I introduced about "ginkgo nuts picking" on my another blog "Yuko's Japan Guide" previously on November 15th. Actually ginkgo is the City Tree of Hachioji because ginkgo trees line a 4 km (2.5 miles) long stretch on the roadside of Rd.20 (Koshu Kaudo) which is one of the oldest national road passing through Hachioji City, and the autumn view of it is one of the notable scenery in Hachioji.
Thus, a local festival under the ginkgo trees on Rd.20 (Koshu-kaido) started 37 yeas ago and named "Hachioji Ichou Festa". Ichou is the Japanese word for Ginkgo. This year, it will take place this weekend, between November 19th and 20th. There will be various parades and performances, such as a classic car parade, a Samurai parade, traditional drum performances, and dance performances under the ginkgo trees during the festival. Also several shop areas for food stalls and local items will be set up between Takao station and Oiwake intersection.
Besides the parades and performances, the festival has an interesting activity similar to stamp-collecting activity every year. Wooden passes called "Tsuko Tegata", which is the word for a kind of permission for travelers during Samurai era, are sold at the festival area and visitors can enjoy collecting branding of neighborhood areas' names along the Rd.20 (Koshu-kaido) as you can see in the lower center and left end photo. There are 12 checkpoints to provide the branding in the festival area. Perhaps it is like an old-days travel that people had to go through checkpoints to show their permission (Tsuko Tegata) on their way.
It would be fun to experience how people travel in old days, and the wooden pass would be a nice souvenir of Japan. In addition to it, when you completed to get all branding of the 12 neighborhood areas' names, you can also get some remembrance of the activity.
Hope the weather will be nice and you can enjoy gorgeous golden color of ginkgo leaves at the festival!
In these days, Sumo wrestling is usually featured as "The National Sports of Japan", but originally it was started as a ritual for gods in ancient times. The matches were offering performances for gods in the early days. Thus, professional Sumo wrestling still has many aspects as a ritual in the manners and rules.
Also, as the original style of Sumo, Sumo-related rituals has been kept at many local shrines all over Japan. Today, I'd like to introduce an annual local event called "Cry Sumo" which is held in Koyasu Shrine located near Hachioji Station. This event has been well-known locally, so, on last Wednesday, autumnal equinox day, many families visited this shrine and applied to the Sumo even in rain.
A you can see in the photos, the contestants of this "Cry Sumo" are babies. Actually it is a Shinto ritual to pray babies' healthy growth, therefore many parents who have babies come to join this Sumo to get a blessing to their child.
What is the rules of "Cry Sumo"? At each match, about 5-6 adult Sumo wrestlers line up side by side and each wrestler holds a baby on the wooden stage on the shrine ground. Then two Gyoji (Sumo wrestling referee) try to make the babies cry, by yelling at the babies like "You cry!" as shown in the photo (1). However, please don't think "Oh, poor babies!".
For these Cry Sumo matches, babies who cry quicker and louder would be the winner. It is said that gods would hear babies' crying voices and give them a blessing. So cry louder would be better. After winners were decided, a Shinto priest pray for each baby's health with a traditional golden hummer and a shrine stuff put a red stamp for good luck on each baby's forehead as you can see in the photos (2)-(4).
Apparently more than 700 babies joined this Cry Sumo event this year. Wish the cute Sumo wrestlers healthy growth and happy life!
Japanese spider lily, “Higan-Bana” is one of the typical fall flowers in Japan. It has been growing all over Japan for long time, but it probably came from overseas because the genetics of this flowers all over Japan are identical. It is thought that one bulb was imported initially and was propagated by dividing the bulbs.
It seems that the climate in Japan well suited for this flower, so today people can enjoy seeing this flower growing abundantly in many places. Kinchakuda in Hidaka City, Saitama prefecture is one of the famous places shown in the photos above and about five million Higan-Bana flowers bloom every fall. Between September 17th to October 2nd will be the festival of Higan-bana, there.
Actually the name “Higan-Bana” means “Flower of The Other Shore”, in other word it is “Flower of Afterlife World”. Moreover it has many other names such as “Heaven’s flower”, “Dead people’s flower”, “Hell’s flower” and “Ghost’s flower”, so some people may not enjoy this flower just because of the ominous name.
Why do the names have unpleasant meaning? Probably one of the reasons came from a well-known fact that this flower is actually a dangerous plant. It is a poisonous plant with an alkaloid so that it can be deadly.
However, for just Hanami (seasonal flower viewing), it is harmless and provides us a fantastic view of fall.
