Relax in the evening with a can of…

The drink that’s cheap to buy, easy to drink and only one typo away from being a complete marketing failure*.

*salt

Festivals Part 2 - Setsubun

Setsubun 節分 is the last day of winter in the Japanese calendar, falling on February the 3rd this year. I had heard of the festival before but didn’t know what you actually did until my housemate explained it to me. The first time she explained it she said that we had to run around the house throwing beans at each other. Since I’d never heard of this I thought she was making it up and trying to play a trick on me. It turns out she was joking after all. What actually happens is that someone first puts on an Oni (demon) mask and then they run around the house while everyone else chases after them and throws beans at the demon. As you chase the Oni out of the house you shout Oni ha soto! Fuku ha uchi! (Demon out! Good luck in!). Since there were four of us we teamed up and took turns wearing the masks and throwing beans to purify the house.

After chasing the demons outside and slamming the door you have to eat the same number of beans as your age (obviously not the beans that you’ve just thrown all over the house) for good luck. Next you face a specific direction, this year it was East North East and eat a long roll of sushi all in one go without talking. This meant that the four of us had a very strange evening meal as we ended up staring at the wall in complete silence while eating sushi. However, I am assured good luck and strength for the rest of the year so it was probably worth it.

I much prefer running around throwing beans to carrying massive pieces of heavy wood on my shoulder for several hours. In my book that makes it a good festival to follow and look forward to it again next year.

Demon masks and sushi rolls.

Scary Demons.

Banished Demons.

Festivals Part 1

In Japan festivals are often held in to get the local community together. There are variations, but a common theme is for everyone to make a massive and extremely heavy portable shrine with a heavy wooden frame called a mikoshi. A few street blocks will get together to build one, then meet up with other groups and march through the streets shouting and generally making a lot of noise. It seems that the specific god you carry a shrine for is not really that important as long as the frame and shrine are very very heavy. This is probably so you can show your devotion and willingness to suffer to the shrine’s god. They are really very heavy.

Of course merely carrying them through the streets is much too easy and you must continuously rock it from side to side and bounce it up and down on your shoulders. Since I’m somewhat taller than the average Japanese man I was asked to help at the back with the frame sloping down towards the front slightly. Since there weren’t many others as tall as me I ended up getting my shoulders constantly battered by the frame. At some points the shoulder of the person in front of me wasn’t even touching the frame. Crouching down didn’t work either as it just ended up destroying my thighs. Interestingly having your shoulders repeatedly battered by a chunk of wood in the rain (of course it was raining) doesn’t cause much visible bruising but it does turn the skin on your shoulders rather scaly, which leads to the skin flaking of a few days later. There were a few brief rests to watch some taiko drumming and afterwards there was a small meal provided where everyone has the chance to talk with each other, or just sit there exhausted. But mostly the festival seemed to be about carrying a really heavy thing for several hours. It must be one of those cultural differences.

He’s not even touching it!

Even my shorts are drenched in sweat.

We really didn’t have enough people.