After hanging out at the Kofu Castle for a while, I wanted to check out the parts of Kofu I was most familiar with 22 years ago–the shopping streets–before the main part of the Takeda Shingen Festival got under way. I couldn’t get far as a dance performance blocked an entire street through the Kofu shopping district.

Takeda Shingen’s motto was “Move as swift as wind, stay as silent as forest, attack as fierce as fire, and have an undefeatable defense like a mountain.” The abbreviated characters for this slogan are read merely as furinkazan (風林火山). At the festival six generals represented each of the four, for a total of 24 generals. The dancers also represented one of the four. Those in blue represented swift wind, green represented forest, red represented fire, and purple represented mountains.

The top picture in today’s entry must have been some mountain dancers. Some forest dancers are below. The best view was from the end of the street, pictured above. The dancers appeared like colorful waves from this vantage point. I should have taken a video for the full effect.

Posted on April 27th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: kofu, people. Comments: 1

The setting for my first picture in this series was the grounds of Maizuru Castle Park. Shingen’s troops gathered here before heading off in their regiments for the “parade.” The atmosphere was very good. The weather was fine, Mt. Fuji loomed in the background, and the samurai were getting drunk before heading off to battle (the pavement of Kofu’s streets).

The Japanese guy above was enjoying the mood as well. I was merely taking an incognito picture of his group when he spotted me and performed this “charge.” It was actually more of a pose than a charge, but I appreciated his willingness to provide a nice action shot for my camera without actually impaling me.

Let’s not forget this was a festival and not a battle reenactment. Therefore, there was plenty of yakisoba, takoyaki, and the like to be had, as well as monkeys doing tricks and other matsuri standards.

The guy in the middle of this group, with the tall helmet, is the president of his company and represented one of Takeda Shingen’s generals on horseback later in the evening. I chatted with him for a while earlier and had my picture taken with him. Photos of people like me in regular clothes with those of Japanese in samurai gear don’t look right though.

As each of the 24 regiments left the castle grounds they gave a battle shout like the one you can see in the above video I took. Some groups were more serious than others. Applause at the end seemed a little… wrong.

Posted on April 25th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: castle, festivals, kofu, people, video. Comments Off on More from the former Kofu Castle site (甲府城跡)

While waiting for Takeda Shingen (武田信玄) and Yamamoto Kansuke (山本勘助) to arrive at Takeda Jinja there wasn’t much to do but take pictures of people in the crowd. People were taking pictures of me, the token foreigner at the event, so I got in on the action as well.

First off, we have some of Takeda Shingen’s army.

Some Japanese ladies of various ages…

This dance group featured music and performances to welcome the main Shingen group and to see them off. It was almost comical given how un-Shingen era the style and sound was. I’ll put a video at the end of this blog entry so you can see and hear more.

The night before I arrived there was a Koihime Contest (湖衣姫コンテスト), or so my Shingen Festival program says. The winner got 300,000 yen (about $3,200). Was this the winner? I’m not sure. She was in the regiment with Shingen so I’m thinking she could have been the contest victor and won this honor in addition to the cash.

These were the festival faces people wanted to see the most, Takeda Shingen and the favorite of his 24 generals Yamamoto Kansuke. Takeda Shingen (on the left) was portrayed by Ikki Sawamura (沢村一樹) and Yamamoto was acted out by Goro Ibuki (伊吹吾郎). Both are apparently quite famous actors in Japan. I hadn’t heard of either.

Posted on April 19th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: kids, kofu, people, video. Comments: 2

I walked up Takeda Dori to see Takeda Jinja for the first time in 22 years, but I was in for a surprise at the top of the street. I was expecting to see a typical, peaceful shrine, but, instead, Takeda Jinja was taking part in the Takeda Shingen Matsuri (信玄公祭り).

Wave after wave of Shingen’s 24 regiments made their appearance at the shrine to receive their 戦勝祈願式, which I suppose would translate into something like “victory in war blessing ceremony.”

Above is a picture of one of Takeda Shingen’s 24 generals (武田二十四将) for the day. I’m not sure which one, but his blessing worked well as he was alive at the end of the day, unlike most of Shingen’s real generals who died in the Battle of Nagashino in 1575.

If Shinto prayers and battle cries aren’t your thing, you could always move away from the main shrine and over to the stage where these Japanese ladies were playing traditional Japanese folk tunes on their kotos (琴).

Posted on April 18th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: kofu, people. Comments Off on Takeda Jinja 武田神社

The first time I lived in Japan (more than 22 years ago now) I was out in the country. Occasionally my foreignness would draw stares. Usually the Japanese people would just glance at me a bit more than they would each other. This time, though, living in the center of Tokyo near a university with hundreds of foreign students, I rarely even get a glance.

Not so in China. In China I received prolonged stares no matter where I was, including the university. People would stop in the their tracks, or stop what they were doing, to soak up my foreignness in China. It was actually somewhat tiring. I felt relieved when I entered my hotel room and closed the door.

Given that I didn’t encounter another foreigner, other than two I was introduced to, the entire two weeks, I’m guessing that many of the Chinese people who stopped and stared at me had never seen one in the flesh before. This situation didn’t make for easy “fly on the wall” picture taking. Nearly every time I tried to take a picture of a public scene, even from a great distance with my camera fully zoomed, my subjects would cease their activities to look at me instead.

Today’s blog entry features three photos, which I didn’t realize until I downloaded them later to my computer, in which someone in the photo spotted me.

I was trying to photograph these guys playing cards, and the large audience they were attracting, in the park. Not only did someone behind them notice me, but they posed for the photo as well.

I’m not sure what this military group was up to. I don’t think they spotted me, but the ladies behind them did.

Posted on April 12th, 2010 under China. Tags: people. Comments: 1