Chicago's Annual Bon Odori

It's been a few days since I last wrote on the blog because I broke my tooth off and have been in pain for most of the week. The dentist was able to help me out before Saturday’s event at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights, IL. The event is an annual one with everyone showing up to celebrate Obon. The Japanese holiday that celebrates the ancestors returning back to the earth for a yearly visit, It involves many Japanese and Okinawans from around the Chicago area as well as everyone else who likes culture. It is a time to meet with old friends and meet new ones as well.

Saturday I met a Japanese fellow named Kohei Yoshida who was visiting Chicago on a research project involving the assimilation of local uchinanchu people into other cultures. He was looking for volunteers to interview for the project and somehow he ended up talking to me. Mr. Yoshida is a research fellow of the Japan Society for the promotion of science (Social Science) with the Tokyo Metropolitan University. If you would like to contact him he said he would love to interview anyone with possible information on his research subject. Please feel free to email him at Kohei_y_jiminer@yahoo.co.jp Yoshida san was going to Brazil and Peru after his Chicago visit but promised to stop back and see us next summer.

The Bon dance is a tradition where a group of people from a village gather to dance in celebration around a podium of lanterns usually set up in the village's gathering place. In Chicago we still celebrate the tradition by visiting our gathering place, Mitsuwa Market, where everyone constantly visits and picks up the essentials of Japanese cookery.

The Chicago Okinawa Kenjinkai has become a regular part of the celebration demonstrating its version of Matsuri Daiko a form of choreographed eisa movements to a more modern style of eisa music from Okinawa. I was there to capture all of the action to share with you here today. So here is a sample of what I took. More video can be viewed on my Youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/user/tcorrao ... Enjoy!