Today the Camp Leo campers got to experience a new culture and set of traditions. Before we began we talked about Festivals, especially about Festivals in July and our recent July 4th. In the process we began to learn about the Japanese festival Tanabata.
Tanabata is a yearly festival celebrated throughout Japan with a variety of customs and art works depending on the city and province. The festival itself is hard to pinpoint on the Gregorian calendar as the festival is dependent on certain astrological circumstances, it normally begins however on July 7th and continues through August.
Tanabata celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi, represented by the stars Vega and Altair. According to legend these deities are separated during the entire year and are only allowed to see each other on one day.
To celebrate this annual reunion Japanese cultural tradition is to create wishes or poetry on small pieces of paper and hang them en mass. The image of so many colored wishes is a beautiful one and one that Camp Leo began enthusiastically. Campers were also charged with the task of writing their wishes in basic Japanese characters, providing a mix of cultures.
The wish-flags are currently hanging outside the Camp Leo entrance.
For more images of the real festival please check out the links below:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Sendai_Tanabata_2005.jpg/220px-Sendai_Tanabata_2005.jpg
http://www.minimalized.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/messages-1024x688.jpg
http://www.nihonsun.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/image3.png
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