輪島大祭 (Wajima Taisai)

Howdy doody everyone! Time for another update.

As stated in my last post, last wednesday, I was asked to read Edgard Allen Poe`s The Raven to a Japanese audience. The reading itself was quite a bizzare and surreal experience. Having never acted or done dramatic readings before, it took all of my inner strength to not burst out laughing and knowing I was speaking to an audience who had absolutely no idea what I was saying. Further compounding the hilarity of the situation was listening to the Japanese translation of The Raven that my supervisor was reading. One can only hear Nebamoru the Japanese phonetic translation of nevermore so many times before they start to crack up. Even worse, the only instance where I`ve actually heard The Raven read outloud was from The Simpsons` Halloween episode adaption. As this version was read by the sublime voice of James Earl Jones, that is precisely the voice that was running through my head the whole time. Suffice to say, I must have looked very strange trying to contort my face into serious mode the whole time. Oh, and I forgot to mention the whole thing was going to the local newspaper. Here is the article that was published:

Famous

After this rather strange episode, I got my very first taste of a Japanese matsuri (festival) last weekend. Before I go into detail about my experience, I will give a little background on Japanese  religion that I feel is important to undertand. One important aspect of religion in Japan that is important to be cognizant of is Shinto (roughly translates to the way of the gods). Shintoism and religion is a rather complicated subject and I am oversimplifying, of course, but Shinto can be thought of as Japan`s native religion. Shinto generally holds that the world is inhabited by kami (gods or spirits) and that they are present in all forms of nature in the world, from living things such as animals and trees, to inanimate objects such as rocks. Another important aspect of religion in Japan is Buddhism, which was exported to Japan via China and Korea in roughly the 6th century. One way that the Japanese concept of religion has differed greatly from many wetsern attitudes is that religious views are not neccissarily mutually exclusive. Thus, one can similtaneously be both Buddhist and Shinto at the same time. Indeed, over the years, these religions have meshed together so much that it is often very difficult to tell which traditions and temples are exclusively Buddhist and which are Shinto.

Japanese festivals are traditionally a product of this mixed Buddhist/Shinto worldview and many concern kami or incarnations of the Buddha in some fashion. Some of these are done to thank the gods for favorable historical events (such as Wajima Taisai, part of it commemorates the warding off of enemy Samurai in the 16th century), others are meant to praise a certain kami, or to ward off evil spirits. In conclusion, they are very diverse in meaning. Interestingly enough though, it would seem that the meaning is lost on many participating in the festivals and is widely used as an event to get and drunk and go CRAZY! I caps locked the word "crazy" because Wajima Taisai is very much one of the most wild celebrations in which I've ever participated. Whole streets were filled wall to wall with very inebriated (and still holding their beers and sake in hand) and very wild Japanese people.

Waiting by the kirko (portable shrines).

Anyway, Wajima Taisai goes on for four nights! Each night, different squads of very drunk Japanese carry their respective kiriko (portable shrines) throughout the streets of Wajima spinning them wildly and banging on Taiko drums the whole time. The bellow clips are of a kiriko being carried and spinned, and a guy dressed as Spiderman banging on Taiko drums (like I said, very wild party).

Who knew Spiderman was a very good drunk taiko player?

After the various squads of kiriko arrive at their destination, the festival gets even wilder. A giant pole is set up in the middle of the town where the various teams gather. The pole is then promptly set on fire because drunk people and fire is a always a good combination. It gets even better though, in the pole is a special stick that if a team grabs and returns to their base, they are granted good fortune. At this point in the festival, I felt as though I were in the middle of a mosh pit as various teams literally brawled with each other around the blazing pole to get that stick. I would post a video of it, but evidently I have reach the max amount of memory allotted in this post. Maybe I'll put it up on a different one.

In terms of getting used to life in Japan, as always, the language barrier proves to be the greatest challenge. For those of you who are familiar with the film Good Burger, I often find myself repeating Ed (see link).