Day 14 - Festival

In historical Japan, rice was life. Lords paid their samurai in rice, Farmers were the second-highest social class, and the rice seedling was sacred. From this relationship with rice, various rituals developed to pray for the fertility and supply of rice crops. At Sumiyoshi Taisha, a shrine in southern Osaka, these rituals are preserved in the Otaue Festival, held on June 14th. I was lucky enough to be in town for this one, and it was certainly an event.

The entire festival takes place at the shrine, which contains a large circular rice paddy with a raised stage in the center. This is the primary locale of most of the ceremony. First, they till the paddy with an ox-drawn paddy plow. Today most farming is mechanized, but for the ceremony they use a traditional ox.

The ox figured out towards the end that the people were taking turns.

At the same time as this tilling is going on (can I call it tilling?), at the main shrine they hold a mock-imperial court complete with all sorts of period costumes. Samurai, courtly ladies, farmers, and children dressed as all sorts of things (from foot soldiers to noblewomen) took turns going before the "Emperor". When they were finished, there was a grand procession across the grounds of the shrine to the rice paddy. This was a parade of sorts, and this was where I got my best pictures.

The procession moved to the rice paddy, surrounded it, and then new ceremonies began. The farmers took their places in the paddy and began to plant rice seedlings across the entire width of it. This alone took almost 2 hours with the 20 or so farmers they had there. In the meantime, various groups from the procession took turns with rituals around the pit or on the pedestal in the center. The noble ladies danced around to a traditional Japanese song, the Head samurai sat on a stool and watched footsoldiers (the children) have mock-battles around the outside to the beat of his drum. Two women sang whilst girls dressed in medieval Japanese formal wear did a fertility dance around the ring. Various priests did prayers and rituals. And an old man went to the center and opened a giant umbrella, rhythmically striking the pole it was mounted on to give a beat while a different set of girls danced and slapped fans together that had bells attached to them. Meanwhile, the farmers kept planting the entire time, eventually filling the area of the pit, at which point the ceremony was over.

It was very cool to see all the kinds of traditional attire, much more fleshed out than the simple samurai/kimono wear that you see most of the time at 'traditional' events. You can see more examples in my gallery.

The shrine itself was also beautiful. It can be differentiated from the temples I've visited by the roofs, which are thatched rather than tiled, and they have the x-shaped brackets on top. Also, you will see ropes with white zig-zaggy tags around some objects. This denotes the objects as sacred. Trees and Rocks are commonly sanctified with these ropes.

On my way back, I stopped in the Minami district, or southern part of Osaka, known for its shopping. It mostly streets of shops filled with crowds of young Japanese. I personally didn't see that much difference between the South side of Osaka and the North area I toured before. However, there were more "red-light" areas in the southern half of Osaka. I also went into a pet store in the Minami district. Here, "Toy" dogs are the most common, and so the pet stores usually have fish-tank sized enclosures with really small puppies and kittens in them. They are always very cute, but I wonder where you could buy a larger dog in Japan.

Did I mention I biked all this way? Yeah, it was about twice as far as my trip to the aquarium, which was about 10 miles round trip. I definitely prefer biking to walking though, and the trains to the shrine were inconvenient. Biking also gave me the opportunity to see more of the city than if I just took a train.

After checking out the shopping area, I dropped into a noodle shop for some 200 yen (about $2.50) udon, which is a type of Japanese noodles. They're very thick (made of buckwheat) and served any number of ways. I just like them in a soup, but I threw in some crumbles made from fried batter to make it saltier. Also some soy sauce. Then I went down the street and bought an ice cream bar that is the best spin on an ice cream sandwich ever. First, its completely sealed so no worry about a mess. Inside was green tea flavored ice cream (one of my favorites), azuki (red bean jelly), and some white sauce stuff from hokkaido. I can't read the label so I don't know what it's made of, but it tastes like bananas.

I feel kind of very touristy taking pictures of my food, but I need to share this with somebody.

Cory