Bon Odori Matsuri

It was an unusually cool August evening…it was the perfect timing for a Bon Odori Matsuri.

Bon Odori is a festival dance which is held in the evening during Obon. In the old days, Bon Odori is performed to welcome the spirits and to send them off again. The people danced while wearing a yukata to the beat of the flute and the Japanese drum called taiko. But nowadays, Bon Odori is usually done as part of the summer festivities of the towns or villages.

My son, Zach, and I went to a Bon Odori in our neighborhood this evening. At first, we were just walking around, trying to find something to eat from the stalls that were aligned in the different corners of the place. They held the festival inside a big bamboo park.

After munching on some popcorn, we lined up for yakitori. Yakitori are grilled chicken skewers. The sellers were volunteers around the community so these yakitori were home made. And I tell you, they are 100 times better and tastier than the commercial ones.

After we finished the yakitori and the cotton candy which Zach tasted for the first time, we decided to watch the festival dance.

There was a make-shift stage and the main dancers were on the stage while the people playing the taiko (Japanese drum) were on the upper most part of the stage.

Below the stage, the other dancers performed and guests such as ourselves were welcome to join.

The dancers were so lively that one will be enticed to join them. So I did! I danced with them for the last 30 minutes of the festival with Zach joining us later on. There was one very nice lady who taught the steps to us and to some Junior High School boys while we were doing the dance.

We definitely had fun and it was one of those moments when how I wished I can speak fluently in Japanese so I can tell the people there how much fun we had. But since I can’t, all I could utter, especially to our “dance instructor”, was a heartfelt Arigatou Gozaimashita!