Musashi-Koganei Festival

It was the end of a lazy Friday in late July. I had taught no more than three or four lessons and had found time to finish a book I was reading (On seeing and noticing" by Alain de Botton) in between planning the following day's lessons and catching up on paperwork. From the fifth floor I could faintly hear drumming, and upon inquiring about the reason for this incessant groove, I was informed that it was the start of the Musashi-Koganei summer festival. I filled in my register and DTR and listened with half an ear to the noise from the streets below. After clocking out I sneaked into a classroom overlooking the street and forced open the clunky double-glazing which allowed the volume of the taiko drummers to flood the room. I peered down and watched almost twitching with excitement the twirl and stomp of the dancers on the ground. They made patterns down there on the tarmac and it all happened in time with the beats of the drums. I pulled the window shut and it huffed as it sealed itself; the room becoming deaf once more.



My manager and co-worker descended to the jollifications via an elevator to the ground floor. We walked past the vending machine that sells 'glamorous body' iced coffee (for a refreshing taste that never ends), oolong tea, asahi peach juice and 'vita C' energy drinks, then through the automatic doors and into the soft warmth of the Japanese night. There was a cacophony of clanging bells and drums and hundreds of people lined the streets to watch the dancers. Fans and hands twisted and twirled, they crouched and turned, jumped and shrieked. There were squawking stalls selling roasted meat on skewers; the scent of which filled the air - a smell which is so familiar at barbecues and festivals back home. There were crates of cold Asahi and Kirin beer floating in iced water. The staff accrued a couple of cans and joined the spectators on the kerb.



The atmosphere was wonderful. Everyone was in high spirits. It made such a nice change to have the road closed off from traffic which on a normal night, the flow of which one has to carefully dodge to avoid injury. A little further up however, the trains still clattered past; every few minutes the black and yellow barriers sliced down and bounced off the heads of unfortunate pedestrians hurrying over the tracks towards the safety of the pavement. Every time I have to cross the damn thing I worry that I am going to get mown down! If one starts to hear the ding of the gate then that is the time to run; and then you run and hope not to catch a heel in the tracks and weave between the cyclists and get to the other side. Phew!



The dancing drew to an end at around 10.30 and our merry goup moved onto an izakaya on the high street. Girls in kimonos and yukatas wandered around eating frozen ice cones or eating noodles. The stalls started packing up and after a little while the drumming ceased. A gentle breeze lifted the laughter and converstion of several hundred locals into the air and mixed it with sounds of brooms sweeping pavements and the lingering smell of cooked food. I felt so happy to have experienced this. Events like this make it all worth while. In the izakaya we discussed Japanese culture over half litres of very cool beer, sushi, salad and omelette.



I boarded the train at about midnight and watched a young girl as she spontaneously moved in time with the internal echo in her head of the music from the festival. It was enchanting. I took a seat which was by chance within near proximity of two westerners; who, like me, were plugged into i-pods and staring at the floor. I watched a dizzy mosquito blunder back and forth on the cream coloured plastic of the train floor and wondered how long it would be until someone trod on it. When I glanced up I noticed that the other two westerners were also transfixed by the dying bug. The guy even went so far as to move his bag to give the creature a clear path. I smiled to myself. None of the Japanese had noticed it. Why had we? The train drew to a stop and people rose from their seats and exited the train. Our eyes were locked on the fragile insect. Yet, as fated, a black rubber sole came down upon it and snuffed it out of existence. The three westerners stared down at the tiny corpse and felt a moment of sadness. I don't know if they were aware of what we had all witnessed but I was. I didn't know what it meant, but it felt significant at the time....