Ohara Matsuri, 2020

I'd been surprised when about one month ago I started seeing posters advertising the big Ohara dance festival, slated for Nov. 3rd. I wasn't expecting the city to allow something that traditionally packed a lot of people into a small space along Streetcar Street in Tenmonkan. I was looking forward to seeing what Covid-19 Ohara would be like, but I had no intention of risking my health just 3 weeks after eye surgery. (Just as a reminder, Ohara is a local event, where companies have their employees dress up in some way, and then do traditional Japanese dances in a short 4-block loop along Streetcar Street to traditional koto and bell music. During the breaks, everyone runs to get cups of watered down shochu. That's on the first night. The next morning, the dancers are limited to children, school groups and marching bands.)

This year, Nov. 3rd was a national holiday - Culture Day. I had to work in the evening, and I figured that it'd be right in the middle of the first night of Ohara. The student was going to be driving from out of town, and traffic and parking would be bad, so the school and I agreed to have the lesson from 4 to 5 PM.

This morning (as I write this Tuesday night) I'd just gotten up at 10:30, when a series of "booms" went off outside. Fireworks are traditionally used to mark the start of big events, so I was a bit concerned. As I was getting ready to go outside at 12:30 PM, there was another series of booms, which I was afraid meant that everything was over already. I got through email and all the other stuff I do at the start of the day and headed to Tenmonkan. The streets were open to traffic, and there were a couple food tables set up along the sidewalk selling candied apples and candy. I had to walk 6 blocks into Tenmonkan before I found an advertising poster, which confirmed the worst - Ohara had been dropped down from one evening and one morning, to 2 hours that morning, from 10:30 to 12:30. When I walked back, the food tables were packing up and leaving.

Not sure if I really missed anything, though. When I did get into the school for the class at 4 PM, the owner told me that the city had really shrunk the festival, and that there may not have been much in the way of participants at all. Even so - sigh.