This Is Japan
Explore everyday life in Japan
How and when do cultural practices begin? What spawns them?
In many cases, it's hard to know. Tracing their exact origins, especially in Japan, where many customs have been practiced for hundreds of years, can be difficult.
In the case of this festival, however, the Sentou Festival (千灯祭), which means 1,000 lights, the origins are clear. Seventeen years ago, a group of community leaders got together and decided to create a festival that would represent the vitality of the people and shops living and operating in what many still consider a dying neighborhood--a small area in an older part of Niigata City that has been losing stores, tenants, customers, and foot traffic to urban re-planning and sprawl for years and whose population continues to lean evermore toward being elderly.
While lantern festivals can be found all across Japan, what makes this one unique is that all of the lanterns are handmade by children from local nursery, elementary, and junior high schools, people living in nearby neighborhoods, and local businesses and shop owners. In fact, for the price of 100 yen (less than $1 USD), anyone can create their own lantern and display it at the Sentou Festival.
In recent years, as many as 6,000 of these lanterns have been created and displayed in various patterns along four blocks of a narrow one-way street. Many of these lanterns simply have pictures and designs drawn on them while others have thoughtful messages and prayers carefully written across their four panels.
If you go, it's best to take your time enjoying the sights and absorbing the atmosphere. This festival is often described in Japanese as slo-o-o-w, meaning that it is a festival that should be given the right amount of time to truly appreciate. The lanterns, and the designs they are displayed in, can be enjoyed from many angles. Their look and feel, and the light they give off varies considerably from early evening to night, as do the mood, age, and sobriety of the festival goers and the festival itself.
In other words, it's best too go a little early and stay a little late. There are games to be played, food and drinks to be had, thousands of lanterns to be inspected, and, perhaps, most importantly, there is an almost continuous stream of live, traditional music to be heard, which really makes the four city blocks where this festival takes place feel like they've been transported to another place or time.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.
I really enjoyed this post.
I have always been fascinated with Japanese culture. Been watching anime for 20 years and became Ireland's number 1 igo player(still only 4d so not exactly strong)
It is just the whole system based on respect and accountability but also forgiveness and hope. It costs nothing to be nice. Most people don't get that in western society.
Wow! Igo is a fun game. Being the best player in your country is a great accomplishment.
I've lived here for eight years now and don't know anything about anime. I'm afraid my wife would stop talking to me if I started watching it or reading it:)
hahaha lucky for me I met anime before my missus. She has put up with 11 years of me watching anime so I think i'm safe :)
Where in japan are you living? It is my dream to retire in Osaka (hopefully by the time I am 35 hehe)
I actually believe anime had a strong impact on my morals and values. I am a very up front and honest person. I have a strong perception of what friendship should be and I guess live in a delusional world where I think people should be accountable for their actions on a personal level.
I live in Niigata, which is quite a ways from Osaka on a Japan-scale. I wish I had more time to read. These days all I do is work, raise my kids, and write when I have the time. If I do read, its picture books with the kids, and the news for myself:)
I spend an inordinate amount of time reading. I am making a small but acceptable living day trading which gives me plenty of time to spend with my kid, Nathan. I feel very lucky for that.
I never understood the point in making money for someone else. I do shelter myself from some of the more depressing news. I know it's cowardly but I get tired of only hearing about all the bad in the world.
I used to read so much. That was before I came to Japan. Then I came here and ran out of books to read. After a while, I found that I stopped relating to a lot of books that I think would have appealed to me before I came to Japan. Now, I'm interested in reading Japanese books, but my reading level isn't very high, so it often takes me a really long time to get through a few pages of adult reading.
The newspapers I read are written in Japanese for elementary school children here. It's good practice for me and gives me material for work. It's not very heavy like the regular news so I don't get burnt out on it.
I take it you are a teacher then? I made an attempt to learn how to write in hiragana and kanji. Kept at it for a while but it is super difficult. In the end I decided having a basic level of Japanese speech will do. Not like i'm ever actually going to write in it and the majority of signs have them written in English characters anyway.
May I ask how you ended up in Japan in the first place? If you are an English teacher then the answer is obvious of course.
Yeah. I work as an ALT now, but when I first came here I worked at an eikaiwa for a little over four years.
Writing kanji is difficult. Like anything, if you don't use it, you lose it. Even a lot of Japanese people these days rely on their phones to remind them of kanji strokes. It's one of those things you have to do over and over again until it sticks with you.
I can here just to try living abroad and found that life here suited me. Now, I'm most likely here for good.
It's funny before steemit I have never actually talked to people I don't physically know. It leads to alot of debates but it is really nice to speak to people with similar interests.
I like a country that stays in tune with its culture and tradition irrespective of modernisation or what have you going on around.
I like the night photos of those lamps.
Thanks for sharing awesome original content :)
Traditions can make change slow and difficult, but they also lead to a strong identity. I tend to like that as well.
I'm glad you liked the photos. Thanks for commenting.
Japan and japanese are most beautiful and so welcoming. I love to visit this country next year.
I hope you have a great trip. How long will you be here and where are you going?
Beautiful post ! I wish I could be there !!
Beautiful photos my friend 👍👍👍👍
Thanks. I'm glad you liked it.
Thank you so much !
Japan is an amazing country. Been there a couple of times.
Yeah? Where did you go? What did you do?
I was using the JRpass and visited Hiroshima, Miyajima Island, Osaka, Kyoto, Himeji, Kobe, Nara, Sendai, been all over Tokyo..
That pass is seems really useful. I've never been able to qualify for it because of my visa. It sounds like you went to a lot of great places. I really like Hiroshima and hope to go back sometime soon.
thanks for share. upvotes your post & you upvotes my post.
I'm happy to have a look at your posts. I don't like just trading votes, though. After I finish replying to comments, I'll look at your page.
Thanks a lot for sharing info of this festival!
Thanks for reading about it!
wow, thanks for sharing, photos are amazing, I always loved your country traditions!
Thanks for reading. I'm not Japanese, so I can't call these my traditions. I'm just a long time observer. I like this festival, though. It's intimate.
So beautiful! I can't wait to travel to Japan next month :)
What's on your agenda?
This is absolutely beautiful - definitely not helping me deal with my desire to visit Japan haha
Great post!
It's just a plane ride away. Save your Steem and come for a visit.
That sounds like a pretty good idea :)
It's something to keep in mind.