Japan’s Seasonal Traditions: Summer Firework Displays
Firework displays are one of Japan’s summer traditions
by IGNITION Staff
June to July is the main season, and there are a variety of firework displays, from small to large, held throughout the country. As well as being an opportunity for firework technicians to show off their skills, these displays that paint the night sky are also important events giving Japanese people a sense of summer and allowing them to enjoy the season.
The origins of Japan’s firework displays date back as far as the Edo period. As well as a severe famine during the seventeenth year of the Kyouhou era (1732), a cholera epidemic spread through Edo claiming many victims. Hoping to placate the spirits of the victims and drive off the malady, the then Shogunate of Edo held a memorial event for the souls of the deceased the following year (1733). The event was held alongside Tokyo’s Okawa river (the present-day Sumida river) over which they set off fireworks.
From then on, fireworks were launched every year on the first day of Kawabiraki (the river festival marking the start of the boating season), and from this beginning firework displays were born. It is said that back in the Edo period, a variety of fireworks (up to twenty rockets*) were launched every night by pyrotechnician Yahee Kagiya. His displays ran for three months from the beginning of Kawabiraki at the end of May until the end of August.
*Nowadays, up to 40,000 rockets are launched during the largest firework displays.
The festival continued and became a much larger event, growing until it morphed into modern-day firework displays. The trigger that sparked the expansion of the festival was the appearance of a rival pyrotechnician to Kagiya, Tamaya. Before anyone noticed, the Kawabiraki festival turned into a competition in which Kagiya and Tamaya would vie with one another to prove the quality of their fireworks.
Even nowadays you can hear the voices of spectators calling “Kagiya” and “Tamaya” when fireworks are launched into the sky. This traces back to the Edo period, when Kagiya and Tamaya would both launch their fireworks during the same festival. Spectators would call out either “Kagiya” or “Tamaya” to offer their support, but also to identify whose firework was lighting up the sky.
Nowadays firework displays have become major summer events at which women dress in yukatas (light summer kimonos) and enjoy themselves in the company of their families, partners or friends. However, they originally had connotations of mourning the dead, though this fact is little-known even amongst Japanese people.
Pictures and video clips are of Tokyo’s Edogawa ward’s fireworks display. It is held along Tokyo’s Edogawa riverfront every year during the first ten days of August. The Edogawa firework display is most famous for its impressive opening segment, in which 1,000 fireworks are launched in a five second period. Furthermore, it is also known for its Mt. Fuji-themed fireworks (number of spectators: 1,390,000; total number of fireworks launched: approx. 14,000 ※ figures from 2014).
(photo: Edogawa city translation: Rebecca Bourke)
Originally published at ignition.co.
