Written/Compiled and Reported by MOOK Scenic Spots Family Travel Life Network, Chen Guanxin
Romantic Tanabata is just around the corner, and one of the Tohoku region’s four major festivals — the “Sendai Tanabata Festival” — will take place from August 6 to 8. With a history of over 700 years, the Sendai Tanabata Festival in Miyagi Prefecture is considered the best of its kind in Japan, featuring colorful giant tassel decorations and thousands of Tanabata bamboo poles hanging high, adorning the area with a magical and dreamy atmosphere. The scale of the event is so grand that it has attracted over 2 million visitors from both Japan and abroad for two consecutive years. As for this year’s Sendai Tanabata Fireworks Festival, it will be held on the evening of August 5 from 19:00 to 20:30, with an expected 16,000 fireworks lighting up the night sky near Sendai West Park.
Japan’s most famous Tanabata festival — the Sendai Tanabata Festival — recalls a poignant love story amid a riot of colorful large tassel decorations. (Image provided by the Sendai Tanabata Festival Supporters Association)
Visitors to the Sendai Tanabata Festival will surely be captivated by the myriad colors of decorative items such as embroidered balls and ribbons. During the event, shops along the streets will hang elaborately prepared oversized colorful tassel decorations throughout the area. These decorations, which can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of yen to make, are not only used to pray for wealth and prosperity, but also serve as great advertising for the shops if they rank well in the annual Tanabata Decoration Awards. But there’s more than meets the eye — aside from the massive tassel ornaments, the numerous paper decorations can generally be divided into seven types: kamiko (paper clothing), tanzaku (poem slips), fukinagashi (streamers), yoi net (fishing nets), senbazuru (thousand origami cranes), sakuragori (waste baskets), and chōchaku (cloth bags), each with its own unique meaning. First, kamiko represents the clothing offered by the Weaver Girl to the weaving god, praying for improved sewing skills and protection from illness and disaster; tanzaku (long poetic slips) are used to pray for academic and calligraphy improvement; the star of Tanabata decorations, the fukinagashi, with its five colored threads symbolizing the Weaver Girl’s silk threads; the yoi net, made of washi paper, prays for a bountiful fishing season and gathers a year’s worth of good fortune; senbazuru are prayers for family safety, health, and longevity; and sakuragori and chōchaku signify cleanliness, thrift, as well as prayers for wealth and the cultivation of a saving mindset.
The much-anticipated Sendai Tanabata Fireworks Festival will kick off on the evening of August 5 at 19:00. (Image provided by the Sendai Tanabata Festival Supporters Association)
In addition, this year’s Tanabata Festival theme is “Connection,” hoping that everyone will pray and send positive energy for Sendai, Miyagi, and the Tohoku disaster areas, while also collecting blessings and encouragement through the event’s official website. Anyone who writes a message of blessing on the website will receive a reply from the organizers, which includes a URL to an image file of a tanzaku displaying your wish. Don’t worry if you don’t understand Japanese — the event’s official website offers a Traditional Chinese page, making it easy for enthusiastic netizens to convey their blessings and wishes to the locals. Event website: www.sendaitanabata.com.
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Dear passionate friends from Taiwan, do you have any words of blessing you’d like to share with the people in Sendai, Miyagi, and the Tohoku disaster areas? It’s easy to send your warmth through the Chinese page on the event’s official website. (Image source: Screenshot from www.tanabata-negaigoto.jp)