A week ago Saturday, three of my friends and I met in Fuji City, planning to take a walk and see the cherry blossoms. As it turned out, it was too early to see many cherry blossoms, but we still took a walk along the river, ate lunch, and visited the local shrine.
While at the shrine, we saw a poster for the next weekend's festival, and three of us made plans to attend.
This past Saturday, after drinking coffee and having some dessert, we walked to the Yonenomiya Sengen Shrine.
This was a delightful local festival. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
There were more trees in bloom after just a week.
There was a stage set up for the entertainment. The first one we saw was a young woman playing the shamisen (traditional Japanese instrument) and singing.
I don't know what to call the next one. There were two boys, maybe 12 years old or so, who danced and painted paper on the floor.
The plastic put up to protect the stage area made it hard to see what they were doing, so I went around the side to take a picture.
When they finished painting the plastic was removed and they dance with fans.
With some behind the scenes help, the painting was raised.
One of the boys put on a horse mask and they sprinkled cherry blossoms around.
Next, six junior high school looking students sang and did sign language.
My favorite of the entertainment was the taiko drums. This is something I would like to learn to do.
After that, we decided to go home. The festival was such a friendly local event.
This is such a wonderful event - by and for locals. It is great that most of the entertainment was done by young people. We need to make the young feel happy with their local community so they stay and don't emigrate to the big cities. Now the older generation has to create job opportunities and plan for child care ets so it will be possible for these young entertainers to build a life in their hometown.
I'm sorry about the cherry blossoms but in a way you might have found something more fun and certainly more unique. I love events like this that are part of the community.
It looks like you enjoyed the event. Men use their entire body to write ”習字“（shuji）. The Kanji for ”感謝“. ”感謝“ means ”Thank you“. It would be great if I could learn Japanese drums someday. I think it's a good exercise as it uses the whole body.
This is such a wonderful event - by and for locals. It is great that most of the entertainment was done by young people. We need to make the young feel happy with their local community so they stay and don't emigrate to the big cities. Now the older generation has to create job opportunities and plan for child care ets so it will be possible for these young entertainers to build a life in their hometown.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about the cherry blossoms but in a way you might have found something more fun and certainly more unique. I love events like this that are part of the community.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you enjoyed the event.
ReplyDeleteMen use their entire body to write ”習字“（shuji）. The Kanji for ”感謝“. ”感謝“ means ”Thank you“.
It would be great if I could learn Japanese drums someday. I think it's a good exercise as it uses the whole body.
Oh this festival sounds lovely! Not too over run, but still with plenty going on.
ReplyDelete