Festival Weekend

Photo Diary: 9th Nov 2009. Ishigaki's annual two-day festival was held this weekend and the heat returned with a vengeance with the temperature hitting about 29 degrees centigrade on Sunday. Up until now November has always been the one month of the year that I've always dreaded. The clocks in England go back at the end of October, the nights draw in, the weather becomes wetter and the spring feels like it's an eternity away. Moving to Ishigaki has changed all that. However, in keeping with my British trait of having to moan about the weather I couldn't help but complain about the fact that I managed to end up with a suntan despite applying factor 40 sunblock several times a day.

 

 

The festival was centered on Maezato park, which is situated to the east of the city. It has a large permanent concrete stage which is ideal for open-air concerts and there were live performances which ran from late afternoon until about 8.30pm on both Saturday and Sunday. I've always found it slightly irritating that live performances always finish so early on Ishigaki island. I realise that it's out of respect for the local residents, but the fact is that most of the town seemed to be at the concert anyway. Still, given the number of free outdoor concerts which are held on the Island it's hard to complain.

 

Although the live musical performances take place on the park the highlight of the weekend was the parade which took place on Sunday. It starts at Arakawa and continues on to the centre of Ishigaki city with many local groups taking part.

 

Thousands of people lined the streets took watch the carnival-like procession which included traditional acts like the carrying of the Hatagashira (as performed in the Hounensai festival) through to a salsa performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing which has recently occurred to me is the sheer lack of police presence at these events. There must have been 10,000 people on Maezato park last night. People were drinking and having fun and I didn't see a single policeman during the entire weekend.

 

There's a good reason for this too; violence hasn't become a national pastime in Japan like it has in many other developed countries. And it's not because the Japanese don't drink as much as westerners do either, in fact, many Okinawan men are more than capable of drinking themselves under the table on a weekly basis.

 

For some reason I thought that last month's Yaeyama music festival would be the last big festival of the year, but how wrong I was. This weekend probably saw the event of the year in terms of visitor turnout and it was yet another example of how the community on Ishigaki can really get together to enjoy themselves, which for me is one of my favorite aspects of living on this tiny island thousands of miles from home.