Festivals (Part 2)

Japanese Anthropology 101
Okay people, pay attention. Time to enlarge your knowledge of Japan beyond Sony Bravia flatscreen LCD TVs and faulty Toyota accelerator pedals. Over the past weekend the country celebrated (commerated?) the Obon festival and we did the same. Or rather, Sanae and Cian did. I pleaded global agnosticism and spent the time instead catching up on my reading.
According to Wikipedia - (after Sanae's explanation of Tana Bata, I have had to look elsewhere for legitimate explanations of the country and its customs) - "Obon is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori."
Unfortunately Obon also coincides with the hottest days of summer, and the mass migration of Japanese all over the archipelago. This results in packed trains, planes and buses, not to mention 40km+ tailbacks on the motorways and the sort of heat induced stress levels that can be observed from space. In our case its not so bad as we travel across the island to Obihiro Sanae's family home. Others though have considerably longer distances to travel and the various travel services are not averse from making money out of people diligently conforming to custom. During the Obon period, not only are full fares charged, but knowing there is guaranteed demand for all forms of transport and lodging, the airline companies, trains, buses and hotels all charge an 'Obon premium'.
Bastards.
And then you have your typhoons. On Thursday last I was due to take the train down to Obihiro late in the afternoon. Sanae and Cian had driven down on Tuesday as I had movies to watch, sorry, work to do. On Thursday morning, biblical downpours and the resulting landslides close the rail line at Muroran. So I jump in my car and drive up, nay heroically drive up through the same biblical downpours, to Minami Chitose to catch the train from there. Get on the train. Have to stand as the train is packed. An hour into the journey the train stops. And remains stopped for the next three hours due to, yes, heavy rainfall. When we did get moving again, we trundled along at less than 25 kph. And what should have been a three and half hour journey ended up taking ten hours. And JR Hokkaido charged a premium for this.
Bastards.
Anyway Obon also involves the Bon Odori dance, an example of which is held here on the streets of Muroran every year. I went along with Cian and his friend from the Nursey, Aika, to watch Aika's Mammy get in the 'real groove'. Aika's mother is a foreign student here at the university (she's from Indonesia), and all the foreign students have to take part in the town's Obon dance festival. As you can see from the photos, she's barely able to contain her happiness and being made to take part.