I moved and the internet sucks so bad there I have difficulty checking my email on my phone (computer won't even connect) so I dragged my computer with me to the main house today and it's glorious. Never take internet or full sized keyboards for granted.
So yesterday I went to two festivals. One in the nearby Nagaoka and one in the town of Ojiya. They were quite different but both had the Japanese festival vibe. The festival in Nagaoka was an edamame festival and the one in Ojiya was a shrine festival so they had their own themes.
The Nagaoka Edamame festival took place in a large event center looking place in Nagaoka station. Not something you see in train stations in America but it works. There were booths selling food in a couple rows and then a big area to sit and eat. There were various activities for kids too such as taking pictures with someone in an edamame costume, sitting in tractors, or drawing. I couldn’t have most of the food and even with the stuff I could have I don’t have the language skills to actually get anything. The head of the program brought some edamame for us as well as brought me some potato fries so I was good. The other purpose of the seating area was so you could watch the edamame eating competition going on. Basically either individuals or teams of three competed to see who could eat a set amount of edamame the fastest. There were awards for costumes of teams as well so there were some really cool costumes. One guy with his two daughters made a three person edamame hat and there were a few other edamame hats, traditional outfits, two grown men in school girl outfits, a group of young girl youtubers or streamers or something, some other youtube group of guys, what looked like a jpop group, and some guys in snowboarding gear. Either the festival staff or some restaurant wanted two international teams to compete so they got six of us to compete. Most kids didn’t want to do it because it’s kinda weird in concept and even weirder in reality. By the way, I was in the wanting to do it camp. Honestly, how many people can say they competed in an edamame eating contest?
Here’s how it worked: there were 48 teams of three people and everyone competed up on the stage in groups of 8 teams. Before the competition started we made signs for our teams and my team had a professional artist in it so ours was really cute. I was team JJJ because everyone in my group had a name that starts with the letter J. You have to line up in your teams in order 15 minutes before you are supposed to compete and then they get everyone backstage and give you an option for a bottle of tea or beer. Then you line up and walk on stage when they announce your group. The rules are you must eat all the beans in the pod, you can raise one hand if you feel sick, and everyone raises both hands when all the beans are eaten. I know this already sounds weird but what is even weirder is there are hosts, judges, referees, and cameramen. A lot of cameramen. Way to make eating 700grams of edamame between three people on a stage in front of hundreds of people even more awkward. My team was dead last, but our cheering squad was awesome with their yelling and signs and everything (we achieved crazy foreigner status a while ago) and everyone seemed to love that. Apparently the commentators were saying that but I couldn’t understand anything beyond “gaijin,” “JJJ,” and our names. After that awkwardness we went on to go join the cheering squad and cheer for our next team and a couple other teams we thought were cool. All teams got called back up on stage to see if they had to compete again but we didn’t get called so we went to go get our stuff and go home. Some lady wanted a picture with us foreigners so that happened.
The festival in Ojiya was just a small shrine festival along the main street in town. There were dance and drum performances, activity booths, shrine puppet shows, lots of food, people dressed up in traditional clothes, and of course the shrine itself. Me and one of my housemates were shown around by two Japanese people that are friends with the head of the program we are in. We ran into some students from the schools we visited or the English classes and apparently some of Lion boy’s fanclub was there so they took pictures with him (some of our people have groups of kids who follow them around and take pictures with them and it’s adorable). I visited a shrine for the first time in my life and was instructed on how to properly do that by some of the program staff that were showing us around. It was a really cool experience and I hope to go to other festivals while I’m in Japan. One of the people showing us around actually mentioned that there is a big one at the beginning of August so we can go to that one. There will be a huge fireworks show there apparently.
We went to the second day of the festival in Ojiya as well. There were a lot of dance performances so those were cool to watch. Most was traditional dancing with these clapper things and one person with a giant flag in the back. It was amazing to watch and the age range of dancers was huge. There were also some incredible hip hop performances that were fun to watch. Food and activities were really cool too, not that I could have the food but the rest of the foreigner squad had some and say it’s amazing. We ran into many people from English lessons, school visits, and other adventures around Ojiya. I walked there with my housemate Lion boy and some cameraman took a picture of us and then asked us to pose together for a picture. Not entirely sure if it was a newspaper guy or what but us foreigners get our pictures taken by random cameramen and our students in English class or the schools we visit all the time. Definitely an interesting experience. Anyway, the festivals were super fun and we will definitely be going to more.
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