JAPANESE FESTIVAL

There is a big Japanese festival in the botanical garden over the Labor Day long weekend. We took granddaughter Ellie, who enjoyed the opening parade and cosplay show. I don’t begrudge the garden the extra money but there are no capacity controls and it became unbearably crowded. We may not return.

Other things going on, including Paint Louis and our iteration of nationwide anti-Trump demonstrations. Images to come.                   

TEMBLOR

Back at the Japanese Festival. The show these sumo wrestlers put on is always a big hit. Perhaps it is in part due to their inhuman scale but their speed, flexibility and strength is awesome. One of them demonstrated doing sitting splits with the legs almost straight out to the sides. It's an entry level requirement. And the whole thing is over in a matter of seconds - all you have to do is throw your opponent to the ground or push him out of the ring.

It's interesting that neither of these champions is Japanese (although the one in the background is). The one in front is Egyptian and the other is American.          

IS THIS JAPANESE?

I went back to the Japanese Festival at the botanical garden yesterday. The weather was better but it was impossibly crowded; I lasted two hours before I had enough. At one point I sat on a bench, picked up the camera with the telephoto and tried to take sniper shots. This one worked. Is her costume based on an anime character? That's beyond my experience even though I've been to Japan a few times and have plans to return.           

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON AROUND TOWN

There is a big Japanese festival at our big botanical garden over Labor Day weekend. It rained until mid-afternoon, when I went over for a while. A lot of the activities were canceled due to the weather or soggy grounds. The ever-popular sumo demonstration was in an amphitheater with a covered stage. Got some pretty good shots.

Sunday's forecast is good. I plan to go back to the garden in the morning and then return to Paint Louis in the afternoon.                 

A Small Performance

This Japanese man performed in a quiet corner of the garden. He had a modest pushcart that proved to be full of tricks and delights.Things to juggle and balance, disguises and odd bits of materials. In the second and third pictures he fashions flowers from globs of spun sugar on a stick, finally handing one to a member of the audience.

I'll end the series from the Japanese festival here - it's been going on a long time. There are more pictures to edit, particularly of the taiko drummers on the amphitheater stage, and photos that have not been posted to the blog. I particularly recommend two shots of a blind Iraqi-American judo practitioner who is trying to make the team for the Special Olympics. He took on the sumo giants in photos here and here.       

Pick On Someone Your Own Size

Kids have a try at sumo.                                

Sumo

The sumo wrestlers are one of the most popular performers at the Japanese festival. It's always a group from Hawaii, where the sport is common and feeds talent into the Japanese professional circuit. 

It is amazing that people so huge are so flexible. The bottom photo is of a training exercise. The top wrestler pushes down his colleague as hard as possible. Can  you touch the soles of your feet together while sitting on the floor?                        

Alien Kombat

There were several martial arts demonstrations at the Japanese Festival. I walked into this one, something I had never seen and whose name, um, I forgot. It seemed very stylized. The participants had these strange outfits in a deep blue. Their poles were clearly substitutes for swords. One of them explained the protocol. You get points for striking your opponent on the top of the head, those epaulet-thingies and on the side around the kidneys. It didn't have to be hard, just a touch. Perhaps the skill is to defend against against it and to pierce those defenses. Sort of Safety Samurais.                       

From Okinawa

A dance troop from Okinawa. The island is a long way south of the rest of Japan - Taiwan is certainly no farther -  but firmly under the banner of the rising sun.

I was surprised by the light response to yesterday's post. Cute kids usually pull 'em in. Tomorrow I'll move on to people fighting. That ought to do it.                                          

Kodomo

That's Japanese for children, I'm pretty sure. I used to be more-or-less able to make my needs known in Japanese but the skill has faded with disuse. Wasn't the best student, anyway. When my sensei, or teacher, would ask me something and I made a big mistake, she would look at me and say with long, drawn-out vowels honto? Meaning really?

But kids are charming everywhere in the world and that needs no language. This group were in processions at our Japanese Festival.                

Taiko, Part 1

St. Louis Osuwa Taiko is the fixture at the Japanese Festival (along with the sake, of course). It's a high-energy mix of percussion and choreography (short video here) and definitely for the fit. More of them when they take the stage at the garden's amphitheater. 
             

Kampai!

Next topic: the Japanese Festival at Missouri Botanical Garden, um, just two weeks ago. At the opening ceremony the Consul General of Japan in Chicago, Toshiyuki Iwado, Mayor Francis Slay and other dignitaries broke open a cask of sake and passed samples to VIPs (which did not include your faithful photographer). There is no L sound in Japanese and, to the constant amusement of those who speak European languages, even the most educated struggle with it. Consul Iwado, whose English was otherwise flawless, offered his congradruations and invited guests to have a sip from their wooden grasses.

Then they passed some snorts to the entertainers. Nothing better than taiko drummers sloshed on rice wine. I think of the bottom pic as the Three Graces.                    

Zombie Taiko Drummer & Friends

These shots are from the outdoor taiko performance later in the day. It was not until I started to edit that I noticed the performer in the orange jacket periodically rolled his eyes way up, to the point the irises were almost invisible. Spooky, No idea what it meant.       

Sumo In St. Louis

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Our town's Japanese Festival takes place every Labor Day weekend at the Missouri Botanical Garden. They regularly bring over a group of retired sumo wrestlers from Hawaii. These guys are not active competitors but I'd hate to get between them. They are amazingly flexible and agile. The big one in the back did an exercise in which he sits on the ground, sticks his legs straight out on either side and presses his chest to the ground. You try that.

There's a lot going on this holiday weekend. Carolyn and I went to the Big Muddy Blues Fest for a while last night, held a block or two from the Mississippi. The Greek Festival is going on at the big Orthodox church, puling in the crowds. The Cardinals were in town. Something for everyone. Now when am I going to edit all these pictures?

More Japanese Festival

More pix from the Japanese Festival; there were so many, it was very difficult to choose. The first is a Caucasian girl in kimono, posing for her mother; the second is a traditional drummer; the third is a father and son playing with one of the little wax toys created by the man from yesterday's post.

A Midwest Matsuri

Sorry that I didn't have time to post an explaination when I first put this up; I'd spent most of the day at the Missouri Botanical Garden's annual Japanese Fesival, had popped back home with just enough time to dump my memory card (and briefly open anniversary presents with my husband on our first anniversay), then went back out to the Big Muddy Blues Festival on Laclede's Landing.

The man in these pictures was doing a very quaint bit of performance art. He clearly spoke little to no English, but encouraged audience participation with body language and gestures. Among other things, he made little paper cutouts, produced a katana blade with a flourish that then turned out to be a bubble-blower, created detailed little creatures out of wax (in the first picure, blindfolded), and balancing a little ball on an umbrella (2nd picture). He moved around the circle of onlookers in very, very rapid loops, and so it was quite difficult to catch him in a good shot.