Kunchi

So I suppose it isn't too difficult to type on my day off, so let me fill you in on a few new things and my weekend at the Kunchi Festival.
First this is Imagawa Yuuki, my conversation partner (left). She speaks pretty well, but, like with my Japanese, he vocabulary is lacking so we are trying to help each other out with that this semester. She is very busy though with a lot of classes and a job all weekend, but she is hoping to visit America, but needs to develop her language skills further to be able to come (because in America there are no schools apparently that teach courses in Japanese). Also pictured is Emma, another JASIN student.

Also, apparently since Star Wars ended Darth Vader has been hanging out in Japan and doing some modeling for a local clothing store here in Nagasaki, he wasn't very talkative, but did let me take his picture.

Also, this week I came across my first real cockroach, I thought I had killed it, but today as I was sorting through my trash for disposal I can not help but notice that he is not where I left him, so now I fear for my well being and wonder what it really takes to kill one of these beasts, but I digress...

So let me share a little about Kunchi. This festival was instituted back in the early 1600s to help rekindle participation in the Shinto and Buddhist religions. At the time Nagasaki boasted the largest population of Christians in Japan and they had destroyed most the previously existing temples and shrines. Kunchi is ultimately an Autumn festival, but was also designed to help expose Christians, who had become outlaws in their practice of faith by order of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Suwa Jinja (Suwa Shrine) was built to help reestablish Shinto during this time. Three gods or "kami" reside there, the main god of the Suwa (Suwa no kami). I was unable to discover exactly which Shinto gods reside at the shrine however.
Once a year the gods are brought down from Suwa shrine to a special place to watch the festival. I was in school when they were brought down to their temporary home by the bay, but below you can see a picture of the gods (those small boxes with the bird on top) below along with some shrine maiden who were working there. I am uncertain if the shrine itself is the god, or if there is a carving within the shrine that is the god, obviously I did not think it would be appropriate to go look.

Many people were lined up at the bins to offer their prayers and offer money to the gods, I can imagine that festivals provide a fair income for shrine maintenance throughout the year.
After a brief look around I headed off with a few friends to check out the various booths (and food!) scattered over an area of more than half a mile.

Mmmm squid on a stick (Ika-yaki), so good!

Panda-man, a steamed bun will with meat, I assume it was Panda meat (yes, I'm kidding)

Over the course of three days there was nothing I did not try, Taiyaki (baked fish-shaped cakes with sweet bean paste), Ika-yaki (picture above), Yaki-tori (chicken on a skewer), Hashi-maki (a crepe-like pancake around a pair of chopsticks with various seasonings), Panda-man (picture above), Anpan (rice bun with sweet bean paste; these are very traditional and one of the few things I had to stand in a long line to get), Pineapple on a stick, and Chocolate Banana on a stick. The most interesting things with the last two items was that when you bought one you could play Jan-ken-pon (rock paper scissors) to win a second one, I never lost, but apparently other people do.

Apart from the food, there were also games, and a haunted house of sorts (below) and a bounce room for the kids (the giant gorilla seen above). I also saw a cruise ship in the harbor the Nippon Maru. This was interesting to me solely because "maru" is a ship designation in Japan in much the same way that "USS" or "SS" is attached to ship names in the US, so this ship was effectively called "Japan". Nippon, if you're unaware is the other way to say Japan (Nihon being the most common, though both use the same kanji, sun and origin, 日本).

Of course what makes this festival so much fun are the attractions, the beautiful costumes and traditional clothing along with dances and music makes for some great entertainment. There are only one or two attractions I did not get to see, unfortunately there was no dragon dance this year I included a video I found from last year's performance though), but they did have Kokkodesho, which was last performed six or seven years ago, so we were very fortunate to see that, I think I saw it five different times. The video is a little shaky because I am standing in a crowd and people are constantly shifting past me to get a better view. Below are a few dances, the first of which I saw on television the first morning of the festival.

This rabbit dance was really cute.

I apologize for the glare during the first half, it's hard to see when you have to hold the camera/phone above your head, people in Japan are not as short as I was told.

Next I have some footage of part of one of the ship dances, there were three ships I saw total, along with a wagon, and they all had similar dances. I have video of the other ships and wagon just so you can see what they looked like and a single picture taken on the way to the festival where they had one displayed out by a hotel.

Next are a few pictures to give you an idea of how many people were at these shows in various parks. There is not a lot of space in Japanese cities, and even less when over a thousand people show up at a small park to watch a performance.

 Here is another small Shinto shrine in the city, the Shinto gate, called a Torii, and the two Komainu (guardian dogs). I did learn, if you've noticed, that the pair of dogs always have one with the mouth open and one with the mouth closed. The mouth opened is voicing the "a" sound in Japanese, the closed mouth the throat sound "um" (just "n" when written in Romanji). This is the beginning and the end of the Japanese alphabet and is used in Shinto much like the Christian alpha and omega.

This is part of a Chinese Dragon Dance that I missed where two people wear the head pieces and dance around. Even if I had stayed I would not have seen much of it, the park was packed at this point watching Kokkodesho and there was almost nowhere to stand where you could see the performance well.

This brings me to Kokkodesho. People in Nagasaki love this. It is a large palanquin carried by a large number of men. Inside are several Taiko (large Japanese drum) drummers. The palanquin is moved around as the drummers play and at certain points the men heave it into the air. The skill is to keep it as level as possible. The amazing thing to me is how well the drummers manage to keep drumming even while being tossed around. The performance I managed to record is a shortened version that was performed in the street.

I looked online for a professional video, but was unable to find one.

Here is a video of last year's Dragon Dance, I wish I could have seen this too, but I guess I'll just have to come back to Japan another year to see it.

Finally, on Sunday, around 12:30 the gods set out on their nearly three hour journey home. When they reach the Suwa Shrine the god's shrines are carried up the stairs while running. After the parade are some assorted pictures of the Suwa Shrine (this was just a causual visit where I just hit the high lights, but note how many stairs there are, I've decided I don't have enough physical strength or endurance to convert to Shinto after what I saw this weekend).

The masked man in front is a Tengu, a sort of goblin, though I never realized it had ties to Shinto.

Shrine Maidens and Priests

These are the gods

After each of these processions men came with boxes to collect offerings for the shrine.

Suwa Shrine:

 The next 4 photos are from a smaller shrine on the way up to the main shrine:

 These two are obviously not Buddhas, I'll have to do some research to find out exactly what they are, but there was a prayer rack near them where you could write your prayers out and tie them to the rack.

Here is a map of the whole shrine, I only saw a small portion of this as you can probably tell from the photos. So there you have it. That was Kunchi, one of the largest festivals in Nagasaki, I feel like over the course of the weekend like I spent a week at Disneyland with all the standing around and walking. I already miss the food, even if it was expensive, I don't think I ever ate a meal for less than $15 as every booth had food for about 300 yen a serving, take that with the fact that it takes about four or five booths to make a meal and you can see how fast that adds up. Hope you enjoyed that look at life in Japan, next weekend I am going to a hot spring. Given the combination of water and bathing I probably will not be showing much in the way of pictures, but I am eager to enjoy the hot springs.
As a last little video, if you're curious as to how I ended up with a profile picture on facebook with cosplay (costume playing) girls in it, it was really easy:

Thanks goes to Evan for asking and for having a great camera!