23 October 2011
October 22 was the date of two major festivals in Kyoto: The Jidai Matsuri or Festival of the Ages and the Kurama Fire Festival. The Jidai Matsuri was postponed to today because of heavy rains and thunder storms yesterday. The fire festival, dating back to the 700's, occurs in a the small town of Kurama, as means to guide the spirits of hell through the earth by means of giant fire torches carried through the town. We decided not to go as it was very rainy and the small trains were said to be impossibly crowded though we live right by a stop...Instead we made a trip to the Kyoto International Manga Museum, a great place to read any of some 300,000 manga (with some shelves in English). Actually there were some fun activities for kids, including some wonderful story telling and also a showing of very unique animations made by students from one of the art colleges. We thought of A and D...
In the evening we went to a tiny local bar with a couple of postdocs, French and Italian, whom Win had met in his Japanese lesson. It was a mellow and welcoming hole in the wall, with some folk singers and an animated story teller while we had beer and fried sardines (?), curry and rice, etc. Language is always a hash, but it was fun. Maybe a little like Harvard Sq in the 60's...
Today was the Jidai Matsuri Festival, which originated in 1895 to celebrate the 1100th year of Kyoto's founding as capital of Japan (though the capital moved to Tokyo in about 1868). I will not in any way try to recapitulate the history, but the Festival is a grand and stately parade with about 2000 costumed participants and many horses and a few oxen, which winds its way from the park of the Imperial Palace (where the above photographs were all taken) through the streets to the Heian Shrine. Costumes are exceedingly elaborate and authentic and the parade represents various eras in a reverse order. Colorful, ornate, representing many historical persons and events, great weapons and armor, straw foot gear, marvelous hats of all descriptions, a little music (drums, bamboo flutes, conch shells). The dignity of the parade was interrupted at times by balky horses (one coach at the beginning had a horse that refused for some time to walk along, resulting in all sorts of pulling and pushing the coach). I believe that the last picture might show some fellows laughing at someone who stepped in dung (though it being Japan there were dung sweepers along the route). Of course they were wearing straw shoes. The entire parade takes about 2 hrs to pass by. Better than costumes in a museum!
Much love
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