shrines and temples of Japan #3: Gion Matsuri: the introduction

Today’s and the following posts are not exactly related to a physical Shrine location but closely related to, so I hope you’ll forgive me.

Gion is the neighborhood of Kyoto renowned all over the world for it’s famous inhabitants: the geisha.

No, they didin’t -and don’t- have sex with the clients (at least not while working as such). Instead of the frivolous image Hollywood has sadly contributed to disseminate, they were -and are- hardworkers. Usually start their studies very early in life, at around 5 to 7 years old, and stay on a hyper-strict way of life until they become maiko (apprentice geisha), around 16, and geisha a few years later. They follow a though schedule, waking up at dawn after sleeping on the tatami with a 1 ft x 4×6” block of wood as only pillow (see? after all, this post it’s wood related!) and then proceed to spend most of the day learning how to dress, move, talk in keigo, the very difficult polite form of japanese, play traditional instruments and so on… Only to “enjoy” the evenings making courtesy visits to important people related to the business (manners are very important in Japan, even nowadays) and, as the years go by, also attending company dinners or parties whith dozens of chain-smoking, dead-drunken, unpolite, sweaty male individuals joking and teasing them just because they pay a high price to hire them for the evening.

Not exactly what the movies depict.

As you see, I’m not quite the kind of guy who goes straight to the point. Save the last one for the Understatement of the Year Awards.

Well. It happens that in the East side of Gion there’s one of the more than 2,000 temples that populate the city of Kyoto.

It’s name is Yasaka Jinja.

It also happens that in the year of 869, during the Heian Period, Kyoto suffered a devastating plague of pestilence that was alledgely coming from some irate God (known as Gozu Tenno by his friends, in case you wanna know). Of course, in those times they didn’t though better than make a religious festival and a big parade to calm the difficult guy.

And it worked.

Sort of. Or so they say.

At least the plague ended. Talk about good timing.

Well, the case is that they decided to keep going with the, then, new tradition. Just in case. You never know with those nasty Gods.

And now, if you have read till this point you deserve my kudos and at least some LJ related contents, so here it is.

Nowadays the religious part has almost vanished and, after a few days of street fair, stalls and fun there’s the big parade. AKA Yamaboko Junkou. It has been hold on July the 17th for the last eleven hundred years or so. For the time-awareness challenged, that was yesterday morning.

This parade is formed by 9 big floats called hoko and 23 smaller ones called yama.

All of them made in wood during the previous week by hundreds of very skilled craftsmen.

The “small” ones are about 20 ft. tall, weight up to 3.500 pounds and are pulled up by 15-20 people.

Now, the big guys, the hoko. Quick overview:

• around 26,500 pounds of “dry” weight
• they carry about 30 people inside, including a full band playing metal instruments (hence the former mention to the “dry” weight. Add close to 5,000 lbs more)
• covered in antique oriental rugs
• wooden wheels more than 6 ft in diameter
• in excess of 25 ft tall to the roof and 75 ft. to the tip of the mast
• They require 40 guys pulling the whole thing
• rigid axles make them NON steerable… although they manage to make lots of 90º turns in thight spots.

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Enough for today, I have the feeling that I will loose my readers if I insist.

In my next post I will tell you more about the hows. How do they manage to turn such monsters around. How do they steer them in the narrow streets of downtown. And more importantly, how are they made.

By the way, did I mention that they don’t use any nails in the constuction?

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://www.japanese-woodworking-tools.com/ · http://twitter.com/japanesetools