Kasama Inari Shrine Chrysanthemum Festival

Hi everyone!

Hope you'll have a chrysanthe-moment to read this article. As my lame joke indicates, this will be about chrysanthemums.

On November 12th, I went to Kasama to enjoy 3 events at the same time. It was such a nice weather that I will daresay 4 events actually. Anyways, the 99th Chrysanthemum Festival was held in Kasama Inari shrine, from October 14th until November 23rd. I was deeply impressed by all I saw, which makes me recommend that you book a day for next year's festival. It will be the 100th edition and I suspect this exceptional anniversary should be gorgeous.

The Chrysanthemum festival is itself a huge collection of flowers coming from all parts of Ibaraki. Shrines, companies and Ibaraki residents all contribute to create an enormous field of potted chrysanthemums inside Inari Shrine. Some of them get selected and win prizes from the hosting temple.

Wherever you look, your eyes meet 5,000 white, yellow, red and purple chrysanthemums of different kinds. Look up and your visual pleasure will be enhanced with amazing view of the red autumn leaves offered by the surrounding trees. Stalls sell you regional products like vegetables and candies. This is indeed a great scene, very pleasant, and not to be mistaken with a cemetery atmosphere. At the same time of the year, many Westerners go to the graves of their relatives and offer chrysanthemums, the flower for the dead. However the chrysanthemum in Japan has a totally different connotation. It has long been an imperial symbol that can be found for example on 50 yen coins.

In other words, a chrysanthemum festival in Japan should not be associated with anything sad. Autumn chrysanthemums are considered the most beautiful kinds, perfectly matching with the soothing atmosphere created by autumn leaves. I am confident the pictures will have convinced you already. If not yet, let me tell you about the other two events associated with this main one.

The entrance fee was 700 yen but retrospectively, I would have not been surprised if it had been 1,000 yen. The shrine area I got into offered me a monumental surprise. A whole area was dedicated to dolls dressed with chrysanthemum flowers and leaves. Imagine just a second how hard it is to do this, and on a regular basis since the plant dies after a few days. Kasama is not the most famous spot in Japan for these Kiku-Ningyo (菊人形) dolls, but the exhibition was worth a look. The dolls were on a set depicting historical scenes preceding Ieyasu Tokugawa's accession to supremacy. The main characters were one of his faithful vassals and his wife. Other masterpieces such as waterfalls, pagodas and landscapes were also displayed in their chrysanthemum form.

Finally, November 12th was the day Kasama Inari shrine people chose to perform a great archery show. Dressed in old and traditional clothes, 5 archery masters recreated the ritual ceremony of the "Yamato style" (大和古流) dating back as far as the times of Prince Shoūtoku Taishi (聖徳太子574〜622). A five-color striped curtain was hanging as the target and five different kinds of arrows were shot. Each arrow has a name corresponding to a mythological creature or Shijin (四神) and a cardinal point.

• Byakko (白虎の矢) or "White Tiger of the West"
• Seiryū (青龍の矢) or "Azure Dragon of the East"
• Suzaku (朱雀の矢) or "Vermilion Bird of the South"
• Genbu (玄武の矢) or "Black Tortoise of the North"
• Kōma (降魔の矢) or "Conquering The Devil"

Each of these arrows was shot twice except for the very last one, the star-arrow of the show so to speak, which was shot only once. The weather was all fine all way through but when it came to the Koūma arrow, clouds suddenly appeared, rendering the scene very dramatic. Pure luck and pure delight.

Do not miss next year's chrysanthemum events!!!