our lady of

Last week the Nippon Steel festival was celebrated in Kitakyushu. The festival commemorates a bad blast furnace accident. As the steel mill operation is now greatly reduced in size, the festival had a curiously empty feel, as though there was no heart to the maze of food stalls, Enka singers, dancing contests and more food on sticks stall, reminding me of Australian Agricultural shows, but without the more interesting activities. Seeing a crowd of people in Yahata was a strange experience though, suddenly our sleepy neighbourhood was, well, populated. Youichirou organised for the CCA artists to have a small exhibition in a disused shop - mostly visitors were too intimidated by the Gaijen sitting the show to come in unfortunately.

There were several stalls selling small turtles, or red and black goldfish. 500yen.

The final fireworks were preceeded by a strange Jpop lookalike concert. In orderly Japanese fashion, blue tarps were layed out on the ground, everyone taking their shoes off before sitting down.

The fireworks were overshadowed by green lazers. Maybe we invent fireworks because the stars get boring, just to cover them up with strobing combs of green light. A depressing sight.