Japanese Igloo Festival – Kamakura Matsuri in Yokote

Japanese Igloo Festival
Kamakura Matsuri

Kamakura Matsuri – Japanese Igloo Festival in the northern Japanese city of Yokote

In the small city of Yokote in northern Japan, the citizens eschew the modern conveniences of warm homes in the middle of February and pile into small snow huts known as Kamakura. It’s the Kamakura Matsuri and they’ve been doing this for over 400 years.

Sori – old fashion sled for transporting toddlers and supplies

Kamakura occupants wearing old fashion hanten coats or donbuku in the Akita dialect

These Kamamura-style igloos are two meters in diameter made of piled-up snow which is then later hollowed out. Inside is a charcoal brazier in the middle to keep the place warm. The temporary inhabitants of these Kamakura sit on cushions while cooking sweet mochi which is a type of a chewy rice cake and heating up a type of non-alcoholic sweet-tasting type of sake known as amazake.

On the far side wall is a makeshift altar to Suijin-sama, the Shinto god of water. One of the origins of the festival is that one time Yokote suffered from a lack of drinking water and the Kamakura were erected to get Suijin-sama’s attention. Suijin-sama’s attention is also requested in the form of rain in order to provide enough water for the coming planting season.

Visitors are invited to enter the Kamakura and freely partake of the mochi and amazake. Many of the occupants of the Kamakura are rather short. This is due to the fact that many local children play house in the snow huts. They are the hosts and hostesses which explains why it’s hard to find hot sake or beer in many of the Kamakura. The ones with bigger inhabitants will sometimes have the necessary liquid refreshment.

Cooking mochi

In addition to the charcoal braziers, the locals stay warm by wearing a straw cape called mino and a traditional winter coat known as a hanten. Hanten is a short winter coat with thick cotton padding which became popular in the 18th Century. In the Akita dialect it is called a donbuku or donbugu by older generations.

Yokote Castle 

Most of the Kamakura snow huts can hold up to about 4-6 people but at the end of the evening I ended up in one that held 17 people! These were all full grown people so there was booze a-plenty leaving me very warm that cold night but with a raging headache the next morning.

The Kamakura Festival is a simple but beautiful festival and it’s very friendly and inviting. The festival is held every year February 15th and 16th from 6pm to 9pm.

Hundreds of miniature kamakura dot the city of Yokote

Nishimonai Bon Odori – Japanese Dance for the Dead Video

In the small town of Nishimonai in the northern prefecture of Akita, the locals perform a Bon Odori – a special dance for Obon which is a time for honoring the ancestors.

The Nishimonai Bon Odori is unique in that some of the dancers were a black hood to represents the spirits of the deceased. Other dancers wear a patchwork kimono of silk fabric known as hanui and a woven straw hat called a amigasa.

You can’t see the faces of the dancers which gives the whole dance a kind of surreal quality.

For those practicing Japanese, take the challenge in seeing if you can comprehend the Akita-ben (dialect) of the singers.

Nishimonai Bon Odori – Japanese Dance for the Dead

Japanese Town Dances to Remember the Dead
Nishimonai Bon Odori

Nishimonai Bon Odori – Japanese Dance for the Dead

Obon is the time in Japan to pay respect to ancestral spirits. Japanese will travel to their home towns in order to pray at their ancestors’ graves. It’s believed the spirits of the departed return during the 3-day holiday – mainly in mid-August. These returning spirits are not to be feared like the ones that come with Halloween. In fact, they are welcomed and many communities put on a variety of celebrations.

Some dancers wear a black hood to represent deceased spirits

One of the most common features of Obon is the Bon Odori, a special dance for Obon. Bon Odori dances vary from region to region each having their own particular form.

Some of the dancers wear a straw hat known as amigasa

In the small town of Nishimonai in the northern prefecture of Akita, the locals perform a Bon Odori which is a mixture of an old harvest dance and a memorial to a fallen samurai lord.

The Nishimonai Bon Odori is unique in that some of the dancers were a black hood to represents the spirits of the deceased. Other dancers wear a patchwork kimono of silk fabric known as hanui and a woven straw hat called a amigasa.

Some dancers wear hanui a patchwork kimono of silk fabric

The dancers’ faces are obscured by the hoods and straw hats giving the dance a surreal ghostly-like quality.

The singers sing in the old Akita dialect which many Japanese outside of Akita have difficulty understanding.

The Nishimonai Bon Odori takes place just after the traditional dates for Obon from August 16-18, the big day being the 18th where the dance lasts for several hours in the evening.

Funekko Nagashi – Japanese Boat-Burning Festival Video

Here’s a video on a Japanese Boat-Burning festival known as Funekko Nagashi which takes place in the northern city of Morioka. The festival is part of the Obon tradition, a time when many Japanese travel to their hometowns to pray at their ancestors’ graves.

Here they contruct makeshift boats, pack them with fireworks, and set fire to them as they float down the river.

Japanese Ghost Stories – The Demon-Haunted Bridge

In Old Japan, ghost stories were a form of old fashion all natural air conditioning designed to induce cold shivers on hot summer nights.

Here I re-tell an old story about a samurai who risks his life for a wager to prove his courage by crossing a bridge haunted by a demon.

The story can be found in “Japanese Tales” an anthology of old stories compiled by Royall Tyler.

Japanese Devils Scare the Laziness out of Kids

Japanese Devils Scare the Laziness out of Kids
Namahage – Japanese Devils with a Strong Work Ethic

Namahage – the bane of lazy children

“Twas the night before my skinning…”
Imagine you were a young child living in the Northwestern part of Japan on the small peninsula of Oga. It’s the holiday season and instead of waiting eagerly for fat jolly old elf with a sack full of toys to bring you presents, you’re dreading the arrival of a bunch of hairy scary devils with a handful of butcher knives who threaten to peel off your skin if you’ve have been lazy all year. It makes the lump of coal Santa Claus leaves with naughty children pale in comparison. If you can get your head around that, perhaps you can understand this bizarre bit of psychological child abuse known as the Namahage.

Part of the Oga Welcoming Committee

Namahage come in a variety of shapes and colors throughout Oga

The Namahage are Japanese devils who visit villages on the Oga peninsula every New Year’s Eve. They wear straw coats, carry large kitchen knives, and wooden buckets. They come in the night down from their mountain homes howling and waving torches. The Namahage burst into homes stomping about looking for lazy children. If the children are hiding, the Namahage will flush them out threatening to take them into the mountains.

Namahage are your childhood nightmares in the flesh

Namahage stomps around the house looking for hiding children

The head of the household will try to appease the devils with a specially prepared meal accompanied with sake. He assures them that no one has been lazy in his household. Then the Namahage seeing all from their mountaintop look into their secret book which records the doings of every household and challenge that statement. The head of the household again promises that all have been obedient and hard-working and pleads with the devils not to take his wife and children into the mountains. It takes considerable effort to control these devils with their strong work-ethic.

Hard Negotiations with Namahage

As the negotiations drag on, the head of the household offers more sake and along with mochi – rice cake – while begging that his wife and child not be taken away. Eventually the Namahage relent placated by the offerings and the sincerity of the head of the household. They bless the next year’s harvest and wish good health to all the members of the household. As the Namahage leave, they promise (or rather threaten) to return next year.

Devils Coming Thru!

Namahage – Oga’s unofficial ambassador

For children the whole experience can be rather nerve-wracking. When the Namahage arrive they immediately seek out any hiding children and make as though they will take off with them right then and there. The parents or grandparents make a show of trying to save their child without much luck and only through careful negotiation amply accompanied with sake are they successful. Thus children learn gratitude for being saved from drudgery of working in the mountains for the harsh Namahage.

In the old days, Namahage terrorized both lazy children and wives

In olden times, communities in areas such as Oga could not afford the luxury of laziness especially with the winters as long and harsh as they are. It’s not difficult to understand why community leaders would have gone to such efforts to instill a strong work ethic in their youth. Today the ritual is traditional. In the past it was a more serious matter – teaching the youth to work hard for their community’s survival and their own.

Namahage have a strong work ethic

The original legend runs that the Namahage Devils arrived from China and caused the people of Oga much trouble. A deal was struck between the people and the Namahage that if the Namahage could build a thousand-step staircase for the main shrine in a single night, the people would supply them with a young woman every year; but if they failed, they would leave the people alone. The Namahage readily agreed and set to work.

Namahage working hard to win their wager

The lusty devils were so efficient that by the end of the night they had only one stone left to lay before dawn even hinted in the sky. One fast-thinking person however came to the rescue and mimicked the cry of a rooster thus signaling that dawn had arrived. The Namahage, believing they had lost, left and went into the mountains but they return every year for their pound of flesh.

A Namahage hears a mimicked rooster and thinks they have lost

The Namahage go into the mountains but promise to return once a year

There are several theories as to the origins of the Namahage. One theory is that Namahage are derived from an ancient mountain deity. There are many native traditions of gods coming for a visit – though not quite with the fanfare of the Namahage. Another theory is that they are based on Yamabushi – shinto priest who leaved hermit-like existence in the mountain.

Yamabushi – Shinto Hermit Priest – one suspect for the Namahage origin

Yet another theory hints that the Namahage might be based on shipwrecked sailors from Europe most likely Russia. Given the age of festival, it could be that they were those hardy explorers, the Vikings. It would explain the trouble they caused probably in foraging raids and the bet with the supply of woman.

Shipwreck Foriegners might be another possible origin of the Namahage

The name “namahage” comes from the local dialect. “Nama” refers to the patch of skin that forms on the skin if someone sits too long at the fire ie being lazy. “Hage” means to scrap away the mark. This is why the Namahage carry their large knives to scrape away the laziness of their victims.

Namahage carry large knives to scrape the laziness from victims

For travelers, New Years is not a good time to see Namahage as it’s primarily a private affair. Participating households don’t want a bunch of camera-flashing tourists to ruin the effect of scaring their kids straight. Some of the local hotels arrange Namahage visitations but given it’s the New Years the whole thing can be rather pricey. Fortunately for the Namahage-seeker, there is the Namahage Museum in Oga where year-round, they can see a performance of the New Years’ event sans the crying children.

Making a Namahage Mask at the Namahage Museum

Visitors can become a Namahage at the Namahage Museum

In February, there is the Sedo Matsuri or simply the Namahage Festival which takes place next to the Namahage Museum in Oga. In the evening several men come down a hillside wearing straw coats. Near the shrine, two Shinto priests bless Namahage masks then precede to mask the men. Once they are all masked, they begin stomping and howling. Thus the Namahage are born.

Dancing Devil

A little while later they come down again with blazing torches. While young children cry and hide, others chase after the Namahage seeking to grasp a straw from their coats for good luck. Some of the Namahage dance, some of them play Taiko drums, and some of those of softer disposition play Rock, Paper, Scissors with children brave enough to match wit and hand with the Namahage.

Namahage playing Rock, Paper, Scissors

Drumming Devils

At the end of the festival, a priest presents an offering of mochi – rice cake – burnt black on a fire. The Namahage grudgingly accept the offering then return to their mountain lair. But everyone knows the Namahage keep watch on them and will be back without fail next year.

Priest offering mochi to Namahage

The Namahage promise/threaten to return next year

Setsubun 2009 – Sumo, J-Pop Cuties, Samurai & Fighting Monks

Setsubun 2009
Sumo, J-Pop Cuties, Samurai & Fighting Monks

A Japanese Setsubun Devil Preparing for his Annual Exorcism

Setsubun is one of my favorite Japanese traditions. It’s the day that Japanese seek to drive bad luck or evil out of their homes by throwing beans.The bad luck is personified as devils known as Oni. Oni apparently have an acute allergy to beans which causes them to go blind. People throw beans and eat them to effectively ward off the evil of the dreaded Oni.

Mame-maki – throwing beans and other items at a shrine in Tokyo

At temples and shrines, crowds gather to have beans thrown to them. This is known as mame-maki. Priests and local dignitaries sometimes celebrities will throw beans and other items which people try to catch for good luck.

Prayer Sticks burned at a Tokyo Temple in order to convey their messages Heavenward on Setsubun

I’ve been going to temples and shrines in and around Tokyo for the last four or five years to celebrate Setsubun. I always take the day off if I am scheduled to work that day. I usually try to hit 2-3 places for Setsubun festivities. This year I was able to squeeze in four Setsubun ceremonies though I actually started my Setsubun a little early.

Setsubun Parade in Shimokitazawa

Long Nose Goblin (Tengu) Float

On January 31st, I went to the small neighborhood of Shimokitazawa in western Tokyo. There they have their Setsubun celebration on the weekend before Setsubun (Setsubun is always Feb. 3rd). Leading the procession is long nose goblin known as Tengu. The Tengu is a mythical creature known for being both mischievous and kind. Some of them trained the hero Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune on Mt. Kurama near Kyoto almost a thousand years ago.

Two Tengu side with the humans against Setsubun Devils

Tengu and Company

The Tengu is the guardian spirit for the local temple in Shimokitazawa. With him is a Karasu Tengu or Crow Tengu. This Tengu has the face of a crow and follows the long nose Tengu. Now at first glance, one might think these two were part of the hoary hordes of devils to be chased away but perhaps the Tengu seeing which way the wind was blowing decided to align themselves with the humans on Setsubun.

A Long Nose Tengu

Karasu (Crow) Tengu

L’il Tengu

On the day of Setsubun itself, I started the day early around 9 am heading an hour east of Tokyo to the city of Narita. Narita has one of the largest Setsubun celebrations in Japan. It certainly was the most crowded Setsubun event I had ever attended. A large number of police were there to guide the crowd. Due to the press of people, the police issued a warning to people not to reach for beans that fell to the ground for fear injuries would result.

Naritasan Shinshoji Temple

One of the main reasons that Narita draws such a large crowd is their celebrity power. Narita brings out the Yokozuna – sumo champion – and some of the big name celebrities at the height of their popularity. This year, several of the actors of this year’s samurai drama were in attendance throwing beans. One of them was former Prime Minister Koizumi’s son.

Yokozuna (sumo champion) Asashoryu and Hakuho

Yokozuna Asashoryu preparing to throw some beans

I was too far in the back of the crowd to be in any danger of being hit in the face by a strong-armed sumo wrestler (like I was last year) or get crushed by bean-catching crowds. Once the madness had passed, I left Narita and headed back into Tokyo; this time to Kanda Myojin Shrine. I went there last year during a sudden snow storm which I assumed was the work of Setsubun devils since they also represent Winter. This year, it was unseasonably warm – perhaps the devils have switched their tactics and are now promoting Global Warming.

Mame-maki Maid – Akihabara is close by the shrine

Ancient Imperial Guards

At Myojin Shrine there were also some celebrities such as Dengeki Network and AKB48. Dengeki Network known in English as Tokyo Shock Boys is a comedy stunt troupe known for their extreme and crude acts like lighting fire-crackers in their posterior. AKB48 is a dance idol group based in Tokyo’s electronic and anime mecca, Akihabara. They’re popular with Akihabara types.

Dengeki Station – Tokyo Shock Boys

AKB48 – Akihabara’s Jailbait Dance Troupe

Although I got hit in the head with an orange, I still managed to catch a few chocolates at this mame-maki. Afterwards, I headed west towards Nakano in Western Tokyo. Here at a small temple called Hosen-ji I saw once again the small parade of warrior monks which I had first seen several years ago.

Warrior Monks – Sohei – armed with Naginata

Shellblowing Sohei

Warrior monks known as sohei were once a troublesome class of Buddhist Priests who used to dispense Buddha’s Blessings with the sharp edge of a naginata. They quarreled amongst themselves, with the Imperial Court, and with local Daimyo (warlords). They needled one daimyo so much that he finally decided that enough was enough and promptly set out to burn them out – literally. This was Oda Nobunaga one of the great unifiers of premodern Japan and the site of his vengeance was Enryaku-ji Temple on Mt. Hiei north of Kyoto. In 1571, he razed many of the temples there, killing and burning to death several thousand priests and their families.

Snoozy Sohei

The sohei of Hosen-ji were of milder disposition being that most had seen far too many Setsubun to be of any threat to anyone. After the aging sohei were seated, a bonfire was lit and prayer sticks were burnt in order to convey their messages heavenward.

Chanting Priest

I did not stick around for the mame-maki session as I had one more place to visit but I did get a spot of sake and an orange for my troubles. I then headed swiftly northwards to the town on Ashikaga in Tochigi Prefecture which is almost two hours outside of Tokyo.

Ashikaga Samurai

Ashikaga is a small town that was the hometown of the ancestors of the Ashikaga Shoguns (1336-1573). To celebrate Setsubun and their town’s past, Ashikaga puts on a procession of armored samurai. The armor covers the time period of the 12th Century to the beginning of the 17th Century, a time when Japan entered a period of peace known as the Edo Era when armor was no longer a necessity.

Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune – hero of the Gempei War (1159-1189)

At the local temple, the armored samurai performed a short mame-maki. Afterwards, certain samurai went around back to fire their old-style guns. From the mid-16th Century when guns were first introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders to the early 17th Century, guns played a major role in samurai warfare. When the shooting samurai had fired their last shot, a bonfire was lit and the all the samurai did a rallying cry. Then the ceremony concluded and with that my long Setsubun finally drew to a close at 9 o’clock at night – but I still had a long train ride back home! The devils of bad luck and winter had been defeated but the devils of sleep were demanding their due and there weren’t enough beans to drive them away.

Remembering the Great War – November 11th

Remembering the ‘Great War’
Nov. 11 marks 90th anniversary of WWI’s end

Trench warfare – static and deadly – became the norm for most of World War I

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.”
Wilfred Owen – died 1918

Ninety years ago at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the great guns fell silent and Europe experienced a silence it had not known in years. It was the end of the “Great War,” the War to end all Wars. Today, we know that was a hopeful but futile sentiment as the War to end all Wars is now known as World War I.

Two bullets and a lost driver set off a powder keg whose explosion engulfed Europe. In the summer of 1914, a driver made a wrong turn and ended up in the path of a young assassin who had actually given up trying find his intended target and was just finishing off a sandwich. The young assassin was a Serbian belonging to a radical group known as the Black Hand. Their target was the Arch-Duke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who was touring Sarajevo. They had tried earlier that day to assassinate him but failed. Now Fate through the hands of a lost driver delivered the Arch-Duke into one of the assassin’s hands who took full advantage of his good luck and fired his pistol killing Ferdinand.

The assassination caused the collapse of the house of cards that were the national alliances of the day. Austria-Hungary with German support declared war on Serbia. Russia was allied with Serbia so they entered the war. France was allied with Russia and so they entered the war. Germany in order to swiftly attack France violated Belgium’s borders by crossing it with their troops. Britain had an alliance with Belgium and so they entered the war. Eventually other nations would enter the war as well including the United States.

World War I in many ways was the “War to end all Wars” in that it was every war past and future rolled up into one. There were Napoleonic charges, aerial bombardment, a few misguided cavalry charges with actual horses, tanks, machine guns, artillery barrages, air combat, poison gas attacks, flamethrowers, submarine warfare, and primitive hand-to-hand fighting that came down to knives, sharpened spades, and clubs. The future met the past in a brutal collision.

Soldiers dehumanized by their gas masks

While fighting took place in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, Russia, and the borders of Italy and Austria, the bulk of the fighting took place in the area known as the Western Front. The Western Front was a long series of extensive trenches between France and Germany stretching into Belgium where most of the intensive fighting of the war took place. So many men died in such a concentrated place.

While WWII has a far higher casualty rate, this was widespread throughout the globe. The majority of WWI casualties, however, occurred along the several hundred kilometers of the Western Front from the North Sea to the Swiss border. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the British lost over 50,000 dead and wounded in the space of a few kilometers.

Stretcher-bearers trudge through the mud with a wounded victim

The trenches were hell on earth – mud, water, snipers, artillery barrages, barbed wire, machine gun fire, and the rotting corpses of those who fell in No-Man’s Land, the deadly area between the opposing armies’ trenches. Plus there was rampant disease, lice, and rats grown fat from feeding off of corpses.

“In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.”
Siegfried Sassoon – 1918

The Second World War often gets more attention in the popular imagination. Countless movies, books, comic books, documentaries, TV shows, magazines and so on focus on the many aspects of the war. Battles, generals, strategies, policies, ideologies get constantly battered about from academic circles to office water coolers. It’s a subject many have some knowledge of whereas World War I only brings to mind to some (particularly Americans) the Red Baron, the imaginary nemesis of the Peanut’s comic strip character, Snoopy.

Manfred von Richthofen – the Red Baron – Germany’s Flying Ace

And there’s a good reason for that. With World War II there was a clear reason to fight. For the Allies, it was to defeat the conquering Nazis and Imperialist Japanese. For the Germans, it was to revenge their humiliation with the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War. For the Japanese, it was believed they were saving Asia (though they didn’t bother to ask the rest of Asia). It is easier for modern day audiences to understand the rationales and motivations of those who fought in that war.

The reasons for fighting the First World War, however, are rather vague. The motivations for the soldiers fighting are also vague. It’s hard to understand the patriotic fever which led to so many men signing up to fight a war that appeared to have been fought for the sheer hell of it and no other reason. In modern academia, the “isms” of nationalism, militarism, imperialism are blamed for causing the war.

For war enthusiasts, World War I is a hard one to get enthusiastic about. Most of the literature and films on the subject have been anti-war save for a few on WWI pilots and Sergeant York which was released when America was entering WWII.

Then there’s strategy. With WWII battles there was often a lot of planning and logistics that went into major battles on both sides. Armchair military historians can easily while away the hours discussing the many stratagems of WWII generals.

The battles of WWI on the other hand appear to have been planned by generals who were either appallingly stupid or monstrously callous to causalities that their battles produced. At the Battle of the Somme, soldiers were ordered to advance at a walking pace. This was to keep the lines orderly and lower the chances of friendly fire – it also made the British soldiers perfect targets for German machine gunners.

Soldiers make their way on catwalks over flooded trenches

The whole war in retrospect seems a comic-tragedy of epic proportions. Men died in the thousands for a few yards of earth. The British comedy series Black Adder brilliantly showed the insanity of WWI strategy in its fourth season – “Black Adder Goes Forth.” In one episode, a general is looking at a scale map of the last battle and asks his aide for the scale. His aid answers “one to one, sir!” and the general shows no surprise but is glad that 17 square feet of mud is no longer in German hands.

The Great War ended over 90 years ago but the consequences still live with us to this day. The war changed the maps, changed class systems, changed the way in which wars are fought, and changed technology. Iraq is one of those changes having been created out of the territory of the old Ottoman Empire.

Ultimately, Nov. 11 is a bittersweet day to remember the end of a terrible war and all those who died in it. Nov. 11 is also a day to reflect on the futile hope of the time that there would be no other wars to follow. If we truly wish to honor veterans, we must pledge to rid ourselves of the thing that took so many of their comrades’ lives.

World War One Airmen Heroes of the Skies Air technology changed drastically throughout the war The patriotic fever that led so many to enlist to fight in the Great War soon died in the mud of the trenches. The mud tended to swallow up heroes and with men dying in droves in the matter of minutes, the glory of war faded in the wake of grim reality. However, there was one area in which war romanticism found a new home. The Great War ushered in the age of aerial combat and it was here that heroes could be found or made. Flight was still in its infancy at the beginning of the war but it became caught up in the technological race. Planes went from observation scouts to reconnaissance observers to bombers to fighters. Fighter pilots were a new breed of soldier and they quickly became the apple of the public eye. The best of the pilots became celebrities and were wined and dined by the rich and famous. Canadian Fighter Ace William “Billy” Bishop had an audience with Britain’s monarch even. But fame could not ward off the spectre of death and even the best went down in flames. The difference though between the death of the landlocked soldier and the pilot was that the former often died anonymously while the other could reap headlines and a formal funeral. The death of aces, though, could also shock an entire nation as it did with the deaths of the famous Red Baron and the beloved French ace Georges Guynemer.

Golden Dragon Dance of Tokyo Video

Kinryu-no-Mai or Golden Dragon Dance is performed every year in Asakusa, Tokyo to celebrate the founding of Senso-ji Temple.

On March 18, 628 AD two fisherman found a small gold Buddhist statue in the river. Supposedely, a Golden Dragon appeared in the sky to mark the event. A temple was built for the statue and Asakusa grew from then on.

Music by the Secret Commonwealth:

The Secret Commonwealth

The Golden Dragon Dance of Tokyo

The Golden Dragon Dance of Tokyo
Golden Dragon Dance Celebrates Asakusa’s Beginning

The Golden Dragon of Asakusa

Once a year in Asakusa, located in the northeast edge of Tokyo, a special kind of early spring ritual dance is held. The dance — called “Kinryu-no-Mai” in Japanese — is conducted not by people but by a golden dragon.

Naturally, it’s not a real dragon but the dance commemorates the visitation of a “real” dragon of golden hue that appeared over 1,300 years ago.

The golden dragon entertains the crowd.

The golden dragon of today is merely a diminutive representation of the mighty majestic beast that dropped from the heavens one day long ago. The copy is a mere 15 meters long and weighs in at 75 kilos, while the real one was reportedly 30 meters long and weighed who knows what.

The golden dragon at rest

What brought about this unexpected celestial visitation was the discovery of a small golden statuette of a Buddhist deity by two fishermen in the Sumida River on March 18, 628. The statue depicted Kannon, a popular deity known for her compassion in the face of human suffering.

Touching the dragon’s head is thought to bring good fortune.

This small statue was enshrined and the area later became a popular spot for pilgrims. Over time, the village of Asakusa expanded and its temple, Sensoji, where the statue was kept, grew in importance.

Had the visiting dragon been of Western extraction, it no doubt would have devoured the two fishermen on the spot and made off with the golden statue and taken it to its private hoard.

The golden dragon about to devour a photographer

Oriental dragons, however, are generally more benevolent. They’re known for dispensing wisdom and happiness rather than fire and poisonous fumes.

Golden dragons are rarely seen because they are often invisible. They only appear at certain moments to mark auspicious events, as one dragon did when the Kannon statue was found.

Ladies in Geisha costume provide the Golden Dragon with Traditional music to dance to

The golden dragon dance is held in honor of both the dragon’s visit and the statue’s discovery which basically help to create Asakusa. Eight men hold the dragon aloft on poles and twist it about while ladies made up like geishas play music on traditional instruments. The dragon dances three times before it disappears for another year.

A mural of the dragon dance on the wall of Asakusa Station