Japanese summer festival

This article is also not directly linked to Japanese agriculture but Japanese traditional culture. In order to attract a lot of people who want to know Japan, and then let such people interested in Japanese agriculture, we would continuously introduce this kind articles describing Japanese culture.

The topic of article this time is about Japanese traditional summer festival. Please enjoy.

When I worked my home in evening time, the sounds of Japanese traditional drumbeat suddenly began to hear from nowhere. Then, I immediately remembered that currently it was the season of summer festival in Japan.

Even in our small community, such festival is planned in this season, and it takes place every year. There is the small public park 300 meter distance from my house. Even though the size of the park would be just around 100 meters * 100 meters, summer festival takes place in such tiny park and a lot of local people gather together with Japanese traditional clothing and enjoyed the festival. Typically 'Yagura' (which is the structure where players of music instruments such as drum are placed) is located in the center of festival place, and people dance around the 'Yagura'.

In summer season (July to August), such summer festivals take place everywhere in Japan. And the scale of festivals is the mixed from such as my community(local) level to prefecture level. Prefecture level festival is really big and gorgeous. For example, one of biggest big summer festivals is "Gion-sai"which take place in Kyoto, and it always attracts and gathers a lot of people from nationwide.

There are several statements about the origins (how it began) of Japanese summer festival. For example, it is, to treat people from hard work, to protect people from epidemic, to pray dead people, and etc.. Anyway, having festival in this season becomes a part of life in Japanese culture.

Firework also takes place in this season but summer festival is different from firework. It means those are held differently. Firework is also one of famous and proud cultures in Japan. And we believe firework is more famous among the foreigners who are interested in Japanese culture. So, when you have chance to visit in Japan, you can enjoy not only the firework but also the summer festival as well.