The one day of the year Gotsu gets crowded

Japanese people like festivals. And I mean really like. The week just passed was called Obon. It’s a yearly, nation-wide custom of honouring one's ancestors, and a large part of this honouring takes the form of festivals. Almost every town has at least one, and the larger cities might have dozens. These involve street entertainment, food stalls, parades, lanterns floating downriver to represent the souls of the deceased, and fireworks. So many fireworks. 

I’m a bit fireworked out, to be honest.

On 364 days of the year, Gotsu is a quiet place. Its population sits at roughly 30,000, but in terms of area its reach is relatively far. So even though Route 9 and the town centre it cuts through aren't entirely devoid of activity, the country roads that take you between mountains and over rice plantations remain as peaceful as the day God spoke nature into being.

But on the 16^th of August each year, someone lifts a log, and out from beneath it emerge thousands upon thousands of ants, which congregate in the open. Hearing the commotion, other ant colonies from other logs make their way over, too. Together, these ants hold a festival.

The log is Gotsu, and on Thursday last week I was an ant; the tallest ant, granted, but an ant nonetheless.

Fireworks. Wow!

From about 5:30 in the afternoon, the population in Gotsu’s main square rose from a hundred to 10,000. Stalls selling takoyaki, kebabs, fried chicken, fries, yakisoba, shaved ice, drinks, accessories and more were erected in all the conceivably vacant spots, one stall deploying right up against the next. Locals set up, cooked, and then yelled: “Try this takoyaki, it’s delicious!” My students were among them, some making hot dogs that you could buy for 300 yen a piece, others – a family – selling five flavors of shaved ice. The air became so riddled with the smells of fresh food that if you were entering Gotsu for the first time, you could turn off the GPS and rely entirely on your nose.

But before all this, at the start of the festival, the parading parties all gathered in the town centre to be formally introduced. I lost count of how many groups there were, but they included: representatives from the city hall (pretty much obligated to join) and board of education (including me and some other ALTs), a high school rugby team (whose existence still surprises me), and a rather humble cluster from Sakura co., the pancake café (whose owner was trying to usher some of us to leave our group and join his in an attempt to boost numbers).

It didn’t really matter whose team we were on; we all did the same dance in the end, to the same repetitive song. I say repetitive because we paraded for over half an hour, and Gotsu’s song is a full 45 seconds. Needless to say, by the end of it, we were all ready for the fireworks, which followed.

Everyone – and I mean everyone – sat on the river bank or leaned on the bridge’s guardrails and waited, ate, talked, or watched the countless lanterns float down the river towards the sea – these lanterns being the ancestors’ souls. At 8 o’clock the night had descended, and at 8:10 the fireworks began: a 30-minute display timed to the rhythm of four different musical numbers – plus a few breaks in between to ensure that 30-minute mark was actually reached. This is Gotsu, after all.

Breaks nothwithstanding, watching these fireworks was enjoyable in a satisfying kind of way – like winning Solitaire, only longer and with a good deal more pop.

And after, just as the wind began to pick up, and people I don’t know on either side of me (although some of them I do know, or at least I know their kids) began complaining that it’s cold (which it really wasn't, but the weather can never catch a break with these people, can it?), we all packed up and left.

Leaving is its own ordeal, in the same way getting off a large plane can be an ordeal. You have to wait, and then you have to wait some more. Then finally, just as you’re questioning the tensile strength of your bladder walls, the long line you've been standing in begins to inch its way towards personal space.

One's eyes blink in disbelief at the sight of this station still serving a purpose.

But even after we'd left the river bank, personal space was still a way away. Gotsu Station usually has two people in it, including the ticket office staff. But on this 16^th of August day, you wouldn’t have been able to count the number of people lining up there. That poor station; it was about as ready to burst as my bladder. And though I didn’t take the train, getting my car out from the parking lot onto the road was entirely dependent on the courtesy of fellow drivers. 

But ants in a colony work together, so in the end it wasn’t too bad. One by one – and it was a whole lot slower going home and than going out – we crawled back beneath our logs as if nothing had ever happened, and Gotsu returned to its tranquil and unassuming self once more.

But Obon isn’t the only occasion for festivals. There are plenty more, including the one I attended on Sunday. And there's a lot to be said about that one – next time.