Himeji Yukata Matsuri!

Summer has finally arrived to my part of Japan, and with it Matsuri season. "Matsuri" translates basically as summer festival. Usually, they include long lines of Japanese fair food (delicious!), fair games (example- catch goldfish in nets!), and people walking around in Yukata. The food ranges from yakisoba- grilled soba noodles in sauce with cabbage and stuff, takoyaki- eggy octopus balls, to crepes and slushies. The games I'm not so knowledgeable on, there's one where kids get to keep little baby turles, which are adorable, and one where they get to catch goldfish. Now, everyone know the Japanese kimono, but usually these are pretty heavy and hot. The summer answer to this problem then is the yukata. They're about the same bathrobe-looking cut of a kimono, but they're made out of cotton, come in fabulously bright colors, and are designed for maximum cooling. The Himeji festival lasted for two days this year, more on that later. It was pouring on the first day, Thursday, so it was basically one day long.

I started off getting to the matsuri late. I borrowed a yukata from my neighbor Lexi, and we struggled to get it tied to me before I had to run and catch a bus to Japanese class. After class, I wandered the streets looking for Lexi and ended up running into Taube, Julian, and a few of their Japanese friends. Link over to Taube's blog to see some great pictures of girls in their yukata, I was an idiot and didn't take any good pictures of them... The Japanese kids in their little yukata's are the cutest thing in the world. They're running around in bright flowery robes with big bows on their backs. They look like little presents. I just wanted to take one home! I later ran into one of my favorite students from Toyotomi who graduated this spring, Aya. She's one of the girls I helped coach through speech contest last fall. I've actually missed her quite a bit, so I was excited to see her. I got her number, so maybe I can see her again.


So after the festival, we wandered over to the bars for a drink or two and hung out there until about one a.m., when I got a call from Lexi. The "bosozoku" were rioting down by the station trying to pick fights with the Japanese riot police.

The bosozoku are motorcycle gangs of youths under about 25. Some of them graduate the bosozoku to join the "yakuza", or really violent Japanese mafia. But my friend Naoki was explaining that most of them will eventually leave the gang, get real jobs, and start families. I guess this is supposed to explain the police-bosozoku relationship. This seems to be the bosozoku coming up, screaming in the cops faces, throwing anything and everything at them, and seeing just how far they can push the police. For their part, the police reaction seems to be to hold their ground, and try to talk the bosozoku into going home.

When I got down to the station, there were probably about 200 riot police encircling these big buses for hauling people off. They lined up side by side with their big rectacngular shields forming a mobile barrier between them and the crowd. They needed these shields and helmets to fend off the advances of the bosozoku. The bosozoku were all dressed up for the event, wearing long embroidered coats and matching pants, and orange/blondish dyed hair. I've been warned against taking pictures of them, so I have no visuals. But the bosozoku were throwing everything and anything they could find at the cops, who would occassionally make a rush at the crowd. It was kind of scary, but there were as many spectators as cops. There was one girl, probably with a bosozoku, who had her two young daughters running around near their strollers through all of this, so I figured it couldn't be all that unsafe. It really looked more like a sports game than a riot- which I guess it couldn't reall be designated as one. The bosozoku seemed to know just how far they could push the cops before backing off, and the cops seemed to hold their ranks well and not get to pissed off of excited through all of this. Eventually I had to use the bathroom and was bored so we left. There are just some things about Japan that I don't think I'll ever understand.