Asian Sunday:Traditional festival in Showa village, Fukushima pref. Japan
This is a photo to the Asian Sunday contest by @czechglobalhosts.
This foto was taken in Showa-village, Fukushima pref. This is very small village and the population is only 1300. This is the festival only 1 day in the middle of August for praying everyone's health and good harvest . This area is well known with rice field and tasty rice, so the greens of this photo is with rice field. I'm not so sure this is the right way to participate in your contest or not, but I wish I could keep trying to join in your community... to enjoy sharing and having fun to communicate with everyone here :-) Thank you very much for reading.
this is @yo-yo's original work with Canon 6D
Very cool! 😎
I love those costumes and masks. Fukushima was that area affected by the radiation, in 2011. Right? Is everything back to normal, already?
Hi dear... thanks! Yeah, you are right. this is same prefecture with that disaster happened. But this area is located quite far away from the sea, I mean mountainside. But unfortunately people who live this village are still suffering from rumor damages... The rice price is very cheap even though they have a certificate that it is safe. I visit this area every summer these years to learn weaving techniques, and also I wish I could somehow help this small village cheers up to let people know about their culture and how they are now... even though it is very very small support for them :-)
The house Inn the rice field looks so quaint. Is the festival dedicated to a specific local deity?
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oh yes, that house is "蔵=Kura" I think we can say ”warehouse” in English. This is very classic Kura since Edo period for keeping Rice or other grains, or Kimono, pottery, dishes for family parties... Kura was generally built for protecting fires or robbers, so built with soil wall and super heavy doors not to be opened so easy. And yes or no about this festival... they pray for "五穀豊穣=Gokokuhojo/harvest" and good health, so kind of Animism I think, but also this festival walking is started from a shrine the name is "気多神社=Ketajinja" which is a religion of Shinto. So... as you know very mixed this is. It is said this festival was started since 1716 and once stopped by 1877, but people in this village started this again since 2010... So 18th means not so super old one, but I think this festival make this community strong... so which is great thing they are doing this again :-)