Setsubun

You can't make this stuff up, really.

Now, before I get onto the post, I have to relate a story about the writing of it. The post today is about Setsubun, the yearly festival in Japan on the third of February to usher in spring. One of the traditions of this festival that I observed and will be talking about is the tradition of monks throwing beans and other snacks to eager crowds for, from my admittedly limited understanding, good luck. Well, the festival was...I want to say yesterday but I've kind of lost track of days fairly quickly after classes ended. Anyway, the point is I had run out of mikan, which is a small orange-like fruit that I rather enjoy writing with by my side, and I decide to take a break to go grab some more and throw in a load of laundry while I was at it. This seems simple enough, yes? How wrong you would be to assume such a thing. 

See, as I have said before, there are a variety of ways for people to react to seeing a foreigner here in Japan, some more comical then others. This one was particularly amusing, if only in a darkly humorous way. I got out of the Ohmeikan and started walking, bright yellow laundry bag slung across my back like Santa Claus, down to the laundromat and then to the convenience store. There is only one intersection to cross in this path of mine, and while I was getting nearer the walk light turned in my favor. This meant that I needed to walk a little bit faster to get across in time and not have to wait for the next cycle. Here enters the other actor in this play, this poor middle aged Japanese woman dressed in a Kimono(Traditional robe). This woman was waiting patiently for the walk light and only glanced at me briefly before, I thought rather hurriedly, making her way across the street at the green. I am a fairly tall and in shape guy, and my strides were those of someone wanting to get a load off his back, not the strides of one encumbered by a kimono, this meant that I quickly overtook this woman just as we were about to hit the other side. This woman stops dead in her tracks, turns to me, and looks at me square in the face with a look of sheer terror as if I were some threatening figure. Because you know folks, the only thing more threatening then this:

(Don't ask, some video game character. I assume by the way he holds that baseball bat he's friendly.)

Is this:

(Maybe she finds earth friendly clothing detergent horrifying)

Needless to say I was confused, but this wasn't the first time someone had reacted strange to seeing me or my friends, so I went along my business. Boy, gotta love some citrusy fruit.

But now of course I must steer this ship of a blog post back to the original topic with a smooth transition. 

Today's post involves quite a lot of things, I hope I can get to them all;

*People firing arrows

*People wanting arrows fired at them

*Axes

*Fire 

*Smoke

*People throwing things at fire

*Fire throwing things at people

*Peanuts

Know what all that makes me thing of? Spring.

Thats right folks, it's the changing of the seasons time here in Nagoya, and that means Setsubun(Bean throwing ceremony, lunar New Years eve, and literally means seasonal division for those interested in stuff like that). Setsubun kind of reminds me of the winter solstice back home, certainly with a lot more fire, but that is besides the point(and coming up soon). I was invited to come to a small "ceremony" right outside of Nagoya by Mina early in the afternoon, and despite being sick as a sick foreigner I decided to go. We got there a little early so we had time to walk around, meet some people, and for me to actually figure out what was happening. The first thing we saw was this.

No explanation was given of any of what you have just seen. What it did manage to learn was that this was Setsubun and that it was a ceremony to renew your good fortune by burning the old charms and such from the old year, a fraction of which are depicted here.

We were left to wonder how this was going to be accomplished, though, because soon it was clear that whatever ceremony was going to happen was about to happen. 

First, two of the monks reenacted what I imagine was an ancient conversation. Even the people near me who knew Japanese did not know this very old form, but it was interesting to hear some familiar sounds. 
Then we had "The Arrows". "The Arrows" Consisted of one of the monks walking to each of the four corners of the enclosure and, as you can see below, violently shooting an arrow at the people watching the ceremony.

We caught one of the arrows, by great personal risk of course, and I think we are keeping it for good luck. 
Then came the best part, and I see that some of you have beat me to the punch in regards to this video. After the arrows it was time to light the thing in the center of the enclosure.

After liberal application of what I suppose was sacred alcohol to keep the flames burning in such wind(Did I mention that the wind is blowing so hard that alcohol on fire is having a tough time staying lit.) Well, Needless to say, they got it lit.

Truly amazing. For those of you whole chose to sit through the whole thing, isn't it amazing that that monk was chanting the entire time this video is going on. The combination of the chanting and the smoke transformed this little driveway into another world. While viewing the video I suggest keeping an eye on the snow and the shaped it's making. Also you can see some absolutely incredible shapes in the smoke when you look close.


I hope everyone has a good time smoke-spotting.

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Let's Learn Japanese! Word of the Day! 
English: When will that happen?
Japanese:　いつ
Pronunciation: ii-tsu
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Best Wishes, Dan

PS(Or is it BS? If it's on a blog is it still technically "postscript"? Wouldn't it be "blogscript"? Anyway) For those of you interested, I will slowly but surely add more slide shows and commentary to my blog post before this, and you can still find it in the archives. I just needed to get on with some new material as frankly I have never been able to keep up with all the stuff this country throws at me, let alone be chronological about it.