For a country that is renowned for its group dynamics and mildly repressive the-protruding-nail-is-hammered down (this is actually a proverb) view of the individual, it seems like every tiny little town is famous for something or other. If it’s not always OK to stick out as an individual, it’s fairly standard to try to stick out as a community. Don’t let anybody tell you that Japanese people are all the same, because while conformity does dress up in the guise of adherence to rules of social propriety that probably wouldn’t ever occur to many non-Japanese (it’s considered rude, for example, to drink from a water bottle while walking), this is certainly not a nation populated by flat grey robots thinking through the mechanical mind of some massive metallic queen bee barricaded in an office building in the heart of Tokyo. I think regional differences are pretty fascinating, and I have never seen a country whose people vary more from place to place or take so much pride from being residents of a particular area. Which I guess makes sense if we want to look at it in the context of group identity. Community is built fundamentally out of a connection to place, and because Japan is a society based around being a member of a group, sure, it follows that people would identify strongly with the specific place in which they live. Ugh, now that I think about it I don’t want to get into a sociological examination of Japanese identity, I just want to talk about fireworks. So I’ll dispense with the dissertation and get into it a little more.
Every place in Japan is famous for something (this is eventually where my blogging was going to stumble out of the academic woods and into the light of someplace more interesting). Of course, Kyoto is famous for autumn leaves, tea ceremony, and as a cultural center. Osaka is famous for its accent (among many other things). Tokyo is famous for being Tokyo. But that’s not quite what I mean when I say every place in Japan is famous for something. Saying Kyoto is famous for temples is like saying New York is famous for tall buildings, rude people, and crazy taxi drivers. No doi, right? However, in Japan, not just are the biggest cities famous for things, but so too are the tiny little shit towns in the middle of nowhere. Have you ever heard of Niigata? Probably not, but it’s famous for rice and Japanese people will pay a lot of money for rice grown there as opposed to, say, Gifu. Hamamatsu, where I’m currently posted up, is well-known for mikan and unagi (oranges and eel). People rave about the Okonomiyaki (a food virtually impossible to explain in English to someone who’s never eaten it) made in Hiroshima. Hirakata’s got milk-tea, Kobe cows and shoes, Miyajima cakes, and if you’ve never had dango from Ibaraki you’ve never lived. Every little shit-ball town on the map is famous for something, and everybody knows about, which brings me to the tiny little town of Fukuroi, just about a half hour or so from where I live.
Every place in Japan is famous for something (this is eventually where my blogging was going to stumble out of the academic woods and into the light of someplace more interesting). Of course, Kyoto is famous for autumn leaves, tea ceremony, and as a cultural center. Osaka is famous for its accent (among many other things). Tokyo is famous for being Tokyo. But that’s not quite what I mean when I say every place in Japan is famous for something. Saying Kyoto is famous for temples is like saying New York is famous for tall buildings, rude people, and crazy taxi drivers. No doi, right? However, in Japan, not just are the biggest cities famous for things, but so too are the tiny little shit towns in the middle of nowhere. Have you ever heard of Niigata? Probably not, but it’s famous for rice and Japanese people will pay a lot of money for rice grown there as opposed to, say, Gifu. Hamamatsu, where I’m currently posted up, is well-known for mikan and unagi (oranges and eel). People rave about the Okonomiyaki (a food virtually impossible to explain in English to someone who’s never eaten it) made in Hiroshima. Hirakata’s got milk-tea, Kobe cows and shoes, Miyajima cakes, and if you’ve never had dango from Ibaraki you’ve never lived. Every little shit-ball town on the map is famous for something, and everybody knows about, which brings me to the tiny little town of Fukuroi, just about a half hour or so from where I live.
Fukuroi:
A (beautiful) town of maybe 35, every year in the beginning of August Fukuroi braces itself for a tidal wave of Japanese folks as thousands of people crash upon the shores of the little hamlet to watch the third or fourth biggest fireworks display in all of Japan. It’s amazing. We got off the train at about 6:00 and for miles around there was nothing but people and rice paddies. I’m a little hungover right now, so can’t accurately or very humorously describe the situation, but I think this picture will do wonders:
My face says it all. Where did all of these people come from? I don’t know, but the allure of two hours of fireworks drew them to this little place like pyromaniacal moths to a flame. Wait, two hours? Of fireworks? I know what you’re thinking, sweetest thing ever, and yeah that’s what I thought. But at the same time, two hours is a long time…. How are they going to keep it from getting really boring? This is where my mind started doing laps and I started imagining Gandalf-inspired phosphorus dragons and fabricated incandescent rainbows snarling and streaking across the night sky, and this is also where I started to get very excited. Unfortunately, turns out Japanese people aren’t actually sorcerers, just nerds with a lot of explosives on their hands, so it was two intermittent hours of your garden variety bombs in the sky, which ain’t bad. I’ve got a lot of pictures, so, I figured I’d post them all so you could experience them too. Sit back, relax, grab an overpriced beer and a small container of yakisoba and it’s like we’re all there together, watching the static imprints of old explosions in a far-away sky.
Boom!
Phoosh!!!
I really like this one, it looks like the sun is blowing up. Or maybe the Death Star?
Doesn't this one look like a big chandelier?
Ah, so nice.
This shit seriously went on forever.
Dammit that's satisfying.
This was the grand finale, and even though it sounded like the world was being ripped apart, you couldn't really see anything because of the two hours worth of fireworks smoke in the air. Whoops, but at least we know what color yen burns when you set it on fire.
Well, that's about that. If you've seen one fireworks display you've seen them all, but they're still beautiful. No getting around that. Oh yeah, here's me with a homeless dude.
3 comments:
wow that sounds like a stupendous time you had there buddy. So if LFP were in japan what would that little shit hole town be know for you think?
I had four chicken Walla Walla Tacos today and they were heavenly. I use to tell people that Walla Walla is big for wine and onions, but from now on I'm just going to say, we have the worlds best taco trucks.
I thought Kyoto was where you purchase Geishas'?
to answer both of you, LFP would be known for cheap prostitutes whereas Geisha's are not purchased so much as tactfully procured.
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