Summertime in the City - Bon Odori

"Hotte hotte, mata hotte, katsuide katsuide, ato sagari, oshite oshite, hiraite, cho-chong-ga-chong"

Higashi-Koganei Bon Odori

If you're going to go to a Bon Odori in Tokyo, this is one of the dances you're going to need to know. It's easy, thanks to the words above. They're instructions read in the rhythm of the dance. It translates roughly as "dig, dig, dig again, (carry on your) shoulder, (carry on your) shoulder, afterwards back up, push, push, open (your arms), clap, clap. Of course, you're not actually digging, just going through the motions. H.'s grandfather taught it to him when he was just a little thing. H.'s niece, M., taught me the dance with the help of YouTube last year.

Higashi-Koganei Bon Odori

There are a bunch of other dances, too, but they're an awful lot harder (but still do-able - a Bon Odori isn't exactly a place where you have to be good at dancing). All you have to do is follow one of the community ladies in a special yukata (summer kimono) and copy, copy, copy. But even they don't know all of the dances and end up copying each other. It's like one giant line of copy-cats, all craning to see what the person-who-knows-what-he-or-she-is-doing is doing.

H. and J. in Higashi-Koganei

For the second year in a row, H. and I went to our own little community Bon Odori in Higashi-Koganei. We took along a visiting friend, J., all decked out in a new yukata purchased earlier in the day in Asakusa. H. and I were in yukata, too, making us the most Japanese-y group there. Between the entertainment, which included taiko drummers, an enka singer, and a cheer-leading club, and the plentiful and cheap food (yaki soba, frankfurters, snow cones, candy floss, yaki tori, etc.), it was a glorious night of fun. 


A few weeks before the Higashi-Koganei Bon Odori, H. and I happened upon another Bon Odori, this time out Tachikawa way, on our way home from a day spent relaxing and barbeque-ing at Aki-kawa (Aki River). It was smaller than our own, but it also had an extra bit of Japanese culture: Nankin Tama Sudare, a really neat routine, involving a bunch of little sticks connected with string, that traditional Japanese "clowns" perform (although not very often these days). H. had actually never seen it live. For me, it was completely new. And, somehow, I found myself up on stage amongst a group of children, being taught how to do some basic shapes with the sticks. I suppose not surprisingly, I am now the proud owner of my own set (though it is disappointingly small). Also not surprisingly, nankin tama sudare also has a rhyme, as addictive as "The Song that Never Ends". 

"Asatte, asatte, asatte wa, nankin tama sudare..."

Tachikawa-area Bon Odori