Matsuri - festival

This happened the other night on our way home from Shibuya, second day in Japan, still clueless foreigners. We were headed back to our dorm from the the train station (which is a short walk, 10 minutes or so) when we noticed a party going on in the middle of the street and a lit up shrine resting on some step ladders. We were fairly unnoticed until my friend decided to take a picture of the shrine, and the flash went off. In a matter of seconds all eyes turned to us! We awkwardly tried to apologize and then quietly walk away but a Japanese girl asked us in broken English is we wanted her to take a picture of us in front of the shrine, of course we said yes. Then she started asking us where we were from, what we were doing in Japan, how we liked it so far, how long we were here, where we were staying, etc. Now that I think about it she could have asked us for our credit card numbers and we probably would have given them to her, it's hard to say no to a cute little Japanese girl. We tried asking her what the matsuri was for, but we didn't really understand her answer other than they carry it around the town all day. (we googled it later, it's a Shinto tradition- a good luck thing for having a good harvest this year, I hope letting foreigners carry this thing doesn't curse them..) After our conversation in Japanglish, my friend Dan comes up to us and says, "I'm going to help carry the shrine, do you guys want to as well?" That came out of left field. But why not!? It was only 'up the road' a teeny bit that it had to be carried. So we were standing around the shrine getting ready for take off, when Dan decides he needs to practice. He gets down on one knee, shoulder to the bar, and starts to lift thinking that this shrine is massively heavy. Turns out its not too bad, so the entire thing starts to tip over. Everyone lunges for the thing and kind of laugh at the silly gaijin, foreigner, but Emelie and I are standing there mortified, thinking about how awful it would have been if it did tip over. Definitely a bad harvest. 

They line us up, and shove us into the crowd of people carrying the shrine. A bunch of sweaty older men all around us, telling us to make sure we put the bar directly on our shoulder, and to not step on anyone. As you can see from the picture Emelie and I are surprisingly shorter than the men, the bar did not reach my shoulder. (even on my tip toes..) I'll be honest at first my thought was great! I can be a slacker, wrong. So wrong. As soon as a man with a megaphone says go (or something else, I couldn't really understand him he just shouted into a megaphone and things started happening) everyone bounces up and down while moving half an inch up the street. They also shout something, I'm not sure if its words or just noises, but it sounded a lot like one group says uru and the other says sa or za! While this may look cool and probably has to do with shaking out and scaring bad spirits or something, for Emelie and me it meant a heavy wooden bar smacking into our shoulder. But it was only 'up the street' so we could handle it..

Poor Dan is actually tall so he was definitely carrying the shrine, not just getting smacked in the shoulder. We all have some massive bruises on our left shoulder! If you can't tell from the pictures, the process of bouncing this shrine up the street a few blocks in the hot and humid Japanese weather really gets you sweaty. And the way that the Japanese men and women take turns carrying the shrine, it's kind of like once you get too hot you grab someone near you who's not carrying it and you shove him or her under the bar and then step out. As much as I wanted to take a break, I felt like I couldn't because that would offend someone or be incredibly rude since they were allowing us to carry this for them. (How's that for the ultimate manipulation?) So instead of taking a break I just kept getting sandwiched between different super sweaty Japanese guys. I don't know if you can fully understand how uncomfortable that is. I am breathing in their sweat, being pushed up against their wet backs and their sweat somehow seems to be dripping into my eyes. By the time it was over I smelled disgusting. As soon as we got back to the dorm I had to shower but the entire thing was worth it. On the second day of our year in Japan we got to partake in a Shinto tradition that has been going on forever. It was the coolest thing!