Tanabata Matsuri

I haven't told you about many festivals lately, so I thought I'd let you know about today's fun festival... Tanabata. It is a star festival derived from an old Chinese holiday called Qi Xi.

This festival is one part astronomy, two parts love story.

Part 1:
In the night sky, there are two constellations that only meet once a year, on July 7th. These constellations are Vega (Orihime - a weaver princess) and Altair (Hikoboshi - a cow herder).

Parts 2 & 3:
Orihime and Hikoboshi were both young workaholics. She weaved beautiful cloth all day and he tended to his cattle all the time. One day, these two met and fell instantly in love. Thus, they spent all of their time together and neglected their jobs - no new cloth was woven and the cattle all became sick. This angered her father, so he separated them. Then, they were so sad, they couldn't work anyway. So, Orihime's father decided to allow them to meet once a year. That way, the work could be done and they could see each other again. (Wow, what a deal!)

To help us learn about the celebration, my Japanese class threw a Tanabata party on Friday.

We learned that the way that this festival is celebrated is more fun than the story. Typically, you write wishes on colorful paper strips (tanzaku) and hang those wishes on a Tanabata bamboo tree. Other colorful decorations are also put on the tree. For example, people often hang origami cranes symbolizing long life, nets symbolizing fishing, good harvests and the Milky Way, and long streamers symbolizing the threads that Orihime used to weave.

Later, the tree and all the decorations can be burned or floated down a river so that the wishes all come true. Although, I'm pretty sure that the Tanabata tree that we decorated in my Japanese class will just be dismantled and put away. No fire for us. :(

I made a delicious cheesecake decorated with strawberries and blueberries since the date of our party was also the 4th of July. I figured it would be fun to learn about Tanabata while teaching my classmates and senseis the words to Yankee Doodle and America the Beautiful. They were both received well, but I'm pretty sure the cheesecake was a bigger hit. Then, the senseis taught us all a traditional Tanabata song.

ささのは　サラサラ　のきばにゆれる (Bamboo leaves are rustling under the eaves)
おほしさま キラキラ　きんぎんすなご (Stars are twinkling like gold and silver sand in the sky.)
ごしきのたんざくわたしがかいた (Some pieces of fancy paper on which we wrote out wishes.)
おほしさま キラキラ そらからみてる(Stars are twinkling and looking at the scene on the earth.)

You can try to sing along with my senseis. They are doing the 3rd and 4th lines here. Good Luck!