Fire festival? What on earth could that mean? Well, I am not entirely sure, but every year on January 15th, Nozawa Onsen Village has a fire festival. Kim, Alaina and I decided to venture out there and see what the festival was all about. The answer: it's about craziness!
For starters, it was blizzarding and I ended up driving which was crazy in itself. I am very surprised by the driving here. It was snowing A LOT, but people were tailing me and then passing me! We are talking like no visibility because it was dark and the snow was just coming horizontally right into the windshield. Also, I should mention that on both sides of the road, the snow is piled up about 2m high.
Alright, so we get there, sort of manage to find parking and find our way to the festival. We actually got there after it started because of my slow driving and 2 U-turns. And so, what is the fire festival all about? Well, the 42 year old men and the 25 year old men build a shrine in the week before the festival. I think they cut the trees and literally build it from scratch. I think the 42 and 25 is because supposedly those ages are unlucky for men? I am not too sure on all of this. So anyway, when we first walked up, we can see the huge shrine and then we looked up to see a bunch of drunk 42 year old men sitting on top of it! As we looked closer the 25 year old men were standing under it defending it. Defending it from what, you may wonder? well, from fire! The villagers were taking turns trying to light the shrine on fire! with the men on top! There was a huge bonfire and the villagers would light these straw torches and then run over to the shrine. I heard (from a very drink Australian, so it may not be true) that one of the groups trying to light it was the fathers of all children born in 2009. I guess if they can light it, its good for their children. I am not sure what other "groups" of villagers tried to light it.
The whole time we were there, it was blizzarding. We just watched from behind tons of people (including a whole lot of foreigners, who were there for the free sake) as the men on top taunted the other villagers with shouts of "Bring on the fire! Bring on the fire!" and as the villagers continually ran with huge straw torches trying to light the shrine. A lot of them would just throw the torches from a few meters back, but others would run right up. The 25 year olds defending the bottom received face-fulls of fire several times. It was insane to watch. I wish it had not been snowing (so hard) because it made it very cold and very slippery. It also caused me great anxiety because I was worried about whether or not my "driveway" would be plowed when we got back. In fact, it was a valid concern because, as it turned out, when we got back they had not plowed! Thankfully, my Kyoto-sensei was there shoveling and he had driven through and cleared the way a bit. Kim, Alaina and I spend a good 15-20 minutes clearing the 2 feet of snow out of the way so I could get my car into the garage. They both ended up spending the night because we decided it was just too blizzardy to drive them both home. I think it was a good decision.
Well, my description is not very good, but luckily I recorded some videos last night. I took a bunch of pictures, too, but all you can see in them is snow. So here are some videos:
In this first one, you can see the bonfire, and people lighting the torches. Notice the snow.
In this one, you can sort of hear the chant of "bring on the fire!" Oh my gosh, snow!
This one is the shrine on fire! Did you see the snow?
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