Shining like the most famous festival in Japan, the Gion festival takes place every year throughout the month of July. This is testimony to the communal spirit in the center of Kyotoite that this annual festival has been almost continuous since its inception in 869.
Keeping a multitude of events, the two most visually stunning are processes floats (Yamaboko Yunko) July 17 and 24 The procession was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Event in 2009.
During the days leading up to the process, visitors can watch the construction of giant float constructions and treasure decoration. Wandering the streets rewards us with the cultural wealth displayed on floats and in private homes.
Three nights to processes (called yoiyama ) offer a variety of holidays for the senses, including phenomenal people who are watching. We can enjoy the loss in the crowd among otherworldly music, noisy festive street life and intriguing food stalls.
The festival originated with a ritual in 869 to calm the angry spirits who are believed to cast plague on the people of Kyoto. Later it turned into an annual ritual of processes to please the neighboring temples of the Yasaki temple and ask to clean up any harmful energy for the year.
Fast forward to the 20th century, and modern hygiene has saved Kyotoite from diseases associated with the rainy season. However, torrential rains continue to fall every July, reminding us of the festival. When festival viewers feel oppressed by heat and humidity or sometimes fall into the downpour, what can we do other than step into a dry and cool shop window and pray for relief?
The weather does not interfere with many. Over a million visitors a year testify to the impressive character of the Gion festival.
Floats
Word yamaboko It refers to two types of floats presented at the festival: 10 giant hoko and 23 smaller pit. It is impossible to remain without the impression of giant hoko, which are up to 25 meters in height (including spare parts, they compete with an 8-storey building), weighs up to 12 tons and are rolled on wheels by dozens of people.
Incredibly, they consist of simple logs, connected together with beautifully symmetrical rope lengths. Fit with giant wheels and adorned with priceless artistic decorations collected over the centuries, and voila! Yamaboko is called “moving museums” and is a unique collection of textiles and other artworks in the world, seen in close-up and without glass between you.
Although hoko is huge, size is not everything. The pit is associated with more residential neighborhoods. Here you can enjoy the traditional festive feeling of the festival from decades past from the overwhelming crowds. Not so long ago it was a neighborhood novel, when people walked a few blocks to drink tea and go out with friends. While exploring the back streets and festival restrictions, you can still enjoy this relaxed atmosphere.
Each pit is dedicated to a unique deity or deities - from a Zen master to a monk warrior to a bodhisattva of compassion. Original deities It is believed that the spirits live in their sculptural similarities, artistic masterpieces in their own right and are reflected during the festival in local, sometimes temporary shrines. Traditional architecture itself is exemplary.
While the July 17 procession includes 23 holes and nine out of ten hoko, the July 24 procession stars 10 yama and the newly reintroduced Grand Ship Hoko. The later part of the festival is usually smaller, quieter and more intimate. There used to be an intense sensory extravaganza that you will never forget.
The only time the annual festival was interrupted since 869 during major fires and major wars, when local neighborhoods were destroyed, the local population was destroyed or scattered.
Every time local neighborhoods come together to revive a festival, it becomes a major source of civic pride.
Currently, the problems of the festival include a change in the urban landscape, sharp jumps in real estate prices, rapid population relocation, and even a tourist turn of the festival.
After repeating for 1100 years on the basis of community cohesion and cultural and spiritual emotions, can these qualities adapt to modern life? With so many visitors, how does participating in the festival help ensure its perpetuation? The Gion festival presents a unique sustainability issue.
Temple of Yasaki, Geisha and Kimono
Gion in the Gion Festival is an area known for its geisha idols *. This area of Gion grows around the temple of Yasaka, the residence of the deities, regardless of what is dedicated to the festival of Gion. Like the festival of Gion itself, the Yasaka Temple has been a popular pilgrimage site for more than a thousand years.
Tea shops arose in the Gion area to serve the pilgrims, the artists lit their spirits, and the finesse of the entertainment event led to a geisha culture. The connection between the geisha, the Yasaka temple and the Gion Festival continues today.
Meanwhile, nearby - on the other side of the Kamo River from the sanctuary and geisha - the center of Japan's kimono industry flourished.
Festival art as a social submission
As Kyoto's kimonos merchants have been growing richer over the centuries, the festival has become an opportunity to circumvent Kyoto’s strict social attitudes. Government regulations regarding clothing and building façades, for example, were designed to only open aristocrats demonstrating personal wealth.
However, these rules did not apply to the Gion Festival. Decorating the floats with bright and exotic treasures, rich kimono merchants flaunted their wealth and accompanied cultural erudition. It was an indirect, but not-so-subtitled way to put your nose into their social networks.
Although Kyoto aesthetics are usually known for their simple restraint, the voyages of the Gion Festival go beyond baroque. Their decorations automatically mature with gilding, baroque metalwork and attractive tapestries, all of which are willy-nilly mixed in a small area. And all layers with spiritual and cultural references.
For example, a series of tapestries represented by various yamaboko depict different scenes of Taoist immortals, performing wonderful feats with supernatural abilities. The ceiling of Tsuki Boko has gilded paintings from a multitude of fans, each of which contains one different scene from the classic Japanese novel "The Tale of Genji."
Acquaintance with the spirit of the community, historical kimono families and companies openly show their heirlooms throughout the festival. Usually known for its exclusivity and privacy, this bounty is known as the Folding-Screen Festival. (Byobu Matsuri).
Although both the kimonic industries and the “floating world” of geisha have decreased in size and social role, these two have come together during the Gion festival. Kimono culture is still the foundation of the festival, and geisha makes formal and informal performances at various festival events that look amazingly cool in the summer.
Bruhaha, Gion Festival Style
Street cafes and people watching aside, the Gion Festival is not a Mardi Gras-style party: the floats and processes are formal and neat. However, there is no flashy, sweaty, stomping side at the festival that can be easily missed by chance.
On the dark night of July 16, portable shrines are hated on the shoulders of hundreds of wild, clad in loincloth people in the Yasaka temple. Shimmering and shaking, they heave and toss, gold jewels tremble, a few kilometers from their permanent temple site to a temporary cloister in the center of Kyoto.
Three portable temples follow different detour routes, the deities inside the cleansing red worshipers. and their homes a year in advance.
Then, from July 17 to July 24, the gods of the Yasaki temples “visit” the city center at the intersection of Shiho Street and Teramachi Street, a kind of spiritual public propaganda. If you pay attention, you can see how these small but very richly decorated mobile shrines are the energy focus of the processions. The floats stop when they pass by, to respect the gods and demand cleansing for the next year, until the next rainy season.
On the night of the 24s, mobile shrines scatter and shake themselves up to the Yasak temple, settling there again until the end of the year.
By the end of July, all the spectators of the festival were cleared by various deities of the Gion Festival and festival ceremonies. We can all look forward to a great year until another Gion festival arrives.
* (As shown in the book, Memoirs of a Geisha , Arthur Golden)
