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 A drummer entertains the happi-jacketed crowd on the streets of Suwa, Nagano, during the Onbashira log-riding festival. (Alan Kors, Ottawa Sun) |
SUWA, Japan -- Like colour-coded ants, the neon-jacketed villagers march up the snaking road, past tourists in banzai bandannas and vendors hawking the usual: Pogos, green tea, fried octopus balls.
They reach their posts as the sun burns off the mountain mist. But dew still clings to the straw rope that stretches a block long, growing thicker until it's as big as your thigh.
The thick end loops through a hole drilled into a 15-m long Japanese fir.
It'll take hundreds of hands to budge the 10 tonnes of wood and the men perched on top, barking orders. But the villagers are ready -- after all, they've waited seven years for this.
With a yell, they're off, through the tile-roofed village, around the Big Bend, down 6 km of road to the crest of an insanely steep hill. That's where the chosen, brave few, encouraged by cup after cup of sake courage, will clamber aboard, ready to ride that tree like a murderous toboggan as it gouges a notch out of the mountainside.
Festivals -- or matsuri -- should be on every visitor's to-do list in Japan. Some are world-class events, like Suwa's incredible Onbashira log-riding festival.
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It's held once every seven years, and who can blame the participants? It's so dangerous that, for the log riders, injury is likely and death not unknown.
But on the whole, Japanese festivals are fun, safe (for spectators, anyway) and happen a lot more frequently. Local street festivals spring up around the country like dandelions.
Like the bon-odori dances of mid-August, when local parks fill with grandmoms and kids swaying to traditional music in cotton yukata robes. Or the bell-ringing that calls the hordes to shrines on New Year's Eve -- Japan's biggest holiday.
To simply see traditional dress, head to a shrine on the second Monday in January. That's Coming of Age Day, when the nation's 20-year-olds get dolled up in stunning kimonos.
On any given day, there's at least one important matsuri. Hotel space, especially in smaller towns, can be at a premium. (Use the excellent rail network for day trips.)
While most events are open to the public, a few require tickets. Whether it's thundering drums or leaping dragons, blazing hillsides or fighting kites, festivals are where the Japanese exchange their ties and blue suits for bright happi jackets.
While most are squeaky-clean un for the whole family, some can be boisterous, and a few are renowned for their eye-popping lack of decorum.
Where else, for example, can you see an eight-foot-long red "fertility symbol" -- carved with no anatomical detail spared -- carried aloft through a farming village? Or a group of guys, clad only in loincloths, bandannas and enthusiasm, madly chasing another loinclothed lunatic -- in midwinter?
Such outlandish behaviour, in a country famed for its tightly wound demeanour, is eased by a healthy degree of social lubrication. As they get into the spirit, Japanese revellers get into the spirits. Rice wine often flows by the barrel, fueling good-natured rowdiness. Get swept up in the festival spirit, and you too could be pulled aside for a drink, or a rest, or a snack.
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The log nears the crest of the hill through a crowd as thick as Tokyo rush hour. Villagers scramble to the edge, dislodging stones that shoot down like bowling balls. At the bottom, thousands sit in stands or munch rice balls on tarps along a stream.
Suddenly, the anchor rope is cut, and villagers stampede down the mountain, in pursuit of the log that seconds ago had tossed its yellow riders like so many termites.
A great roar sweeps the valley as the riders clamber amid dust and elbows to reach the exalted top of the log.
"Unbelievable!" shouts a wild-haired student. "What a cool festival!"
Here are some of the biggest and best Japanese festivals:
* Onbashira (Suwa, Nagano-ken, April-May) -- One of the "Big Three Strange Festivals," this log-riding festival is so wild it only gets put on once every seven years. Clear your 2011 calendar!
* Gion Matsuri (Kyoto, mid July) -- For more than 1,100 years, Kyoto's Gion festival has dazzled visitors with one of Japan's grandest parades of mikoshi. These floats weigh more than a tonne and are carried or pulled on wheels.
* Tagata Hounen Matsuri (Komaki, Aichi-ken, March 15) -- Tagata Jinja is a small fertility shrine in a small town that draws thousands to its bizarre Hounen festival, flocking here to view one of the world's largest collections of penis-shaped carvings. A group of drunken men lurch through the village, toting an eight-foot-long cedar penis.