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Kumagaya Uchiwa Festival

Kumagaya Uchiwa Festival is the most important festival that occurs in Saitama Prefecture Kumagaya city every year. The festival is held for five days from July 19th to 23rd annually. This festival is called Uchiwa and (matsuri), because Uchiwa, the traditional Japanese fans, were distributed to people during the festival in the Meiji era.

There is total of 12 dashi; children and adults march through the streets by pulling a long and thick rope attached to dashi. Traffic is controlled during the festival. A 30-centimeter hand gong makes a big sound with musical accompaniment. Each district has dashi and competes for musical accompaniment by putting their dashi next to each other. Kids and adults play ohayashi, Japanese drumming on the mikoshi. They practice playing instruments every summer, about two months ahead of the festival.

Uchiwa Festival is one of the biggest summer events in Kumagaya, along with Sakura Festival and Kumagaya fireworks festival. More than 750,000 people participate in the festival, and it is referred to as the number one festival in Kanto region. The streets are lined on both sides with stand-selling shops, which sell Yakisoba, cotton candy, Japanese candy, shaved ice, crepes, and many other kinds of foods and toys.

History

The festival first began in 1750. Mikoshi was first made in 1830 and around 1902, when merchants started to give uchiwa to customers. Around the same time, the town grew due to development of the silk industry. Each district began to buy dashi to represent their wealth; they compete which district has bigger and good quality dashi. This was the beginning of the Uchiwa festival.

Lots of prototypes are carried from Edo and Meiji period; on March 30, 2012, the festival was designated as an intangible cultural property by Kumagaya city.

Ojima Neputa Festival

Ojima Neputa festival is held on  August 14th and 15th every year at Gunma Prefecture Ota city, Ojima district. It is held at Ojima district’s shopping street; people gather from neighborhood prefectures. More than 160,000 people participate every year within two days. Neputa Festival is one of the biggest events in Ota city.

The festival started in Aomori Prefecture, Hirosaki city and Old Ojima town concludes a sister city alliance in 1986. It is continuing after Ota city absorbed the Ojima town in 2005. When the festival first began, it was a small festival that only opened at the schoolyard of an elementary school, and inside of Ojima park. However, as the years went by, it became bigger and bigger, and they started to control the traffic and closed 354 national highways. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry play a central role in the festival to improve one’s friendship between two cities. This is how the Neputa festival tradition had taken over in Ojima.  

People cheer “Yaya-do” with enthusiasm, play bass drum, record with musical accompaniment, and people march with a big fan. A highlight of the festival is the Neputa march, the gigantic 7 meters fan march with a formation making big drum sound. There are more than ten neputa fans.

The festival takes place on 14th and 15th of August, which is during Obon festival, this is a week where people go back to their hometown. People in Ojima decide to hold the Neputa festival on these two days because they want young people to attend the hometown festival when they come back to one’s home.

Gokabou

Gokabou (五家宝) is one of the Japanese wagashi, which is made and sold only in Saitama prefecture. Okoshi, a sweetened cake made of rice is mixed with sugar and then shaped into a cylinder. Wrapped in a sheet made by starch syrup and soybean powder and coated with soybean powder. Gokabou is known as Saitama prefecture Kumagaya city souvenir sweet. They are rarely served as a dessert for school lunch in the public elementary and secondary school.  　

Gokabou is one of the three famous confection in Saitama along with Soka Senbei from Kazo city and Imogashi from Kawagoe city. It is also qualified as one of the ten soundscapes of Saitama. The name, Gokabou, means that five grains are a family’s treasure. It is also one of the special products of the Kazo city and has been sold for the past 150 years.

Since it is a storable sweet, it became popular as a souvenir sweet and spread through Japan. The process for making the sweet entails a unique and traditional technique. It is additive-free sweet which is easy to digest and attracts people as a nourishing sweet.

History

It was first eaten and made as nonperishables. It gradually shifted and became famous as a homemade sweet. It became popular after 1883 when a railroad was first opened from Ueno to Kumagaya, and people started to sell at the station.