Airmen from Yokota Air Base, Japan, lift a float for the Tanabata festival on Friday afternoon in Fussa City. (Christopher B. Stoltz / S&S)
Airmen from Yokota Air Base, Japan, lift a float for the Tanabata festival on Friday afternoon in Fussa City. (Christopher B. Stoltz / S&S)
Airmen from Yokota Air Base, Japan, lift a float for the Tanabata festival on Friday afternoon in Fussa City. The float was one of five in the festival. (Christopher B. Stoltz / S&S)
The five mikoshi, or portable shrines, paraded in the Tanabata festival in Fussa City, Japan, on Friday. (Christopher B. Stoltz / S&S)
Shimjiro Hori, a Japanese carpenter, rests during a break at the Tanabata festival on Friday afternoon. “I think the airmen are wonderful,” he said. “It is nice to mingle with them while carrying the float.” (Christopher B. Stoltz / S&S)
FUSSA CITY, Japan — What U.S. servicemembers would want to spend the hottest part of one summer’s hotter days volunteering to join a lot of other sweaty people carrying what amounts to a small truck through city streets for three straight hours?
So many that organizers said about 30 applicants had to be turned away. The 50 who were accepted spent Friday afternoon hoisting a mikoshi, an extremely heavy portable shrine, onto their shoulders, then stepping off to take part in Fussa City’s 56th annual Tanabata Festival just outside the base gates.
When August comes around in Japan, streamers and bamboo leaves often decorate streets in celebration of Tanabata. It’s the one time each year, the ancient Japanese folk tale has it, that two lovers separated by the Milky Way are allowed to meet.
Fussa City’s annual Tanabata celebration began Thursday, is to end Sunday and marked Friday with the parade of mikoshi — five in all, displayed by various Japanese organizations and toted by volunteers, including 2nd Lt. Danah Autry of the 374th Mission Support Squadron.
She’s the physical training monitor for her unit. Still, she said, “I don’t think you can prepare your back for this pain.”
A Japanese parade, she learned Friday, bears little resemblance to an American one. No straight-line procession here. Instead, the mikoski-bearing marchers, including the airmen, moved around in circles and lifted their shrine up and down in the air as they slowly made their way down the streets. People with loudspeakers shouted words of encouragement in time to the raising and lowering of the shrines.
“It was a whole new spin on parades,” said Autry, who said she wanted the experience before leaving Japan.
“It was the last thing to check off on my list,” she said — but she added that even with the sweltering heat and muscle strain, she’d do it again: “It was a fun, good mix of people.”
Airman 1st Class Lucille Ramos from the 36th Airlift Squadron, on her first tour to Japan, agreed. “People told me that it was awesome, and it was way better than I expected,” she said. “I had a great time.”
Ben Alumbaugh, a 374th Airlift Wing spokesman who helped organize the military volunteers for the parade, said more than 80 airmen signed up — so many that “we had to turn some people away.”
The Ishikawa Brewery provided the airmen’s mikoshi; the men and women wore brightly colored headbands and happi coats, or short, traditional Japanese jackets, with a large kanji character for “festival” printed on them.
Col. Scott Goodwin, 374th Airlift Wing commander, also came out with his family to enjoy the festivities and watch the airmen parade the mikoshi.
“I think it’s fantastic our airmen came out to participate. It’s ... a wonderful way for Americans to gain appreciation for the Japanese culture,” he said.
Including, perhaps, the fine old Japanese art of brewing: With the mikoshis lined up by Fussa City Hall after the parade, the airmen peeled off their sweat-soaked happi coats and headbands and relaxed in the shade — with some cool ones.
