So many Kimono!

Even though we (unusually enough) had class on Monday, it was still a great deal of fun. Monday was Jidai Matsuri or, roughly translated, the Festival of Ages, which is one of the 3 great festivals of Kyoto. Because it to a certain extent was relevant to the class that conflicted it, our professor cancelled class so that we could go. The basic idea is that all of the major periods in Japanese history up to around 1900ish are represented by people in costume who process from the Imperial Palace grounds to the Heian Shrine. I was, understandably, very excited by this prospect. Some friends and I secured a decent place outside of the Imperial Palace and some convenience store lunch and settled in for the show, which began at about 12:15. The best seats are those inside the walls of the imperial complex, but those spots had long since disappeared, so we were a bit down the road from its South gate, close enough to the beginning. It really was amazing, with hundreds, maybe even a thousand or more people walking, riding on horseback or on platforms, playing instruments and carrying banners. I was, however, a little disappointed that the majority of those in the parade were men. In my opinion, the most interesting clothes are those worn by women, especially since they seem to change more quickly and notably over time than those worn by men. Even so, it was a great time, and when it was over I still had another exciting activity to go to. AKP has some sort of relationship with an antique kimono shop in Demachiyanagi, so a group of us were able to go there and take lessons in how to put on kimono and tie obi. After we’d gotten dressed, they served us an unusual iced tea and meringues, and the final price for the whole thing was only 500yen, which was a steal. Another lovely day.
-Jidai Matsuri was begun when the capital of Japan moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, and was created as a means of restoring the suddenly empty old capital.
-The wigs, makeup, costumes, and armour were intensely detailed, and besides where the materials themselves came from, I wonder where the expertise needed to put everything on was found.
-On very crowded trains, it’s always the foreigners who have airspace around them forcing everyone else to cram into each other. In this case, it wasn’t that the Japanese people didn’t want to trust them so much as the foreigners not wanting to touch each other.
-It’s possible that the number of men’s costumes (and consequently soldier’s costumes) was meant of old to represent the emerging militarism of the period in which the festival was created.
-Similarly, the women present were almost all historical figures (such as Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shounagon, Izumo no Okuni), which would seem to underline the emergent nationalism of the period as well.