The Sacred and the Propane

We held our summer festival (natsu matsuri) on Saturday and Sunday. It had been four years since the last one. Last year there was a rote discussion in the May or June neighborhood association board meeting about putting it on in 2022, but by that point in time it was not going to be possible to plan and execute anyway.

Four years is a very long time in several contexts, including the aging of older people and young children. Many of the people who played key roles in 2019 were much aged by the intervening years and unable this time. One was Mr. S, who every year since time immemorial had done banana no tatakiuri. I will not undertake to explain this but here is a video. In short it is an entertaining performance done while selling bananas. Mr. S sold bananas, but at prices which were far below what he paid, since it was of course intended as entertainment for the neighborhood. My kids loved it and always came home with a bunch of bananas in addition to their usual pile of candy won in the shooting gallery.

Sadly, Mr. S has had heart problems over the past couple of years, and this combined with his love of strong drink led his general practitioner physician to call the association president and forbid Mr. S from attending. The likelihood of Mr. S (again) ignoring his doctor’s orders and having a drink at the festival was admitted by all including Mr. S to be very high. So he could not attend. That made me sad, but resigned to the necessity of the measure. A 祭り男 festival man is going to drink.

Inertia is big. When you have done an event just this time last year, you have pretty decent memories of how it was done. If not in your personal brain, then at least in the organizational brain. In our neighborhood, directors serve two years on a rotating basis, so half of the 15 or so directors are new or serving for the first time in a while, while the others are more seasoned. Without having put on the matsuri for four years, no one on the board was recently experienced. So we issued an all-hands-on-deck call for everyone with experience to help this year, through the 回覧板 clipboard that is circulated a few times a month around each 組 sub-group of the neighborhood. The president and the other vice president who is not me also went to dozens of veteran association members’ houses to appeal for their assistance. Then we held three 実行委員会 steering committees and hashed out the broad strokes followed by the details. A week ago we set up the vital 櫓 stand on which the 囃子 hayashi music players sit, and around which everyone does 盆踊り bon-odori dancing in a circle, along with the various tents, etc.

Our intrepid hayashi players shook off four years of rust with aplomb

We hold our festival under a Tokyo Metropolitan highway bridge. This sounds sad. It is quite a good place, though. When setting things up on summer days we have total shade. There is no cancellation of our festival due to rain, the way that happens to others. And it is surrounded by fences and gates to which we have the keys, so that we can leave all our stuff inside during the week prior to the festival. My least favorite thing about the venue is the sand, an unpleasantness shared to many other festival venues. I don’t like the way sand gets in my shoes. It is a tiny gripe. Our venue is great.

A look around our festival venue, before things got rolling

There are so many tiny tasks to do and items to procure or check. Here are the ones that fell to me: Provide my keitora 🛻 and use it to go borrow (and return) 10 tables and 20 chairs from (to) the Asakawa office of Hachioji City; notify the Fire Department of our intention to use fire (this prevents unneeded responses to false alarms when people see any smoke, etc.); procure ice for the storage of yakisoba ingredients and cooling of beverages to sell or serve to special guests; host special guests; lend plywood boards for the shooting gallery concession; bring my Imperial-measurement (inch) tools to set up the platform; and find a company to lend us two propane tanks and burners.

I felt the singular pleasure that only comes along once in a while, of having the tools that were needed

That last task was harder than it might appear. In recent years propane suppliers are loathe to lend their tanks and burners to the general public due to the fire and explosion dangers they bring. So I had to use a connection with the office of The Boss. This worked out great. I just had to go pick up the tanks and burners, then be responsible for their use during the festival, and bring them back to the supplier. The supplier would not accept pay in exchange for borrowing the items, so I bought 32 units of a Japanese confection to bring in a box for all the employees of the company while returning the tanks and burners. Even if the other party will not accept your money, they will appreciate a gift of sweets etc. instead. In this case, it was a double win because the confections were purchased from my friend’s shop, giving him some business.

The yakitori grills—a nifty purpose-designed item

Quite a crowd of people came to the festival. Most neighborhoods in the Takao/Asakawa area (as our community is called) have their summer festivals on the third weekend of August in conjunction with the ceremonies held at Hikawa Shrine. This makes it so each festival venue is lively, although overall crowds are dispersed. Being just across the river that was the old boundary between villages, our neighborhood was not traditionally part of Takao/Asakawa until it was made into its own association in 1983. Our festival timing is related to Hakusan Shrine. We hold it in late July, meaning that we are the second or so summer festival held in the area. This means that a lot of people who have been hankering for festival fun come to ours. It’s neat.

A lot of people who used to live in our neighborhood return for the festival, too. They might live in central Tokyo now, or in surrounding communities. It is nice to see these faces and not quite know them but also faintly remember that they come out of the woodwork for the festival. In the case of the Ota family, the father’s family home is in our neighborhood, but for 15 years or so they have been living in Brazil, where the mother is from, in relation to the father’s job. They have a 29-year-old son and some daughters. They come back every year for the festival. It is a cool reunion to witness—the neighbors love and miss them. They are a friendly and energetic family. They talked to my then-smaller kids a lot the first year we lived in the neighborhood, and since then my kids are always excited to see the Ota family as part of the festival. The dad Ota-san always gets atop the hayashi platform and puts on a じゃんけん大会 / rock-paper-scissors contest for everyone in attendance. It’s several rounds of him versus the crowd. Whoever survives to the end gets prizes.

It was touching to see people doing bon-odori dancing again. This is one of the main traditions of the summer festival, which is tied to welcoming home ancestors whose spirits are thought to return during the bon holiday. Not having given this welcome for the past three years was an equally sad thing to consider from a long-term cultural standpoint. As a neighborhood association board we worried about whether everyone would remember how to dance. Most years, the most experienced and/or skilled dancers would provide a few lessons leading up to the festival, for kids and whomever might want to polish their skills. But by this year, the usual instructors had aged enough that this wasn’t feasible. But the fears did not come true. We all danced great. Or as great as we would have with the usual year of dormancy prior to the festival. I love bon-odori and got several songs in. It felt great.

A bit of the bon-odori

The items served at the festival were: Corn on the cob, yakitori, yakisoba, bento boxes, soft drinks, and beer. There was discussion of doing kakigoori 🍧, but we didn’t want to overextend ourselves personnel- and preparation-wise and kicked that to next year with heavy hearts. It was the right decision.

No one knew how much ice we would need, so I found myself driving several times to and from the ice vendor that is a 15-minute drive away toward central Hachioji. I thought that the Hachioji wholesale market would have an ice vendor, but when I went there are asked around at fish markets and other shops, the resounding answer was to go to Miyoshiya. They make very high-quality ice. The blocks contain no bubbles. The proprietor recommended having whiskey on the rocks with it. Our vulgar use was instead the aforementioned coolings. Next year we will shave some delicious ice with it, though. Miyoshiya was a nice discovery. I like them a lot. I also enjoyed walking around the wholesale market, as I always do. I recommit to spend more time there. It is a bit far away in Kitano, but worth visiting for a variety of items.

My main task during the actual time the festival was going was hosting special guests. These are mostly presidents of other neighborhoods and politicians who come by, meaning that I probably know them well through my Ichou Festa chairmanship or work as a politician’s aide. We sit them down at a designated table and pour beers and sake for them while bringing over endless yakisoba and yakitori and snacks, until they tire and go home. One group from a notoriously rowdy nearby neighborhood came and spent a hell of a long time. They voiced displeasure at the lack of shochu to mix with green tea or water, which is the preferred libation of men in Takao/Asakawa. It was uncouth of them to voice such displeasure, and I jokingly told them as much, since I was friends with all of them and on a slightly equal standing with them due to other community activities, despite my disadvantage as host. I basically said to go get their own damn shochu if they wanted it so bad. And incredibly, one of this group of seven or so made a foray to the Family Mart 300 meters away and bought shochu. That was kind of impressive. But they went away happy—I humored them for quite a while and knew how to flatter each in his preferred way.

Politicians came as expected. The Japan Communist Party assemblyman, who had lost his seat in 2019 and regained it April 2023, was fun to talk with. I congratulated him and shared that although I work for The Boss, who his party despises, I appreciate the work that JCP politicians on the local level have done over the years, and the role they play to keep important issues moving. (Sure, the LDP eventually appropriates as its own policy those issues which the JCP has brought to the attention of the public and gained support on, but this is a winding form of democracy, if highly imperfect.) I asked what led to him becoming a JCP politician, and heard his interesting origin story. We found a lot of common ground. It was the kind of in-depth conversation and bonding that could only have happened at a festival, lubricated with equal parts festive atmosphere, requirement for civility, beer, and mutual respect.

I choose to think that this insect also danced outside the venue for his ancestors, descendants; to life, and to death

Some unexpected guests were members of the Takuhoku University Sumo Team, a few of whom live in our neighborhood. The president and I got excited for their visit, and not only to interact and get them closer to the other residents in general. We said to each other “we have to get them on our team in the community neighborhood-versus-neighborhood field day,” specifically the tug-of-war. The sumo wrestlers in this group weigh around 100 to 130 kilograms and will be a fine boost for our chances at winning at least one event. So we plied them with beers and yakisoba. (They were all of 20 or more years of age.)

With the college sumo wrestler residents of our neighborhood

We held the 神事 Shinto ceremony on Sunday morning, the second day of the festival. During it the priest from Hakusan Shrine, Komatsu-san, pronounced rites before a makeshift altar at the venue. This is the other main ritual done at each summer festival. It is a prayer for the safety of the neighborhood and its residents. Then the leaders of each organization within the neighborhood, such as the volunteer fire squad, the crime prevention association, the kids’ group, and so on, each placed a 玉串 tamagushi offering. Following the ceremony I was tasked with giving a toast. I thanked everyone profusely for their efforts to resurrect our festival tradition. The sake prepared for the toast, which had just been on the altar as part of the Shinto rite, went down nicely. A bit of hair of the dog following the many beers incurred while hosting guests the night before.

Representatives of each neighborhood organization stand for the ceremony

Our volunteer fire squad always parks the fire truck next to the venue to provide any needed medical or fire response during the event. Another purpose is recruiting and “public relations,” let’s call it. The latter consists of letting kids sit in the driver’s seat and maybe make the lights flash. They love this. The former is mostly asking potential recruits who happen by to join the volunteer fire corps. I am proud to say that I scored a major coup when I had a conversation with the 29-year-old son of the Ota family and discovered that he is newlywed and going to live in the family home permanently here in the neighborhood. I asked him to join our squad and he accepted. We haven’t gotten someone new for a few years now, so it’s big. He will be a great addition, too. Again, this interaction was only possible at the festival—imagine how much more awkward it would have been to find out the above and invite him to join, say, after having rung his doorbell and gotten him standing in his genkan. Again, thanks to atmosphere and beers.

Two of my comrades standing while another shows a kid and his dad and mom the inside of the truck

Being neck-deep in resurrecting the festival was often a giant pain in the ass. I am really glad we did it, though, and I will surely be recruited to help next year. I will no longer be the vice president or a director of the neighborhood association since my two-year stint will end in April. But now I am the keitora and the propane and the ice guy. One does not simply abandon these sacred roles.

To be sappy but truthful about it, the festival is the fabric of our neighborhood relationships. Putting it on forces us to cooperate and become acquainted in ways that will be vital in a disaster, for example. The festival gives our kids and ourselves great memories of the place where they live. It serves to honor the ancestors and give thanks, and at any level of religiosity a person might prefer. It is one of the best things about living where I do and brings a lot of joy.

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