It was mind-meltingly hot when I helped my friend carry huge Taiko drums out to the festival area, so I tried to edge into whatever shade I could find, My shirt was already sloppy sweat-wet by the time the festival even started. Appealing imagery, I know. I omitted the pictures of me because of this gruesome detail. No one wants to see sweaty, grimy gaijin girl amidst pristine Japanese ladies in summer yukatas.
The place was swarming with children age 6 - 15, and various hilarious situations occurred as a result. One toddler put his shaved ice treat on his head and proudly wore his grape flavored headgear for a full fifteen minutes until his mother spotted the discrepency in her child's skin color and freaked.
Little boys tossed ice cubes down the backs of little girls' yukata robes and were soundly thumped for it. As it should be.
An entire group worked together on the seesaws to launch one another up to 5 feet in the air by jumping in groups on the other end. I expected to see someone get seriously hurt doing this, but they were surprisingly accurate in jumping, and the adults were watching and cheering them on.
Anyway, enough talking, time for some photos!
Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's give forty 3rd graders a big, expensive, heavy shrine to the summer gods to carry around a long distance while chanting and remembering to walk all at the same time! That's a great idea!
Shrine go boom!
Oops! There goes the shrine! No wonder we're due for a typhoon tomorrow. Damn kids, always pissing off the gods. (The shrine was fine, but supposedly, those kids earned 10 years bad luck for dropping it. Some cried.)
Dave, this one's for you. Genuine giggling girls wearing summer yukata. They walked by me 6,000 times until I finally took a series of pictures, I swear it was a set up.
"Tina played a tune of sober substance"
My friend Tina in a line of Taiko drummers. She looks so dignified and serious.
Tina is the furthest on the left.
The munchkins were handed sticks and let near the drums. This first exhibition was the opening piece for the youngsters.
Surprising cute, but unsurprisingly innaccurate.
I think there's a ratio of the actual degrees of cuteness to talent, with a surplus of one denoting a deficiency of the other.
Here is the junior Taiko drumming troop pictures all together. Considering that the taiko sticks are bigger than some of them, they performed admirably, until the littlest girl drummed her own finger. Ouch.
Can I borrow your kids, Kimiko?
I asked to take a picture of this woman and she instantly started borrowing children from her friends and neighbors to pose with her. The bigger the herd the happier the mother? I don't know what was going on with this.
Artsy, low light to catch the swirling motions.
At the end of the day, the sweetest comfort to a world (and heat) weary foreigner is to see that no matter what culture, no child can resist the lure of a festival-bought glow bracelet and necklace in the dark. And that at least 25% of them will lodge them in trees while tossing them up and down.
Ah, cultural symmetry.
EDIT - YOUTUBE ROCKS.
2 videos incoming!
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3L2TXXNa5o
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf-LfYzVtyM
