ぎおんまつり

Japanese people love festivals. There is a festival of one sort or another almost every day somewhere in Japan. The Gion Matsuri, held in Kyoto, is one of Japan's biggest and most famous.

Bugs on tour:

Kyoto was the capital of Japan for more than 1000 years, from 794 until the new capital was established in Tokyo in 1868, and many old buildings can still be found around the city today. There are more than 1800 well-preserved temples and shrines in Kyoto, as well as numerous beautiful traditional gardens. Since it was the seat of government for such a long time there are many historically significant buildings, such as the former Imperial Palace, Nijo Castle and the Katsura Detached Palace.

The origin of the Gion Matsuri was in a plague that swept through the old capital in 869 during which many people died. As the plague took hold, a priest from the Yasaka Shrine in the Gion area decided to lead a procession through the town to pray to the gods for deliverance. The plague ran its course, but the procession turned into an annual festival featuring huge, heavily decorated floats called hoko,carrying musicians, and smaller floats called yama, carrying life-size figures of famous historical and mythical personages.

Preparations traditionally begin on 1 July, so that the floats, sideshows, booths with games and countless stalls selling food can appear on the streets by 10 July. People who live in the traditional parts of town open up their houses to allow people to see the ancient cultural treasures they live in and care for. The festival culminates on 17 July with a great parade. Thirty-two huge hoko, each weighing more than 10 tonnes, are pulled through the streets by large teams wearing traditional clothing. To get the enormous floats round the corners of the narrow streets, the floats have to be pivoted on large blocks of wood by the teams, which requires a great deal of skill. The smaller, but still heavy yama　are carried on the shoulders.

Musicians wearing traditional costume sit on top of the hoko and play traditional instruments. Many of the spectators, too, take the opportunity to wear traditional clothes for the festival, so all-in-all it is a truly spectacular event!

One very popular sideshow game is Kingyo sukui: scooping up goldfish. Players are given a small scoop and can keep any goldfish they manage to catch. The scoop is made of thin paper, so to catch a fish you have to be either very skilful or very lucky!