Sunabe’s August Moon Festival
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 7:35AM | 1 Comment 
We happened to see this banner a few days before the festival took place. Our neighborhood of Sunabe was having a “August Moon Festival.” Never ones to say no to a Japanese festival, we walked down the street around 7pm. It had just finished raining and there were only a handful of people in the park. A few people were pushing water off the wooden benches and stage using small towels. Within 5 minutes time, there were more Americans than Japanese…and we were starting to wonder just what kind of festival we were attending…and why there weren’t many people.
Our answer to lack of people came about 15 minutes later, when a slow parade of Eisa dancers led by a shaggy Shisa and big banner rounded the corner to the park. The parade was followed by a large group of people that filled in the benches and left many to stand in the back of the park.
The large banner had been balanced on three forked sticks and carried to the park. Talk about teamwork!
This was our first time to see such a shaggy Shisa. According to a website on Chibana-Hanaori, it looks like this is the traditional Shisa for this festival, though I warn that that is my assumption, not necessarily fact.
According to the website, this “is a festival performed by women who pray for prosperity and a good harvest on August 15th of the lunar calendar.” This year, that date fell on September 12 on our calendar. It always coincides with a full moon.
The site goes on to explain:
“Usu-deku is a festival that takes place in the Chibana area along with other regions in Okinawa. This traditional event is performed by women and dances are dedicated to the gods along with prayers for prosperity and a good harvest.
The dedicative dances take place at the Chibana community center on August 15th of the lunar calendar, with participants donning kimonos made with Chibana-Hanaori.
Throughout the year, the special Usu-deku costumes are carefully stored but on the date of the traditional event, the Usu-deku drummers dressed in costumes called watajin and dujin perform their special songs and dances. The songs and dances are accompanied by the beat of the Usu-deku drums, and are performed in two halves, with six songs per half, and a total of 12 songs.”
We enjoyed the choreographed use of Okinawa rokushakubo.
And it was fun to see the little kids performances.
I especially enjoyed the dance of the cranes.
We had to leave before the performances were over, as we had work in the morning, but really enjoyed the almost 2 hours that we did see.
During one of the breaks between dances, kids in Eisa attire brought around drinks for all in attendance. Brandon got his favorite Okinawa jasmine tea, sanpin, and I got to try a yummy cherry fruit drink.
We were also given treat bags containing tasty pastries from American American café and a more traditional treat.
This site explains that “villagers offer rice cakes covered with red beans to their family” during Usudeku. We were grateful to be included in the festivities and although we won’t be adding the mochi with red beans (neither the mochi nor the red beans are sweet in this treat) to our list of favorites, it was fun to try.
We had a very fun night celebrating our first Mid-Harvest Festival with our Okinawan and American neighbors!
Reader Comments (1)
Who funds the treats? Do they have committees that raise money for their festival? What is mochi, a vegetable? A fruit? lol It looks like a banana. You have some wild and crazy times with Brandon! Is he speaking Japanese yet?