The Last Sanja Matsuri?

"Oh, you like Asakusa? There are many foreign country people there."

I've received this response from Japanese people with practically every mention of my fondness for this area of Tokyo, as if what drew me was kinship with my fellow non-Japanese, whatever country they come from.

Of course, these demographic commentators are quite right - Asakusa is crawling with tourists, hardly surprising since it's dominated by the magnificent Sensō-ji, Tokyo's oldest Buddhist Temple.


Asakusa is almost like a theme park of traditional Japan, as if Kyoto had been heavily edited and compressed into a Tokyo neighbourhood. Kaminarimon, the Thunder Gate, opens into a long market street, where shopkeepers, well versed in "trade English" provide innumerable trinkets to legion of foreign visitors. I am the slightly embarrassed owner of what I perceived (before purchase) to be a stylish sake flask. Of course, once I actually took the time to read the kanji on the side, I learned that it said 'Asakusa, Tokyo." I might as well have bought a T-shirt reading "I went to Japan and all I got was...<insert joke here>".


The more I think about that slightly ill considered purchase, the less bad I feel. It's like a moment of clarity, because it is so typical of Asakusa. When I arrived over two years ago, alone and illiterate in a strange country, the way Asakusa looked and felt was adequate balm for lingering doubts and fears I had. Now, a bit more savvy and considerably more cynical, I can see the place through two different eyes. Despite its' colossal tourist trap status, Asakusa is still a beautiful neighbourhood, and whilst there isn't an awful lot to do after seeing Sensō-ji (except for holing up in one of the countless restaurants) what I find appealing about it is, when compared to the rest of Tokyo, the relatively gentle pace. This usually doesn't apply when describing Tokyo's most boisterous O-mikoshi festival, Sanja Matsuri.


Over three days, hundreds of portable shrines are carted around the area by packs of able bodied young people, gradually getting drunker. Moving one of these things takes a great deal of effort, even if you are being supported by about twenty other people. The endorphins are palpable, the rhythmic chanting joyous and exciting, the atmosphere utterly electric. For some reason, this year was much quieter than other occasions, but no less charged with a massive sense of community, something I greatly admire about Japan. This communal sensibility isn't extended to all by all of course. Brian overheard an elderly man grumbling that the name should be changed to Gaijin Matsuri.

Perhaps feeling this kind of inclusion in a sprawling metropolitan labyrinth like Tokyo is only for people who live there. At the same time as the overwhelmingly huge Sanja Matsuri, was a smaller but no less rambunctious festival in and around our local shrine, the small and simple Hiedaijinja.





The mood here is warmer, more intimate and familiar, helped no doubt by the presence of my students from several different schools. Stall holders exercise what English they possess, undoubtedly directed at us because we are almost certainly the only non-Japanese present. Local bigwigs have directed us to the centre of activity, asking us to enjoy ourselves, and even greeted us with genuine bonhomie.



As far as our long term plans go, this will be our last Oda Matsuri (although the festival season is just starting). Maybe what we'll miss most about Japan isn't the magnificent otherly architecture, interesting culture or sense of adventure, but the fact that this quiet little nook of a huge alien industrial city has been shaped into a home.