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  • Profile picture of Foglamp

    Foglamp posted an update 4 years, 9 months ago

    Amid the hustle and bustle of 2021 downtown Kyoto, the city proudly asserts its ancient culture and traditions as it prepares to celebrate the Gion Festival, which began in AD869 to rid the city of epidemics!

    Connoisseurs of old tech may enjoy watching the finishing touches being put to the four wooden “yamahoko” floats, which tower up to eighty-two feet high, festooned with “chimaki” talismans and symbols. They are built by community groups. The largest “Hokaboko” float is tied together using three miles of hemp rope, but not a single nail:

    https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210713/p2a/00m/0na/021000c

    But the Gion Festival is no fringe event or relic from the past. The spectacle of these behemoths being pulled through the streets (by manpower alone) in the three-hour annual grand procession on 17th July is watched by huge, enthusiastic crowds – a testament to a people owning its culture across the millennia:


    • Profile picture of Peter
      Peter replied 4 years, 9 months ago

      the epidemic is the pcr test. i hope their effigies are burned in the right direction.

      • Profile picture of FiatLux
        FiatLux replied 4 years, 9 months ago

        The Japanese are proof you can be at the cutting edge of modernity in terms of science and technology yet remain firmly anchored in your history, culture, and traditions.

          • Profile picture of Foglamp
            Foglamp replied 4 years, 9 months ago

            For good or ill, they are also proof that a country can run an eye-watering debt-to-GDP ratio (266% in 2020) and, to all intents and purposes, zero inflation and zero interest rates for decades without imploding – perhaps while waiting for the rest of the planet to catch up?!