in night air around the stage. The local economy in Yame is less impressive than ever, as is the case with many other regions across Japan, but local people are determined to preserve and inherit the doll play and other time-honored cultural assets in the town over generations.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
“Tanada” rice terraces, forests provide healing therapy to urbanites
Aug. 30, 2011
“Tanada” rice terraces, forests provide healing therapy to urbanites
A steeply slanting area with vast “tanada” rice terraces and deep forests in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, receives many urbanites hoping to have a time to heal and refresh themselves in the natural environment.
The Tsuzura district in Ukiha City, designated as a “forest therapy area” in a publicly financed project in 2008, extends on both sides of the valley along Tsuzura River, which waters the beautiful tanada rice fields. The district has about 300 tanada rice terraces built with stone walls in an area of about six hectares around 500 meters high. Tsuzura was selected as one of Japan’s 100 most beautiful tanada areas by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1999.
A landscape with tanada rice terraces spread beneath a mountain or on a hill is said to be one of the classic natural views which are original to Japan. The Tsuzura area, which has a history of about 400 years, used to be cultivated by some 100 farmers, but the number has declined to about 15. This is why Ukiha City has taken various measures to preserve the rice terraces and the district.
Guided tours are available mainly on weekends from spring to autumn, with volunteers chosen by the city from among local people ready to show visitors around while telling them not only about natural features such as the names of trees and wild flowers but also efforts by farmers to maintain the tanada fields over generations. Guided by them on “therapy roads” of 1.8 kilometers and 3 kilometers, visitors can have a close look at Japanese cedars and Japanese cypresses, and pure mountain streams while following trails in the woods in fresh air which contains minus ions. Lucky visitors may also have a chance to see sunbeams streaming through the leaves of trees or morning dews on the tip of leaves glitter on the sunlight like diamonds with rainbow colors. Trails at some places are said to be filled with the so-called 1/f noise fluctuations which have an effect of healing the man’s heart.
Water which irrigates the tanada fields comes via bamboo gutters from streams high up the valley. The streams are so pure that people come from distant places to dip up water for drinking at their home, a guide said. The water temperature is unchanged throughout the year and “this is why delicious rice can be produced here,” said the guide proudly.
The so-called “owner system,” introduced by the city, provides people with opportunities to join rice planting and reaping for a donation of at least 30,000 yen. The "owners" have a part of the harvest from the fields sent to them. The system not only contributes to preserving the tanada fields but also gives urban people chances to be friendly with the nature and remind themselves of its preciousness.
The series of efforts by Ukiha City to demonstrate its beautiful natural environment and activate the local community is expected to be more successful at a time when agri-tourism is gradually becoming popular among health-conscious Japanese people.
“Tanada” rice terraces, forests provide healing therapy to urbanites
A steeply slanting area with vast “tanada” rice terraces and deep forests in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, receives many urbanites hoping to have a time to heal and refresh themselves in the natural environment.
The Tsuzura district in Ukiha City, designated as a “forest therapy area” in a publicly financed project in 2008, extends on both sides of the valley along Tsuzura River, which waters the beautiful tanada rice fields. The district has about 300 tanada rice terraces built with stone walls in an area of about six hectares around 500 meters high. Tsuzura was selected as one of Japan’s 100 most beautiful tanada areas by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1999.
A landscape with tanada rice terraces spread beneath a mountain or on a hill is said to be one of the classic natural views which are original to Japan. The Tsuzura area, which has a history of about 400 years, used to be cultivated by some 100 farmers, but the number has declined to about 15. This is why Ukiha City has taken various measures to preserve the rice terraces and the district.
Guided tours are available mainly on weekends from spring to autumn, with volunteers chosen by the city from among local people ready to show visitors around while telling them not only about natural features such as the names of trees and wild flowers but also efforts by farmers to maintain the tanada fields over generations. Guided by them on “therapy roads” of 1.8 kilometers and 3 kilometers, visitors can have a close look at Japanese cedars and Japanese cypresses, and pure mountain streams while following trails in the woods in fresh air which contains minus ions. Lucky visitors may also have a chance to see sunbeams streaming through the leaves of trees or morning dews on the tip of leaves glitter on the sunlight like diamonds with rainbow colors. Trails at some places are said to be filled with the so-called 1/f noise fluctuations which have an effect of healing the man’s heart.
Water which irrigates the tanada fields comes via bamboo gutters from streams high up the valley. The streams are so pure that people come from distant places to dip up water for drinking at their home, a guide said. The water temperature is unchanged throughout the year and “this is why delicious rice can be produced here,” said the guide proudly.
The so-called “owner system,” introduced by the city, provides people with opportunities to join rice planting and reaping for a donation of at least 30,000 yen. The "owners" have a part of the harvest from the fields sent to them. The system not only contributes to preserving the tanada fields but also gives urban people chances to be friendly with the nature and remind themselves of its preciousness.
The series of efforts by Ukiha City to demonstrate its beautiful natural environment and activate the local community is expected to be more successful at a time when agri-tourism is gradually becoming popular among health-conscious Japanese people.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Summer fests in W. Japan geared to cheer up quake-hit E. Japan people
July 17, 2011
Summer fests in W. Japan geared to cheer up quake-hit E. Japan people
Summer festivals take place across Japan from June to August, but those in western Japan have a different taste this year; to cheer up people in eastern Japan areas devastated by the March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami waves.
Post-quake reconstruction is making slow progress, because the influence of the disaster has been aggravated by the unprecedented nuclear plant accident triggered by the tsunami waves. Despite a lapse of four months since then, more than 100,000 people remain without houses to live in. This has led festival organizers to think about what they have to do for affected people. Some of them have decided to extend moral or financial support to the affected regions by, among other things, inviting people from there to their festivals. One of such examples is the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival, in which heavy floats borne by men on their shoulders race through the streets in the Hakata area of Fukuoka City, Kyushu, southwestern Japan.
The festival, which is held from July 1 to 15, is actually a Shinto ritual dedicated to the Kushida Shrine, the main guardian shrine for the Hakata area, downtown Fukuoka. Seven “Yamakasa” floats are created by local people divided into seven different “Nagare” neighborhood groups. The festival culminates in a fever pitch early in the morning on the final day. With every street and every corner around the shrine occupied by tens of thousands of onlookers as well as TV crew, photographers and police officers and guards, the first of the seven floats, the Nishi (West) Nagare float this year, set off at the signal of beating drums just before dawn and dashed out at full speed into the streets of Hakata. The other floats followed at 5-minute intervals.
Despite the vigorous atmosphere, participants have to keep a gracious attitude and are urged not to have a sense of privilege. The managers of the Nagare groups equally said they would strive to be even more vigorous this year so that “our energies may reach the affected people and help them get back on their feet as soon as possible.”
The festival, designated as an important national intangible folk heritage in 1979, is said to have originated from a ritual which took place in the 13th century to stop epidemic spread in Hakata, which used to be merchants' self-governing city. The heroic and colorful festival attracts about one million people from various areas during the 15-day period.
Each float, which has a weight of about one ton and a height of 5 to 6 meters, is carried by more than 20 men clad in happi coats, who are directed by up to six riders from atop the float. The seven Nagare groups compete to cover the 5.1-kilometer course from the shrine to the goal, in the shortest possible time, about half an hour. The race is also joined by a far loftier float, about 16 meters high, but this float covers a different shorter course before returning to their district.
Spectators gave a shout of joy every time the floats came out of the shrine. Their cheer became even louder against the tallest float, which weighs approximately 2 tons. The eight floats, including the tallest one, are decorated with legendary samurai or popular character dolls fabricated by master Kakata Doll craftsmen.
The records of time with which the seven floats covered the distance to the goal varied, from less than 30 minutes to far over 30 minutes, but float bearers, riders and other participants in all groups looked fully satisfied with their performances, after accomplishing this year’s added aim of extending their energies to the quake-affected people in eastern Japan.
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