Saturday, May 17, 2008

SANJA Festival@ASAKUSA

*Edited : Info added on the fish game

The foreign students support club in my university arranges activities and trips nearly once each month to famous places inside or close to Tokyo.

This month's activity was visiting Asakusa (浅草) to see the famous SANJA MATSURI (sanja festival 三社祭).
Actually this was not my first time to Asakusa and sensouji(浅草寺) since we went there last year, but for today, it was my first time to see a Japanese Festival.
(Most festivals in Japan are rather religious celebrations).

It was really an interesting experience.
The place was crazily crowded... smells of food being cooked/grilled/fried is filling the place..traditional matsuri games for kids..kakigooriかき氷....and of course, a lot of omikoshi!神輿(portable shrines)
All these things would make you feel the matsuri(festival) atmosphere!


On the way towards sensouji ..kiosks and shops on both sides. They sell interesting nihonppoi stuff..so if you want to make your room so, this is a good place to buy such stuff!

Since it was a traditional festival, it felt OK to put on the hachimaki (I once was told that putting such hachimaki with Japan flag on it is not very much appreciated, since it has something related to the WW and being an extreme nationalist or something... but I took the advantage of being a gaikokujin and pretended that I don't know! :p )
One old man that I encountered even told me 「お!日の丸、、かっこいいですね!」 ="o!Japan's flag, that's cool!"
I'm not sure if he meant it ^^; But anyway, I have my own meaning for putting on the hachimaki, and it has nothing to do with history ^^


Carrying omikoshi

Before I come and see everything, I was thinking that it would be nice to participate in carrying one, and take a picture too...but after I saw with my own eyes how heavy it looks and how many people it needs to be carried..I changed my mind!






I posed here last year w

Actually seeing this and remembering that senseouji is a Temple and not a Shrine has "corrupted" my information a little at first.
I know that the festival is a Shinto matsuri so I was thinking why would there be a Shinto matsuri in a Temple.
Then I realized that this festival does not belong to the sensouji, rather it belongs to the nearby ASAKUSA shrine , which was built to honor the people who built the sensouji.
lol Am I making it any easier this way?


The traditional fish game. 金魚すくい(SAKANA SUKUI)
The principle is that you have to catch a fish with a tool that is made of thin paper that melts easily in water, so you have to be quick.
I saw a lot of happy kids walking proud with their caught fishes put in a plastic transparent bag.




The Anpanman(الرغيف العجيب) mask is so cute, I wanted one just to stick to my room's wall, but... cough! :p

So now! What is a festival post without...VIDEOS?!
I took a lot of videos and I want to share some, so you can FEEL the matsuri!
(Sorry for the low quality, I had to make them smaller in size so I can quickly upload them..Also I don't think that you want to download a 2 minutes video of size 200MB !!)

Carrying the OMIKOSHI (In this festival, 100 such omikoshi are carried to begin touring the town) :



Gotta see this one! :
Kids can also participate by carrying a smaller and lighter omikoshi.
They were really cute!





That's all for the SANJA MATSURI!
I hope it was informative and enjoyable~ comments people! ^_^
K-chan logs out!


22 comments:

Qutaibah said...

very very interesting post
waw maroko ..yes I saw The traditional fish game in maroko
& kakigoori .. you show it to nihongo group in last nihongo lesson it s made from broken ice
...in 2nd vidio you saw kawii from 16sec to laaast vidio tik..tik..tik hehehe:P
waw omoshiroi post

Saemon 左衛門 said...

Amani-san,

You motivated me to upload my first Youtube video:
Monkey gymnastics in Asakusa!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrc4cxbclMA

Enjoy!

Biraru said...

面白いな~ ^^
日の丸。。かっこいいですね~ :p
凄い。。あの『魚のゲーム』。。日本語で名前は何ですか?
然し。。かき氷は美味しいですか?。。(-_-)?
先の日。。アンパンマンの名前を知りました。。本当に楽しいアニメでした :p
ビデオありがとう。。お疲れ様でした ^_^

momiji said...

totemo omoshiroi post desu,
and the fish game, i saw it in japanese anime many times .
doraemon ya anpanman wa totemo kawaii desu ne, doushite kaenakattano desu ka? sonna ni takai no?

momiji said...

sou sou, blog no atarashii design wa kakkoii ne ^^ totemo nihonppoi:>

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

Qutiba san,
yea!I knew that a lot of people will recognize this game from anime :)

Saemon san,
I saw the video and I laughed a lot! ww
I dunno why but this way of speaking(for ex.: nani sundayo,omae!) is funny for me..did you pay at last?:p
video arigatou gozaimasu.

Biraru san,
3.9!
well if I knew the name, I would have put it under the picture

Momiji san,
okane no mondai janakatta..sonna mono wo kau no ha,chotto kodomoppoin janai? :D
I'm glad that you liked the new design, which nobody commented on so far!(okoru) :p

Saemon 左衛門 said...

You just had to ask this question, huh?

I didn't pay because I didn't feel comfortable about doing so! I did pay to some charity/peace stuff in Hiroshima though, so all hope is not lost!

2 comments about your new banner: first, it should be お送りします not 送りします. second, you might want to change the background colour of the blog, because it is too bright compared to the banner.

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

sou desu ne... ^^;
I always drop the O with this verb~
but anyway, I don't think that it's wrong without the O(is it?)..cuz I googled it and found it widely used.

regarding the background,I'm keeping this in mind..to be done later~

Unknown said...

tanoshi ne~

i always wanted to learn about this festival
it remind me of arab history when they were carrying women in such a thing

i like the second video
kawaii kodomo ne^^

the games have a lot of interesting ideas especially the fish catch
hope u catch one^^
mm an orange fish, i wanna have one


have a good time, ok!

Anonymous said...

とっても面白いポスト!
日本の香りや音がしました。
漢字ちゃんが日本を楽しんでいることもとても嬉しいです。
新しいバナーも素敵です。
つぎのポストを、楽しみに待っています!

K-s

「お」をつけてくださいね。

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

Imo chan,
komento arigatou! ^_^

K-s,
コメントを書いてくださってありがとうございました。
りょうかい!「東京からお送りします」に変更いたしました。^^

Biraru said...

well .. I commented on your new design in twitter , so it's not "nobody commented on so far"

(okoru) ===> this time by me :p

Anonymous said...

Cool videos and pics!!
It must have been a great fun!
I like kingyo-sukui too.

By the way, now in Japan, I hear the news about Muslim's protest against "Jojo's Bizzare Adventure".

What do you think about it as a Muslim?
Would appreciate to hear candid opinion!

Anonymous said...

by the way I like the new design of your blog!
Please keep the color of other parts bright!! I don't like dark colors.. Dark colors will make your blog look like an underground website. Because you are a pure innocent girl, I hope you will keep using cheeful bright colors.

Amani AbuQdais أماني أبوقديس said...

金魚すくいですね! Thanks for the name,I will update the post.

Regarding "Jojo's Bizzare Adventure",, To be honest I never heard of it or of any problem that it caused. I had to Google it to understand what the problem is.
And I could hardly find what I was looking for.. so apparently its a minor issue.

As for my opinion, I would say that the animator was careless to place a random text that he doesn't understand.
But it's obvious that it was unintentional.
The publisher even made an apology letter.

I remember this game "Metal Slug X" that I used to play in my school days. Its first level took place in a Middle eastern desert, then you enter a city in which shops and building had Arabic text which most of the time made no sense. lol

But in the same time,I would like people to treat my language carefully the same way I treat other languages ;)
This is my opinion.
ijou~!w

Saemon 左衛門 said...

Gengoro-san,

Allow me to share my uncalled for opinion. I can not imagine how putting a page from the Qur'an, which has a very distinct look unlike any other Arabic texts, would be unintentional.

I think that many people (from both sides) are ignorant and this is what causes misunderstanding and in some cases prejudice. But at the same time, many Japanese people are making great efforts to better understand our religion and what is happening in our region (especially after the oil shock and 9/11), so I believe things are progressing for the better.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your nice opinion, Amani-san!!
冷静な意見ですね!さすがです。

Thanks for your opinion also, saemon san. I hope other publishers will learn a lesson from this protest.
It's a pity "Metal Slug X" and
"Jojo's Bizzare Adventure" were both made in 80's or 90's and at that time, those Japanese producers did not even imagine those games/comics would spread out of Japan to the Middle East!
All mangas will be required to be made from the international standards from now on probably..because nowadays people can get any Japanese comics/mangas on the internet.

Anonymous said...

>Saemon san
About the reason the animator mistakenly copied text from Holy Qur'an, the publisher investigated and found that he went to a local public library and found a book in Arabic, and that happened to be Holy Qur'an. I assume that at that time (in 80's or 90's), Arabic language was not popular in Japan at all and there were no other book than Holy Qur'an at that library I guess...

Anyway, I m sure they will not repeat it again!

Anonymous said...

http://saiyanz-web.net/layout/?p=16

This is the problematic scene, just for your information.

Anonymous said...

http://www.shueisha.co.jp/info/index_a.html

and this is the publisher's official apology letter in Arabic.

I guess they finally hired someone who can write Arabic!

Durazi said...

三社祭はすごいですね
わたしはあまりうまく魚をすくいことできません
でもとてもけいけんですね
じゃね

hiro said...

I enjoyed the atmosphere of the festival with your blog. Thanks!
それにしても、、、you really love festivals, especially traditional ones. :p