Cube Fied Small Screen

Major Holidays

keeping with the season (August) I will report this time from the last of the great Celebrations and holidays in Japan: The
(O) Bon festival.
The Bon (盆) hard, often called O-Bon, the O but really just a courtesy prefix is to express the appreciation, is the great Buddhist commemoration of the dead in Japan. More precisely, there are not only used to honor the spirits of deceased ancestors, but also to alleviating the suffering and salvation of those spirits who serve for any reason whatsoever, could not ascend. As so often in Japan mingled here in the exercise of the roots of the festival with local other traditions.
The festival, according to the region to a place three times (due to Unstimmigkeiten bei der Einführung des gregorianischen Kalenders zu Beginn der Meiji-Zeit). In der östlichen Kanto-(Tokyo) und der Tohoku-region findet es Mitte Juli statt, und wird daher auch Juli-Bon genannt. Das "alte Bon" basiert noch auf dem Mondkalendar (der julisch-gregorianische ist der Sonnenkalendar) in dessen siebten Monat es abgehalten wird, wodurch es, wie das chinesische Neujahr, jedes Jahr zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt zelebriert wird, und zwar größtenteils in der nördlichen Kanto-region, im Westen Honshus, auf Shikoku und den Südwestlichen Inseln. Das dritte, und am häufigsten gefeierte, das August-Bon, ist von der 2. bis zur 3. Woche im August und wird vor allem in der Kansai-Region begangen. Daher wird auch in general at the time of their companies Angstellten four to six days around the 13./15 around August release, so the O-Bon is time the second most important festival and one of three major holiday periods in the year. Therefore, also other regions, started in Tokyo as part of their O-Bon celebrations have to lay in August.
Well, apparently the Tokyo slowly accept the cultural superiority of Kansai. :)

It has become established that O-Bon is used as a family reunion (which is why it is also a great traveler time when visiting most Japanese families) on which the graves of the dead are visited and cleaned (the spirits of the deceased should also consider the home altars and visiting participants have the bye). The festival can be compared with All Saints / All Souls with us, with the difference that more celebrated and treated as a whole is not as serious (comparative example, the Mexican Day of the Dead).


sequence or part of the festival goes from 13

Obon to 16 of the month in which it takes place and place in that time the company, as erähnt, often with an extra day off (but state institutions have opened because it is a purely religious celebration not a public holiday / should be). The feast has no fixed end in itself, and in the different regions under different light quite pronounced. Most use it for the first day, as discussed above, to be with their families, and to take care of the graves. The biggest event of the Bon dance festival in which during the musical accompaniment (in the sense of a dance festival) is held in public, whereby the precise nature of dance and music are locally very different. Above all, the music is by Bon-traditional music to folk music and folk songs to modern pop songs and (in some cases is even used classical) be.

are a special feature in Kyoto enzündeten Gozan no Okuribi (五山 送り火), the "5-mountain fire" simply Daimonji (大 文字), "Major characters" mentioned. On five Mountains around Kyoto are lit huge bonfires in the form of characters (3 of them) and other forms (2). It starts at 20:00 clock with the characters for "big" (大), followed by the two characters for "wondrous Dharma" (妙法), a term used in Buddhist teachings, followed by a fire in the form of a ship to another plays the character for large, and finally the shape of a torii, a screaming-gate (usually Shinto shrine). To burn all the characters clock 20:30. They are lit by the spirits who return to the dead world to light the way and to facilitate it (hence the name Okuribi, posting about fire).

The festival traditionally ends with the "floating of lanterns. Using small paper lanterns lit and placed on small floating documents on the rivers exposed (hence a boat as a stake in the form of Kyoto). Each of these lanterns symbolize the soul of a dead man who returns to the afterlife, are why there are hundreds, even thousands of lanterns floating on the rivers (where this custom is also to other dead memory usage, to commemorate the dead of Hiroshima atomic bomb for example).

Unfortunately I currently do not have photos available, but since O-Bon is taking place at the time and ends tomorrow, I hope that I will soon send some of my friends. So please be patient.



interesting (and funny) facts / opinions about Japan:

Also, this time as a column by our author, will match our contribution. Although we now have a suspicion concerning his stay, but since this is not assured, we will list the author as yet still "unknown location".

The O-Bon festival is celebrated in its present form, including in particular about the dance / dance for 500 years, yet the roots and influences are very much older. Loud records to the actual ceremony, carried out so the idea of \u200b\u200bthe soul religious festival, according to records since the middle of 8th century be. Furthermore, the spreading of "lantern ships" of Emperor Go-Horikawa introduced in 1230 in Japan (a fact which is particularly understandable when one considers that this emperor had before his coronation actually Buddhist monk should). It is disputed whether the idea of burning of bonfires (especially in the form of characters) is really the famous monk Kukai, posthumously known as Kobo Daishi, (from the 8.Jahrh.) Decreases. What is certain, rather, that its origin different rites of Japanese Buddhism forms (one mentioned by Kukai founded) was born.
Although his religious component largely verloren hat und diese mehr durch ein Familienwiedervereinigung/Rückkehr zu seinem Geburtstort Element eretzt wurde, ist das O-Bon Fest wohl gerade deswegen und auch wegen seinem Feieranteil, nach Neujahr das traditionell und allgemein zweitwichtigste Fest in Japan. Da die Japaner dabei auch die Gräber ihrer Vorfahren und Hausaltäre reinigen und pflegen bleibt trotzdem das Ehren der Ahnen als ein zentraler Bestandteil erhalten.