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Obon Festival

Jul 17, 08 Comments

This coming August, the Japanese will have a 3-day holiday known as Obon, which is a Buddhist custom to honor the deceased spirits of their ancestors.

Nowadays, it's more like a a family reunion in which people return to their home towns and visit and clean their ancestors' graves. The spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars during this time.

Obon shares some similarities with the predominantly Mexican observance of el Día de los Muertos, such as customs involving family reunion and care of ancestors' grave sites.

This holiday has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori.

This dance comes from the story of Mokuren, a disciple of the Buddha, who used his supernatural powers to look upon his deceased mother. Greatly disturbed, he went to the Buddha and asked how he could release his mother. Buddha instructed him to make offerings to the many Buddhist monks who had just completed their summer retreat, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. The disciple did this and, thus, saw his mother's release. The disciple, happy because of his mother's release and grateful for his mother's kindness, danced with joy.

From this dance of joy comes Bon Odori or "Bon Dance", a time in which ancestors and their sacrifices are remembered and appreciated.

As Obon occurs in the heat of the summer, participants traditionally wear yukata, or light cotton kimonos. Many Obon celebrations include a huge carnival with rides, games, and summer festival food like watermelon.

The festival usually ends with Toro Nagashi, or the floating of lanterns. Paper lanterns are illuminated and then floated down rivers symbolically signaling the ancestral spirits' return to the world of the dead. This ceremony usually culminates in a fireworks display.

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