The photos from this year’s Stone-bringing Festival (Ishidori) are available at Asia Photo Connection. The Stone-bringing Festival is an event that is probably over three hundred years old. I’ve written about this before (Tag: Ishidori), and there is also some good information about Ishidori on Wikipedia. I’m making this information available for free in the hope that you’d find it useful and would buy my photos. Which reminds me, buy my photos.
For an organisation that is trying desperately to win back credibility and fans, they aren’t very good at delivering on the promise of English language ticket purchasing facilities. The official sumo website for ticket purchasing information would have you believe that it is possible to purchase tickets through English language facilities, but for regular seats, that ain’t true. I think I can do it in Japanese, but I don’t want to tick the wrong boxes and have accidentally ordered express delivery of a premium package with backstage / changing room passes. I’ll wait for the kind assistance of a Japanese person.
Photos will be available on Asia Photo Connection. Special pre-ordering discounts can be made available (please don’t request changing-room photos).
The Tado Horse Festival was held earlier this month. I’m a busy person and so it has taken me a bit of time to get back to organising these images. Please see the 4th May post for information about this cultural event.
Another annual event was run today. Essentially, they run a drunken youth rider, on a drunken horse, up a drunken mountain (and over a mound). If the horse and rider make it over (preferably together), then that heralds a good rice harvest this season.
In previous years, animal rights groups and the Mie Prefecture Board of Education (concerning especially youth affairs) have complained about this event. Horses are forced to consume alcohol, and the youth who ride them are about 17 years of age, and are drunk themselves. Horses are forced to run over a mound at the top of a steep slope, and there is a risk the horses could get hurt. Often the horses are frightened by the 120,000 spectators cheering the horse and rider on. At the mound that rider’s team try to help or force the horse over by pushing and pulling on the horse. Whilst there is risk to the horse, there are perhaps more risk to the people who have been carried or rushed to hospital in previous years. Furthermore, the animal rights group (I haven’t been able to attain their exact name yet) and the Education Board seem not to be so concerned for long standing cultural rights and traditions.
In any case, it seemed that this year the horse was not frothing at the mouth from too much sake, and the riders didn’t seem drunk at all. The teams standing either side of the track didn’t seem very drunk either. It appears that the fizz had been drained this year; perhaps creating a threat to the sense of community surrounding this event? Time will tell.
News: This year the mound at the top of the slope didn’t appear to have been broken very well, and so it was, as one person put it: ‘ambitious’. On this first day, most horses failed, but only one horse made it over, so there should be a good harvest this year. The horse that made it over was called Ganbare Tohoku (roughly translated as ‘keep trying / keep striving Tohoku’, a reference and call of encouragement to the people of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear stricken region).
For photos taken in previous years, see my Asia Photo Connection and PhotoShelter portfolios. This year I used black and white film (as I’m getting tired of digital), so new photos will be added to this post and my portfolios later.
Every year, the cherry blossom viewing parties, known in Japanese as ‘hanami’ (lit flower-seeing) are popular. Groups of friends, company staff-groups, university clubs, social clubs, and others gather under cherry trees to bar-be-que and drink beer and sake. It’s a nice time as the weather is more clement and the air lacks chill, and parks that are loaded with cherry trees are a really nice break from the bleak colours of winter.
However, winter of 2011 in Japan hasn’t ended on the best of notes. Cherry blossom viewing and associated revelry is a national obsession, but anyone having so much fun this year would surely feel a sense of guilt. People living and suffering in temporary shelters (mainly school gyms) have lost everything, including their hanami cliques, and their favourite groves of cherry trees. Furthermore, I’m sure no-one really wants to be seen having fun right now. So, the cherry blossom parties are out, and I’ve found it hard to find any one doing more than strolling past and smiling at the gentle pink hues.
That’s right, it’s Cherry Blossom (sakura) season in Japan. To celebrate the new school and company year Japanese go out and get drunk under pretty pink flowers. How can you join in? Well, here’s a 10% discount coupon for use only at my PhotoShelter account for all of April 2011 (minimum USD$25 purchase). Coupon code: SAKURA2011.
Coming up this Spring are a few important things. Firstly, a 10% discount for all purchases at my PhotoShelter portfolio with a minimum USD$25 purchase, unlimited use, until 30th March, 2011. Coupon code is: SUPERSPRING.
Secondly, the Spring Sumo tournament in Osaka has been cancelled due to match fixing allegations. It is the first time sumo had been cancelled since 1946, which itself was cancelled due to renovations to the Tokyo sumo venue. Here are my galleries, all eligible for the Spring 10% discount: Top wrestler, Hakuho, Sumo Spills, and general Japanese Sumo.
Thirdly, the Tado Horse Festival, is a Shinto religious festival intended to bring a good harvest for this coming growing season. If a horse can make it up the steep slope and over a mound-obstacle, then a good harvest is expected. Only after the event do the local farms begin sowing. The 10% Spring discount also applies to this PhotoShelter gallery.
That’s pretty much the main events that are coming up this Spring.
My first trip to this event, and it was awesome… except we had to pay to get in, even though it wasn’t a rock concert. Still an awesome display of burning gun powder. Thanks to the Nagoya International Hiking Club for taking me there. See the YouTube videos for more. Pictures available at Asia Photo Connection and my PhotoShelter accounts.
I went to this event and it provided terrible access. Will need to work out something better for next year. In any case, look out for some new photos that I will be preparing over the next few days. In the mean time, here’s brief look at what it’s like.
In case you’re wondering. The Nagoya Dance Festival (or ‘domatsuri’) is an annual event held in summer. It’s based on the Hokkaido version of the traditional Japanese dance and town festival. Hokkaido was first occupied by the Japanese a little over one hundred years ago, mostly by Japanese who were running from the law, had debts that couldn’t be repaid and so forth. The Sapporo (main city in Hokkaido) dance festival is an ecclectic mix of different dance styles, and because of its proximity it also has Chinese and kung-fu influences, too. Some university from Nagoya entered the Sapporo dance festival and imported it to Nagoya the following year. Soon after the City of Nagoya took it over and the Nagoya Dance Festival became bigger and well established.
Today, it retains it’s Sino-kung fu-Hokkaido-traditional Japanese dance styles, and attracts dance teams from all over Japan, including university teams, local townships, community groups, company sponsored teams, and this year the highly popular and local teen-music group SKE-48 (I briefly saw them at the end and couldn’t get any shots… dammit!). Over 200 teams a year enter, with an enrolment of over 23,000 participants. It attracts a TV viewing audience of nearly two million viewers.
