22nd Yokohama Opening Port Festival

[Taro Toporific]

It look rainy outside but this weekend is "The 22nd Yokohama Opening Port Festival" from Sat May 31 to Monday June 2. There's fireworks (Monday, June 20, performances, concerts, curry contests, etc.
More info at city.yokohama.jp
http://www.welcome.city.yokohama.jp/eng/tourism/times/index.html
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:cj7fn3eVON4C:www.grifworld.com/perryinjapan.JPG Always mysterious to me is why they what to celebrate "Commodore" Perry: On June 2nd, fire works will decorate the festival's climax celebrating the 150th anniversary of Commodore Perry's visit to Japan."

[ultragaijin]

It's a tough choice between that one and the Snakes and Mosquitoes Festival (http://www.welcome.city.yokohama.jp/eng/tourism/times/index.html).

300 years ago there was widespread disease in this region. Because there were no doctors, people tried to find their own cures. They used to make a big snake made of miscanthus and would cast away their evil spirits and transfer them to the snake, which would then be thrown into the sea. That is the origin of this festival.

In the afternoon, young people and children carry the snakes around town, shouting "Now the snakes and mosquitoes are out, the long awaited rain will fall." The following day, instead of throwing them into the sea as in the past, the snakes are burned at a shrine.

[Taro Toporific]

It's a tough choice between that one and the Snakes and Mosquitoes Festival (http://www.welcome.city.yokohama.jp/eng/tourism/times/index.html).


Kool! And it's my own neighborhood. Speaking of weirdo Snake and Mosquito Festivals...

And over at Clute... they hold the Great Texas Mosquito Festival. We have a lot of mosquitoes in Mexico. Highlights of this celebration of beauty, skill, and handicrafts are a mosquito calling contest (sad, but true), a mosquito swatter decorating contest, and a mosquito leg look alike contest. As in the person who's legs look most like a mosquito's wins. This is not a contest most people should brag about winning. I know you're waiting for an ex-wife remark, but I'm moving on to the last entry you need to know about....

Think about this one before you reject it. The World Championship Rattlesnake Races in San Patricio. Rattlesnake Races. Granted, it does sound strange at first, and sure, I know you have concerns about locating jockeys, but it's definitely a low-rent doable deal. First, you don't need jockeys. Next, you can get the snakes for free. Just go out and stick your arm in holes until you…ƒve gathered up enough. Sure, you may get bit; but what the hell. As a matter of fact, you'll probably get more press by getting fanged than by actually staging a successful fund-raiser. Couldn't hurt to try. Well, actually---

But back to the races. What you do is set up a course constructed of a series of long troughs. I suggest that you use blue plastic tarps; the ubiquitous tarpo de plastico azul. If you have difficulty locating enough blue plastic tarps, you…ƒre obviously not in Mexico. This is an event that is best staged after you and the rest of the board of directors get stinking drunk and are fully prepared, nay anxious, to throw caution to the winds. It's much more entertaining for the paying customers. Much more.

Of course some of the snakes are going to try to avoid cooperating in this sport by refusing to undulate down the racetrack. This should not be a problem. What the folks in San Patricio do is whack the ground close to the snaketrack with five-foot long plastic poles (PVC ought to do the job) to cause the earth to vibrate and therefore stimulate the snakes into a slithering frenzy. If this is not enough to induce the participants to actually make it to the finish line then whichever serpent is farthest along at the end of fifteen minutes is declared the winner. Remember, we…ƒre not in East Texas anymore, so chances are excellent that someone will own a watch and actually understand how to use it.

You can't begin to imagine the publicity you'll get on this one.

That's part of the Texas Tour of Surreality... (http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/dadams/da0702.html)

The above is an excerpt from the up-coming book of Tex-Mex Elvis impersonator, Don Adams. The book "Head for the Border" which includes THREE chapters Teaching English in Mexico (http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/dadams/daenglishinmexico1.html).

[Taro Toporific]

It look rainy outside but this weekend is "The 22nd Yokohama Opening Port Festival" from Sat May 31 to Monday June 2. There's fireworks (Monday, June 20, performances, concerts, curry contests, etc.
More info at city.yokohama.jp
http://www.welcome.city.yokohama.jp/eng/tourism/times/index.html

More historical background info ....


Black Ships of 'shock and awe'
The Japan Times: June 1, 2003 (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20030601a1.htm)
...Perry returned to Japan via Okinawa after wintering along the China coast. His fleet had grown to seven, with the 2,415-ton Powhattan now his flagship. The squadron appeared off the Izu Peninsula on Feb. 8, 1854, and proceeded up Edo Bay, passing right by Uraga to finally drop anchor off Haneda. Surprised by the move, the shogunate provided the village of Yokohama near the post-town of Kanagawa as the venue for negotiations -- by which time two more warships had joined the fleet.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/images/photos2003/fl20030601a1a.jpg

[cstaylor]

I'm confused... how does Fujimoto draw an accurate parallel between Perry and present day neo-conservatives? He's using a common debate technique of beating a strawman... unlike the oil in Iraq, those whales could be harvested without Japanese consent (as he states in the article, the Japanese didn't build ships-of-the-line), so the treaty wasn't for oil. I think the author was reaching for a similarity beyond his reach, and it shows. :roll:

[Taro Toporific]

I'm confused... how does Fujimoto draw an accurate parallel between Perry and present day neo-conservatives?.... I think the author was reaching for a similarity beyond his reach, and it shows. :roll:


He's "reaching" alright. In a Japanese essay/OpEd, just repeating a word image like "OIL" is sufficient to make a logical link from whale oil to Shock n' Awe. For the author, Masaru Fujimoto ('83 graduate alumni of Western's journalism program (WWU) (http://www.246.ne.jp/%7Emsr/), it's a case of, Ya can take the guy out of Japan, but ya can't take the Japanese out the guy.