There's a fun little fair going on down the road. Summer is a big deal in Japan. There's summer festivals and fireworks displays all throughout July and August. This past week has been Tanabata. Officially it's on July 7th, but it's drawn out (like Christmas). It's a beautiful story behind the festival. As told to me by Nomura-san, my Japanese teacher. The Emperor's daughter, Shokjo, was a weaver and would weave for god (God, the gods, however you want to interpret it). She wanted to be married. There was a herdsman, Kengyu, who also prayed to god to be married. So god brought them together. But then they only had love and they each stopped doing their work for god. This displeased god so he separated them and made them stars. He allows them to be together for one day in the year. So people write their wishes to the stars on strips of paper and hang them with decoration from "bamboo trees", which are really strips of bamboo tied to regular trees. I may have it off a bit. I've had it explained to me a couple of times and it's always a little bit different so I think that it's a real mixture of a few myths coming together into one celebration that no one really knows the reason behind. Sort of like Hallowe'en. The easiest way to explain Hallowe'en is to say that kids get all dressed up and go house to house asking for candy. Why? Who really knows, there's all sorts of possible stories. So the easiest explanation of Tanabata is that people decorate trees with colourful paper and wishes, and then dress up in Yukata (used to be a traditional bathrobe and is now considered traditional summer wear) and go wander the street fairs.
The main road just down from me has been decked out for the local festivities. The trees are full and there's all these little booths with games for the kids and food like hot dogs (not what you're picturing though, it's on a stick, no bun, perfect for me!), snow cones and all sorts of other goodies like octopus balls. It's nice to just walk down the street to see all the families coming out and having fun, the groups of teenage girls all giggling and laughing at the groups of teenage boys, the groups of teenage boys being absorbed by the comics and games, and the little kids running around in cute yukata outfits.
I'm convinced that it's all been done for me to celebrate Canada.
