Fall festivals

Hello! It's been a while since I posted on this here blog, apologies and blah blah blah! Here is just a sampling of the things I've done and discovered in the past few months!

Back in September, I went wandering across the border. The prefectural border, that is! Nakatsu lies on the western edge of Oita prefecture, so I took a walk into Buzen, which is across a river and in Fukuoka prefecture. I was only walking for a little while when I started to hear some drums beating. I kind of followed the sound without thinking, and came across this random little festival. I stood and watched for a while.

What I could gather was that some adult was dressed as an oni (demon) and another was dressed as what I thought was a prince but later found out was probably a priest. Some high schoolers or junior high schoolers played the drums and flute in the background. After a time of the demon and priest sort of dancing around each other, the demon tied a basket of snacks around his waist and used a long stick as a kind of fishing pole, tying the snacks at the end and throwing the rod into the crowd, where children tried to untie the snacks!

Hilariously, if the child couldn't do it or took too long, the oni came and snatched the child (with the parents' permission) and carried them around the staging area. This caused the children to be very frightened, and a couple of the stolen children started to cry. One little girl was so upset that when she was released, she declared, 「やだ！」(Yada! — I don't like it!/I don't wanna!) and stormed off to the outskirts of the festival. The festival was in a small area, so she didn't go far, haha.

After stealing a couple children and handing them back to the parents, the oni and priest threw candy and snacks out into the crowd. I caught a couple and was happy. :) Then I left, and after walking a short way, I heard MORE drums! Following them, of course, I stumbled upon another rendition of the same festival, complete with oni carrying children. This one was a lot smaller, and I didn't stay long because it was time to go back to Nakatsu.

Then, about a week later, my supervisor at school showed me a flyer for this very type of festival, which had been so mysterious to me. The flyer pictured a small, crying child in the hands of a demon-dressed adult. I asked my supervisor, "Why is that baby crying?" (I was trying to imply that the demon shouldn't have been carrying the baby. Of course, implication doesn't always work across languages.) She replied simply, "Because that oni is so scary!"

Following the flyer's indicated information, I walked over to the festival (which is apparently a fall festival) that weekend. Sure enough, there were demons and priests. But this time, it was the kids who were dressed up! And the tiny demons did their dance/performance for the crowd and then proceeded to get all up in the faces of the kids attending the performance, effectively scaring them just as much as if they had picked them up like the adult oni had done.

I thought this was a great twist on the other versions of the fall festival, and I felt proud to have discovered three separate versions.

Coming up in my next post(s), calligraphy, Halloween, and a scavenger hunt! Stay tuned!

Child-priest!