This Is Japan
Explore everyday life in Japan
I’m sure you have heard stories about Japanese festivals, and to be sure, Japanese festivals cover a broad spectrum of potential events, from violent fire throwing festivals to strange penis festivals to more simple festivals like this one that celebrates a single flower, the chrysanthemum.
Like many things in Japan, chrysanthemums were adopted from China over a thousand years ago. Since their first appearance in Japan, chrysanthemums have become deeply imbedded in Japanese culture, perhaps so much so that many modern Japanese people aren’t even aware of how prevalent their images are and what they have symbolized throughout Japanese history.
Appreciated not only as a symbol of longevity, chrysanthemums also represent power and dignity in Japan. Their image has been celebrated and embraced by many Japanese emperors throughout time and at one point even became used as the imperial crest, meaning that people who were not members of the imperial family risked prosecution for wearing chrysanthemum emblems.
These days, the image of the chrysanthemum can still be found in many places. It often decorates the tapestries that are hung in front of shrines and temples around the country. It can sometimes be seen on the circular ends of the roof tiles that cap the ends of roof ridges, and it is still used today as the emblem that decorates the cover of Japanese passports.
You can see the chrysanthemum crest hanging in front of this shrine.
Every year, for the first three weeks of November, a town in Niigata Prefecture called Yahiko holds a chrysanthemum festival. Apparently, a festival of this kind has been held in Yahiko for countless years, but its current form began in 1961, making this its fifty-fifth year. Over four thousand plants are grown for this occasion and are submitted for judging. Various categories exist including categories for single stem, single bloom flowers, and multiple bloom flowers that have been grown from a single stem.
In addition to the beauty of the chrysanthemums themselves, the main draw of this festival is a massive flower arrangement that incorporates over two thousand flowers and whose theme changes every year. If you find yourself in Niigata during the first few weeks of November, going to this festival and then walking around the town to enjoy the fall foliage will definitely be a day well spent.
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.
Lovely! ♡