Doraemon again!

or Why Are There Scarecrows in Downtown Tokyo?

One of the 974 things I like about Japan is the unusual street festivals which seem to happen throughout summer and early Autumn and who knows when else at this stage.

Friday and Saturday marked the 42nd Annual Kakashi Matsuri, otherwise known as The Scarecrow Festival. Kakashi means scarecrow and Matsuri is festival. These seem to be held all over Japan over this period including in some areas where they do actually still have farmland. Each area has a unique style to their scarecrows and all go to considerable effort.

Guarding the Festival

For the Higashi Azabu area, these scarecrows represent neighbourhood solidarity. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s the scarecrows that gang up against the crows to protect the rice paddies over the years. Apparently the earliest recording of a Japanese scarecrow is in a book from the 8th century. That’s one old scarecrow.

The school children in Highashi Azabu make scarecrows in various styles based on popular culture and topics of interest or to a theme. They are awarded prizes. Other scarecrows are a little more professional,  high tech and neon. These are placed around the festival area.

The street festival includes various games, foods and music. I even saw a couple of pole dancers which was a bit of a surprise since that’s not something I thought was very Japanese. Though in Japanese fashion, the pole could be assembled and unassembled very quickly, stored in a bag and put somewhere unobtrusive. Also very Japanese, the women that did it were dressed as a French can-can dancer and a cat. It’s the randomness that is appealing.

Tokyo Pearl…

The Line Game

Masking tape marked the grounds so all the queuing would be neat and orderly. Or else there were quite a few people playing the line game throughout the streets cordoned off for the Festival.

I’m not sure the tape was necessary as I have never seen a messy queue even without the guiding marked lines.

Very well organised

Even Super Mario!

The orderliness continued with the recycling too. Some cardboard boxes set up at regular intervals with instructions on how to sort rubbish. I’m not so intimidated with these ones as compared to those in my apartment. Perhaps it’s because the pictures are more clear to me and I don’t generate quite so much rubbish when I’m out in public.

The Scarecrows worked hard. I didn’t see a single bird in the area.

 * Thanks to MGMT for the title to this post.