It is refreshing to see how even malls can be about more than shopping.
Our friends at PingMag show in Asagaya’s Tanabata Festival: The Papier-mache Float Parade how the Pearl Shopping Center unleashes its creativity with Papier Mache creatures for the Tanabata festival in August.
Definitely the place to be for a fun day with the kids.
Wikipedia describes Tanabata as follows:
Tanabata (七夕 tanabata?), meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, derived from the Chinese star festival, Qi Xi (七夕 "The Night of Sevens")．It celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). The Milky Way,
a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers,
and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the
seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. Since the stars come out at night, the celebration is held at night.
Even the Tax-Man is there with E-tax-kun (pictured below, from PingMag) which Ryoko describes as "a character to encourage the Japanese citizens to file their taxes online".
Some people such as Jason Weill feel that the festival is too commercial. He offers a number of evening pictures of the same event on Weill in Japan and writes that "Tanabata are slips of paper
on which people write their wishes, and then hang on bamboo trees".
Eager to see more about Asagaya Festival, My So-Called Japanese Life offered a Five Part Take on the 2007 Edition…
Enjoy!
Summer Fun for Tokyo Thursdays #51
More Japanese Summer Festivals: The Amazing Floats of ‘Tachi Neputa’ Festival in Goshogawara (August 4-8)