Obon Festival

This past week right near the language school there is a Shinto Shrine and they were celebrating the end of Obon with a festival in the evening. We took the kids right after dinner to see the Japanese paper lanterns lit up and get to look at all the stalls selling different Japanese food and things kids will whine at their parents to buy. There was also a small area set up where kids could do sumo.

No idea what this is- but they want $4 for it??!

Yaki- tori (grilled chicken on sticks)
Now this stuff is good!

Both kids had one of these and loved it-
a banana on a stick covered in chocolate

Meg & the octopus

The making of tako-yaki (grilled octopus balls)

The final product (cooked on the left, in process on the right)

And of course the shrine itself with the hand washing area out front,the coin box where people throw their coins and a bell that they ring. We did not stay around for the actual festival where there would be dancing and fireworks, but we got to see enough that on the walk home we had the opportunity to talk with our children about what we had seen. Obon is a festival where the Japanese believe that their ancestors come back from the dead and at the end of the week they traditionally send the lanterns down the river to return the spirits to their own world.

Titus had wanted to wash his hands when he saw other children doing it, and we were able to tell him why he was not allowed.

It was neat to be able to show them part of the culture and them begin to realize the sadness that the Japanese do not know the truth. That those they saw at the shrine believed they needed to wash their hands to be made "clean" before offering anything. That ringing the bell would wake their gods to know that they are there and that throwing the coins in the box would promote them good favor with their gods.

This is very good reading on Obon and the history behind it and religious aspects (why we did not want our kids to actually participate in the festival with the dancing)- the dances are done in a way as to calm the dead spirits of ancestors

Obon Reading

Just one way for the children to see the lost world that we live in and how we can better pray for those that we desire to know about God.