Tohoku’s Summer Festivals

In August every year, I think back on my discovery of Tohoku in the late 1970s. I was teaching in Nagoya—which I was told by local friends was an inferno in summer—so I decided to go “up north” during university vacation.

With little money and lots of time, I decided to carry a sleeping bag, a reasonable backpack, and enough cash to do two of the following three things: eat, travel by train or bus, and stay in a cheap lodging. Because I needed to eat and stay indoors most nights, that meant hitchhiking instead of using trains or buses. My guess is that close to over one hundred drivers picked me up in the six weeks of my journey.

As I described in an earlier Note article on Rebun Island, I reached northern Hokkaido, and began my return trip. Fortunately that took me through Tohoku’s major festivals, right on schedule. It began in Aomori with Nebuta, an extremely energetic festival, which is even now a great memory. Then to Hirosaki’s Neputa, a very powerful, somewhat somber, festival. Then to Akita and the great lantern-tree balancing experts.

And finally, to Sendai, where crowds provided the energy as they wandered under beautifully decorated Tanabata in the city’s main arcades.

From Sendai southward, I was ready to get back to Nagoya, just to sleep and not have to carry a backpack.

But I never forgot the festivals, and years later, when I had the opportunity to come back to Japan, one of the options was Sendai. And now we are in the midst of that festival again. It’s funny how chance visits to places can become future homes.

(278 words)