This article is an excerpt from JAPAN, AN ART OF LIVING, where we tell you about life in Japan, its anecdotes but also its complex social codes and how visitors can access certain places more easily, while remaining courteous. A sort of instruction manual for travelers to Japan. I recommend it!
https://japonartdevivre.blogspot.com/
The Tanabata Festival 七夕祭り
The Tanabata Festival 七夕祭り is a festival (matsuri 祭り) which is celebrated on July 7 of each year in Japan. On this occasion, people come to hang ex-votos in the bamboos, small colorful pieces of paper on which they write their wishes.
Tanabata is a traditional festival originating from O-Bon お盆, a Japanese Buddhist matsuri celebrating the festival of the ancestors, or from the Chinese star festival Qīxī 七夕 which in Chinese means ” night of the seventh month “, which explains why Tanabata matsuri 七夕祭り is celebrated every year on July 7.
The legend of Tanabata 七夕 may differ depending on the oral tradition of the stories, but they’re all pretty much the same.
This is the wonderful story of two stars, Vega (Orihime) and Altair (Hikoboshi), who fall madly in love and meet again on the seventh night of the seventh month of every year.
The star Orihime 織姫, Princess Weaver lived on the banks of the Celestial River (our Milky Way) Amanogawa 天の川.
Her nimble fingers created the most beautiful fabrics in the Universe, and her sublime beauty filled her father, Sky Lord 天帝, with happiness.
But her father could not take full advantage of this happiness, knowing his daughter suffered from loneliness as she worked.
Orihime would have liked to have had a little time to meet, one day, the Prince Charming she so often dreamed of.
So the Lord of Heaven decided to arrange a meeting for his daughter.
One day, in all discretion, he presented her to the sparkling Star Hikoboshi 彦星, shining on its constellation like an eagle in full flight.
Hikoboshi was incredibly hardworking and watched over his cows from across the Celestial Amanogawa River with an attention and diligence that made him the best herdsman in the Universe.
When they saw each other for the first time, it was cosmic love at first sight.
Since that day, Star Orihime and Star Hikoboshi never separated and soon got married.
But love had blinded them and detached them from their main task, from what they knew how to do best in the Universe.
This is how Orihime stopped making her beautiful fabrics and Hikoboshi started neglecting her work, which triggered the Sky Lord’s wrath.
Annoyed by the presence of cows wandering all over the sky and no longer having the slightest cloth to cover themselves with, he had to put an end to the lovemaking of the young couple and forbade them to see each other again.
Again, the Heavenly River Amanogawa separated the two Stars.
But this terrible separation made the Weaver Princess very, very sad and her face turned into a lake of tears.
Her father could no longer bear the grief of his daughter, which caused an unbearable tear in him.
He then proposed to the two Stars, Orihime and Hikoboshi, to meet again each year, on the condition that they work as they used to do in the past.
And so the couple set to work diligently to meet on the seventh night of the seventh month of every year.
When that long-awaited day came for the first time, they realized that they could only see each other, without being able to embrace, for the Celestial River that separated them had no bridge.
Then Princess Orihime cried so much, that thousands of magpies came and promised to build a bridge with their wings so that the lovers could cross the Celestial River and embrace each other.
Since then, every year at the same time, we write wishes on small pieces of paper, called Tanzaku 短冊, dedicated to the little poems that we also hang in the bamboos so that Orihime and Hikoboshi will answer our prayers.
The legend of Tanabata was integrated into the Popii opus 1 installation, presented during “Rendez-vous au Jardins” 2018 in the Bamboo Chapel of the Jardin Sauvage de Cabriès (France).
If you would like to know more about this exhibition, please visit this page:
https://www.ericpetr.net/galerie/rendez-vous-aux-jardins-2o18/
