This evening marked the nth annual Asakusa Summer Fireworks Show or "Hanabi Taikai" over the Sumida River (隅田川花火大会). This is the largest and greatest fireworks show in Japan, and while I cannot give you an accurate count as to how many people lined the streets of my neighborhood, I can safely report that it felt like no fewer than 10 billion people were in attendance.
I came back from my Takarazuka musical (wait till the next post) on the jam-packed train. Boys and girls in kimono and wooden clogs were packed in alongside me – we were all going to the same place. When I arrived in Asakusa, I was immediately engulfed in a mass of people. I started perspiring profusely and could not move much of anywhere (it didn’t help that it was over 90 degrees today in Tokyo with insane humidity).
I had a simple goal – get home. Easier said than done! When I usually get off the Asakusa Train Line, it takes me 10 minutes to walk home down the simple straight line route. The most immediate problem tonight however was that just about every road was closed and packed to full capacity with people of all shapes and sizes. They were sitting, eating, kissing, and being stepped on.
Thus, I couldn’t simply walk home in a straight line – police guards prevented this. I began my trek down the side streets labeled “fireworks route”, spying colorful blossoming blasts over the tops of the nearby office buildings. Whenever an especially big or impressive blast would go off, everyone would burst out clapping and cheering like we were fans at the World Cup. They would accompany the applause with screaming “Sugoiiiiii” or “Sugeeeeeeh” which roughly translates into “WOW!!!” “YEA!!!” or “F*CK YEAH!!!”
Walking down the side streets was not too bad. The worst part came when you reached an intersection that needed to be crossed and were once again swallowed up by the leviathan of people. There’s a fine line between being in a very crowded area and coming to a standstill (which I can begrudgingly handle), and being part of an actually dangerous mob environment. There’s a reason why one was able to hear ambulance sirens every 10 minutes or so – there is a real danger in traversing these crowded streets.
When Japanese people are packed into an immovable mass, they push. This must come from the crowded subway and train mentality where one must silently push in order to snag a space on the train car that will get them to work on time. They must push to survive! At my first intersection, I was immediately pushed against very hard by the blob in back of me. Consequently, the woman ahead of me started yelling at me in Japanese not to push or we would all fall over. I told her I wasn’t the one pushing, but she didn’t seem to be listening. I looked behind me to the man resting his hands on my back and pushing me forward. I told him to stop pushing because there was no where I could move. He didn’t respond - he just looked ahead, eyes glazed over, silently pushing with his arms outstretched, like a zombie from Dawn of the Dead. Slowly but surely, one step at a time, the mass crept forward to the next destination.
During this process, I managed not to step on any of the thousands of people sitting on blankets in the streets. I was very worried about stepping on a small child. Because of my un-Japanese regard for my neighbors, I was the one who fell. I was bracing myself against a wooden stake in the ground as the earthquake simulator of people lurched backwards and forwards at a second intersection, when the stake gave way and down I went.
Luckily, I was able to get up in time so as to not be trampled. Just in case, I had already mentally brainstormed how to curl myself up into a ball, in the event of being trampled. Next, when I rested for a moment near a convenience store and actually caught a glimpse of the fireworks through a crack in the buildings, a parked bicycle was thrown quite forcefully into my right leg by and oblivious woman who knocked it over on her way to buy beer. I was angry, sweaty, tired, and sore – I never thought I’d actually want to return to my one-room mansion.
When I finally got to my Umaya Bridge, I found that it was closed as well. The finish line was in sight, however, the second fireworks show had just started directly over the Umaya Bridge and police officers were denying people access to the bridge. I showed the police officer my room cardkey and told him that I was going back home, literally across the bridge. He was nice enough to open the checkpoint and let me walk in the special lane of the bridge they had reserved for wheelchair transport and other medical supplies. At that point I felt like I needed both.
Thus, I was finally rewarded! I got to leisurely hobble across my bridge right as they began launching fireworks over the top of it. For two minutes, I had the best seat in Asakusa! It was very beautiful indeed. I tried to snap pictures and take video, but whenever I paused for a moment; a police officer would nudge me and tell me to, “keep it moving. ” Once I arrived home, to my surprise, I found that the front steps of my housing complex provided a perfect view of the second fireworks show (my room window faced the opposite direction). So, I sat outside and watched the end of the show on the front steps.
And that was my first (and likely only) Hanabi Taikai. Messy, but done!
B.E.W.
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