We met the Japanese Obon festival and Bon Odori dancing in our last post. Here we go one step further.
“Ashibinaa” is a song that accompanies Bon Odori, a Japanese folk dance performed during Obon, a summertime festival which is a period for Japanese to appreciate their ancestors by returning to their hometowns and “visiting with” the spirits of those who have passed. Obon is sometimes called the Lantern Festival; at its beginning Japanese light chochin lanterns to guide the ancestors’ spirits from their graves to the family home and at the end family members use lanterns to lead the spirits back. Our Japanese bon odori dancing may not be so accurate, but we do get the chance to exclaim, “HAI!”
We are revising the AllAroundThisWorld.com site — the information you’re seeking may still be here, but a lot of links are broken and details may be out of date. We are currently using a new (better!) site — ExploreEverywhere.com — to tell you all about our class offerings, our “pen pal” program and how to become one of our teachers, and will eventually be moving all the goodies from here over to there. So, GO TO THE NEW SITE!
