Tanabata

July 7th was Tanabata which is a famous Japanese summer festival. When Takumi was little we lived in Sendai, a northern city of Japan and it had a huge Tanabata festival. I remember dressing Takumi up in a little cotton kimono and wandering around the decorated streets and eating cotton candy and roasted squid. I think the tradition comes from the legend that two star gods fell in love on separate sides of the universe and they were only able to meet on this night when the Milky Way made a bridge across the sky. Of course this makes the festival popular with young couples and lovers. Very romantic to go out walking under the stars during Tanabata, even if the stars are colorful paper streamers. The beautiful paper decorations are supposed to represent shooting stars in the galaxy.

Families with children in Japan will cut a bamboo shoot from the forest and place it where it can be easily decorated with paper rings and streamers and prayers that are often written in the form of poetry. I remember buying my kids Tanabata kits in the store and all we had to do was write our messages, cut out the paper, do a little origami and tie the decorations to the plastic sprig of bamboo provided.

Tanabata unfortunately went by our family with hardly a thought this year. Hmmm. No little kids in the house and somehow Tetsu and I forgot to take the romantic walk under the stars... (pictures off the Internet again.)