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? 

Ready For Japanese Summer Festivals? Here Are Some Main Items Of Traditional Festivals

Now many places are going to have summer festivals same as fireworks festivals which I have introduced in my previous posts! The annual Hachioji Festival will take place from this Friday to Sunday. There will be many traditional festival items and stalls along Rd.20 near Hachioji Station.

What are traditional festival items? I'd like to introduce most common two items here. One is "Mikoshi" which is shown on the upper row of the photos and the other is "Dashi" which is shown on the lower row of the photos. 

Mikoshi are portable shrines. Each Mikoshi belongs to a Japanese Shinto shrine and it is used for carrying the god/gods of the shrine during festivals and ceremonies. (It is also called Omikoshi since the prefix "o" adds politeness/respect to a noun in Japanese language.) Mukoshi bears a structure of a shrine with a special shape of Shinto shrine gate called "Torii" as you can see in the photo in the middle of upper row. During non-festival times, offerings are placed in front of Mikoshi as shown in the upper left end photo.

On the other hand, Dashi are decorated festival carts although the name can be different depending on the area. They also belong to shrines, but they are designed for festival's performances, so they always carry people. As you can see in the photos, there are drums on the cart for musicians and masked performers positioned in the front row. People can also stand on the roof to give directions to the people pulling the cart. The role of standing on the roof of Dashi would be a star position at festivals.

Both Mikoshi and Dashi are usually maintained by a neighborhood community around the shrine they belong to. For example, in Hachioji downtown, there are small neighborhood communities called "Chonai-kai (town association)" in every few blocks and each community has at least one local shrine. The community people take care of the shrine and they carry Mikoshi and pull Dashi at Festivals. It is a traditional form of Japanese town and the city of Hachioji, which has a long history as an old post town, still maintain it. 

Although not all of the shrines have both Mikoshi and Dashi, for Hachioji Festival, all Mikoshi and Dashi in the downtown area will be on the National Rd.20 (Koshu-kaido). There will be a total of 21 Mikoshi and 19 Dashi this year!

Even if you are just a visitor, you can join in to pull Dashi at Hachioji Festival. Some of the neighborhood communities are inviting people to pull Dashi together. It will be a fun experience!

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"