Annual Hachioji Matsuri (Hachioji Festival) Is Coming Soon!

Annual Hachioji Festival will be held between August 4th (Friday) and 6th (Sunday)! It is one of the major traditional festivals in Tokyo area which people can enjoy watching Mikoshi (portable shrines) and Dashi (decorated festival carts), typical traditional Japanese festival items.

In Hachioji Festival, usually about 20 Dashi carts march along the National Road 20. Moreover, the oldest Dashi cart in Hachioji which was build in Samurai era is going to be displayed after 30 years storage. It was repaired as one of the projects for 100th anniversary of Hachioji City this year.

Please look at the photo of Dashi carts displaying the names of the neighborhood communities. None of them look the same. They also vie for people’s attention with their festival music and performances on their Dashi carts. Watching the competition of Dashi carts is definitely one of the biggest attractions of the festival! 

How about coming to see which design you like the best? 

A Good Chance To See Traditional Festival Stuff in Hachioji

This weekend (July 8th and 9th), the 16th annual Hachioji Summer Market (Natsu-no-Fubutsu Ichi) is being held near JR Hachioji Station. 

Along the Nishi-Hoshasen You Road (laid out from the north exit of JR Hachioji Station ) you can stroll around the Asagao-Ichi (Morning Glory Market) to see stalls selling traditional style wind chimes and local goodies. 

There are more traditional old-days style festival stalls selling goods or food which comes with some entertainment aspect. The entertainment can be fishing small balloons floating on a big tank of water, scooping gold fish from a big fish tank. At traditional candy stalls, people can ask for a candy made into any shape they want as shown in the upper right hand side photo. In addition, traditional paper-cutting stalls, where people can request any designs, are poplar among little kids.

Hachioji is one of the few towns that still have Geisha and you can see Hachioji Geishas selling morning glory planters at the Asagao Ichi (The Morning Glory Market). It can be a good opportunity to take photos of Geisha ladies and talk to them. Last year, even Geisha shows were held at this event. Traditional dance and traditional games for Geisha parties were showcased. (I introduced a short movie of Geisha's dance recorded at this event last year. To see the post, please click here!)

The annual Hachioji Summer Market a nice local seasonal event!

Would Scary Ghost Stories Work Well To Blow Away Summer Heat?

I have been introducing Japanese summer seasonal stuff recently, such as traditional summer festivals, fireworks festivals, and so on. There is another typical summer activity people have been enjoying since old days. It is "listening ghost stories". Yes, scary ghost stories are often considered as summer seasonal stuff in Japan.

Why? When people listen ghost stories, the more scary the stories are the more people would feel cold shivers. It has been an ancestral wisdom against summer heat known among common people from the time without air-conditioning machines.  

People can listen these scary stories narrated by professional performers since Japan has a traditional entertainment performance of story telling called "Rakugo". Although it is often introduced as traditional arts of comedy talk, it actually includes hart-warming stories, scary stories, and love stories in addition to funny stories.

Between the Samurai era and early modern era listening scary type of "Rakugo" was very popular during summer, and at that time "Rakugo" performers used drawings of ghosts or scary masks for their staging effects. Listening scary stories surrounded by ghost drawings or monster masks under candle lights sounds enough frightening to feel a cold shiver even today!

Actually there is an annual exhibition held at a temple in Ueno, Tokyo, which you can experience the atmosphere of these old times scary "Rakugo" show. A famous past "Rakugo" performer named Sanyutei Encho had a private collection of ghost drawings. He was famous for a master of scary type of "Rakugo" and that's why he collected these drawings. The exhibition is called "Yanaka Encho Festival" and showing his collections every summer.

Last summer, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music collaborated with the festival and held another special exhibition of ghost drawings as you can see in the upper photo. Unfortunately they don't have it this year, but "Yanaka Encho Festival" is being held as usual at Ueno Zenshoan Temple (5-4-7, Yanaka, Taito-ku, Tokyo) until August 31st as shown in the lower left hand side photo. In addition, another ghost drawings exhibition is being held at Edo-Tokyo Museum until September 25th. 

By the way, there is a typical image of ghosts in Japan. It looks like the drawing in the lower right hand side photo. A woman with a long tousled hair wearing white kimono and doesn't have legs. Apparently the typical image was created during the Samurai era. Some says a famous painter at that time drew this style first, then it was loved so much and spread quickly as the most common style for ghosts. 

What's more, the typical ghosts even have a routine action, such as holding their hands like shown in the drawing above and saying "Urameshiya-(I'm having a grudge...)". Well, if you hear the word when you are passing a graveyard there might be a Japanese ghost!

Fireworks Festival Season Just Started In Japan!

In Japan fireworks festivals are generally considered as seasonal events in summer. In fact most of those festivals are held during summer vacation season and it just started. We can find many fireworks festivals all over Japan between the end of July and August. It is said that the origin was “Sumida-River Fireworks Festival” in 1733, which became the biggest fireworks festival in Japan. 

From 1603 Japan was ruled by Tokugawa family's Shogunate government 1867. Thus Japan didn't have a big war for more than 260 years. People started using gunpowder for entertainments, such as fireworks, and the techniques was improved to aerial shell types. 

In 1733, the 8th Shogun planned the first big fireworks event in mid-summer. It was to pray for the repose of the victims who died in a terrible famine and an epidemic in 1732. The Japanese word for fireworks is "Hanabi" and it actually means 'fire-flowers', so maybe the Shogun planned to offer flowers in the Sky for the deceased. The event was held on the opening day of swimming season at Sumida-River in Tokyo and since then the festival has been held every summer and now it is called  “Sumida-River Fireworks Festival”.

Probably this annual fireworks event gave people an impression of "fireworks are summer seasonal stuff". Nowadays there are many annual fireworks festivals all over Japan, and many of them are held during summer. Also the spirit of fire-flowers, which is for prayers/wishes, have been carried down, too. So if you have a chance to visit some local fireworks festivals, you can find 'Offering Fireworks' in their written programs or announcements at the festivals. Of course nowadays we don't have any serious famine and epidemics, so people's prayers/wishes are usually more personal, such as 'for the sake of family member's health' and 'for some anniversaries'. People donate money and ask for setting off an offering fireworks. Although local fireworks festivals are much smaller in scale than famous major fireworks festivals, it's also nice to go. You can see flowers for people's prayers/wishes in the sky!

(The photos were taken at Hachioji Fireworks Festival in Hachioji city, Tokyo.)

Good Chance To See Traditional Festival Stuff, Annual Hachioji Summer Market Is Being Held!

This weekend (July 2nd and 3rd, from 9:00am to 7pm), the annual Hachioji Summer Market (Natsu-no-Fubutsu Ichi) is being held around JR Hachioji Station. 

Along the Nishi-Hoshasen You Road (laid out from the north exit of JR Hachioji Station ) you can stroll around the Asagao-Ichi (Morning Glory Market) and stalls selling traditional style wind chimes and local goodies. 

There are more traditional old-days style festival stalls, which are not just selling goods/food. They also have entertainment aspects. People can enjoy getting the goods/food after they paid for it, for example, fishing small balloons floating on the water in a big tank, scooping gold fishes from a big fish tank. At traditional candy stalls, people can order to form the candy into any shape they want to have as you can see in the upper right hand side photo. Also traditional paper-cutting stalls, which cut paper into any shape by people's requests, are poplar among little kids.

In addition, since Hachioji is one of the few towns which still have Geisha people. You can see Hachioji Geisha ladies at the Morning Glory Market. What's more, there are Geisha shows on Ekimae-Ginza Street twice a day at 1pm and 2:30pm. they show traditional dance and traditional games for Geisha parties. There will be a time to take photos with Geisha ladies after the show. 

It's a nice local seasonal event!

Photos of Geisha's Performance at Hachioji Festival in West Tokyo

The photos above were taken at Hachioji Festival. As I introduced a couple of times previuously, Hachioji downtown is one of the towns which real Geisha are still working. Historically Hachioji had been a big post town famous for silk fabric. The downtown prospered and more than hundred Geishas were working at one time but that number dwindled as the silk business decline.

Apparently there are 18 Geishas still working in Hachioji (in 2015). Hachioji Festival is one of the good opportunities where people can see their performances for free. Every year, they show dances and play traditional instruments in the evening of the first day of the festival.

Last year, a newcomer was introduced on the stage. She is the one who wears a light purple Kimono with very long sleeves in the lower photos. Actually she was a teenager therefore was still in training. geisha's work involves serving alcohols at parties and she had not yet reached Japanese legal age of drinking/serving alcohol. She was in training to be Geisha but it was okay to appear in a dance with other Geishas.

Perhaps we could call her “Geisha Intern”, but actually there is a special word for her status. The girls on training to be Geisha, are called “Hangyoku” and the translation is “Half Jewel”. The name came from an old custom that the price for a Geisha was called “Jewel Fee” and the charge for intern girls was half of a Geisha since they were still trainees.

By the way, “Half Jewel” and “Jewel Fee” were used in Tokyo area only because the circumstance and the culture about Geisha are different between regions. For example, in Kyoto which is the most famous place for Geisha where people can frequently see Geishas on the streets, the intern girls are called “Maiko”. It means “Dance Girl”, and Geishas are called “Geiko” in Kyoto. Even the name of the price for a Geisha was called differently, which was “Ohanadai” and it means “Flower Fee”.

There are more posts about Hachioji Festival and Geisha in 2016!

A Short Movie Of Traditional Festival Cart At Hachioji Summer Festival, Hachioji-City Tokyo

August is one of the major vacation period for Japanese people and also it is a time of festivals. Traditionally Japanese towns are divided into small neighborhoods and people in each neighborhood make up a community called “Chonaikai” which literally means "Neighborhood Association in Town Blocks". In Japan "Chonaikai" is usually the smallest unit of local communities.

Old towns such as Hachioji-City in Tokyo still keep the traditional activities based on “Chonaikai”. There are around 20 “Chonaikai”s along Rd.20, a historical national road in Hachioji downtown, with their own traditional festival carts called "Dashi" or portable shrines designed for festivals called "Mikoshi" belonging to their neighborhood shrines. 

“Chonaikai” come together for Hachioji Festival every year, held for. Three days in the first weekend in August. During the festival people in each “Chonaikai” walk on Rd.20 pulling their festival carts and playing their festival music. The movie above shows one of the festival carts pulled by the “Chonaikai” people along Rd.20.

There are more posts about Hachioji Festival, Dashi (Festival carts) and Mikoshi (Portable shries) on this website! Please check!

Post on August 4th 2016 "Ready for Summer Festivals? Traditional Items for Festivals"

Post on  August 6th 2016 "Annual Hachioji Festival, Look At Various Festival Carts!"

Post on August 8th 2016 "How Do Festival Cart Vie In Music At Hachioji Festival?"

Post on August 11th 2016 "Mikoshi Gathering At The End Of Hachioji Festival"

Post on August 13th 2016 "Hachioji Festival Just Achieved A New Record Recognized By The Guinness Book"