Kumagaya, Saitama Pref. – It’s mind-numbingly scorching in downtown Kumagaya. My yukata (mild summer time kimono) clings to my pores and skin with sweat. I’m ringed by 12 towering floats mounted by musicians, some wailing on drums and handheld gongs, others blowing frantically into flutes, every float making an attempt to overpower the subsequent.
I half-expected the warmth, however it’s the sound of this second — not a sudden crescendo however a sustained aural onslaught — that beats any stray thought from between my ears.
And but, this was the excessive level of my go to to final 12 months’s Uchiwa Competition, a standard, citywide matsuri (competition) that takes place yearly from July 20 to 22 in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture. Ostensibly held to hope for good well being and prosperity, the celebration is certainly one of a number of all through Japan modeled after Kyoto’s well-known Gion Competition, however the Uchiwa Competition is the most important of its variety within the Kanto area, drawing an estimated 750,000 spectators every year.
