Japan's OBON Festival: Invitation for the Dead

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ธ.ค. 2012
  • Obon is a three-day Japanese Buddhist observance. The dates vary from town to town but usually fall in August, although in Tokyo Obon is generally celebrated around the 15th of July. As Obon approaches home altars are prepared and family graves are tended to in local cemeteries. Ancestors - with a special emphasis on the recently departed or immediate family members - are then invited to visit the family homes. Common Obon welcome rituals are a sutra offered at the home altar by a visiting Buddhist priest and the Bon-Odori, or Obon Dance, the public execution of which varies from neighborhood to neighborhood within towns and cities across the country. The days before and after Obon see massive congestion across the country's transportation networks as millions of people return to their hometowns. In this way, Obon is similar to America's Thanksgiving. At the beginning of Obon when spirits are called in the cemeteries through the burning of incense and the offering of a prayer, and at the end when the spirits are led to a river or the ocean's edge on their way back to the world of the dead, they are guided by candle-lit paper lanterns. Although some of Obon's rituals are somber, much of the holiday is festive; a time when families happily reunite and celebrate the sacrifices that their briefly visiting loved ones made for them before they passed away.
    This Obon video follows my wife's grandmother, Kiyomi, as she celebrates Obon with her family, especially in memory of her late husband, Eiichi. All filming took place in Tanabe City, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. In addition to the live music recorded at the dances, the track "Knowoneness" by Electric Skychurch is used.
    I am Thomas Shomaker, and I directed this short documentary. 
My email: edit.shomaker@gmail.com
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ความคิดเห็น • 31

  • @fuzzypaws17
    @fuzzypaws17 9 ปีที่แล้ว +32

    Another Obon is upon us. For the next 3 days I will be praying for my wife's spirit to return home and be with us here. I miss her greatly and think about her every day. Please see the light honey and come home...

    • @HAPILIPINIM
      @HAPILIPINIM 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      bneiketurah.blogspot.com/2019/05/blog-post_18.html

  • @bedward320
    @bedward320 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Thank you for allowing a glimpse into your culture.

  • @TheTrafto
    @TheTrafto 4 ปีที่แล้ว +21

    2:43 I was not prepared for this much thanking

  • @vaporosoez
    @vaporosoez 10 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    beautiful. thank you for sharing. my mother is Japanese and this helps me to understand our culture more.

  • @kingsoku
    @kingsoku 10 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Amazing and touching. Thanks for the video.

  • @gwillis01
    @gwillis01 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Thank you for a pleasant, beautiful video.

  • @TheVividHunter
    @TheVividHunter 11 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Hatsubon is always an emotional time for families ><

  • @ElectricSkychurch
    @ElectricSkychurch  11 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Thanks to Thomas Shomaker for making this.

  • @megshimatsu8615
    @megshimatsu8615 6 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I love this........the real Japan.

  • @SquareInsider
    @SquareInsider 8 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    This is just fascinating as hell, especially the amazing shinto prayer. Truly just.....amazing.
    It's like you can feel 'something'. inexplainable really, but if someone had a gun to my head and I had to answer then and there to the question of life after death, or if there's a God, I would say "Yes" without hesitation. Let's say this person, hypothetically, knew the true answer and you had to get it right or you died. I would still answer yes. Every part of my being tells me there's something more.
    Scenario above is completely hypothetical, of course, I'm just using it to make a point. Also, this is irrelevant, but I say this with the deepest respect to all those who partake in this festival as a Christian. No denomination.

    • @alexcarter8807
      @alexcarter8807 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Not Shinto prayer, Buddhist prayer.

    • @romanr.301
      @romanr.301 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      It's Buddhist, not Shintō.

  • @JulePictures
    @JulePictures 11 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    I really liked it! :) But what if there's no river, lake, sea or sth like that? o.O

    • @melimelostudio
      @melimelostudio 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      they also use fire as another medium to get them back to their realm. Lots of festival burning bonfires around Japan at this time.

  • @dd-uf9nw
    @dd-uf9nw 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    In India there is a time period called " pritpaksha" when family members make all the food that their parents(ancestors) liked when they were alive and serve it to the crows.

  • @mingwuan2430
    @mingwuan2430 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Tháng obon giống tháng 7cô hồn

  • @jg6936
    @jg6936 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Thank you so much for this video. Why did you choose Wakayama? I want to go there.

    • @thomasshomaker7291
      @thomasshomaker7291 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Hi J G, this is Thomas Shomaker. I made this video in 2012 in Wakayama-ken because that is where my wife is from. The main character is my wife's grandmother and it is in memory of her husband (my wife's grandfather). Thank you so much for watching. I live in Tanabe City now so if you ever pass through there or Wakayama Prefecture hit me up! edit.shomaker@gmail.com

    • @bongo2565
      @bongo2565 ปีที่แล้ว

      I am from Minabe, Wakayama(approx. 20min drive from Tanabe city), but it has been more than 2 decades since I moved to the US. Just happened to see your video. Thank you! In the 70's, for Hatsu bon (1st bon ), people used to make wooden small ships with lanterns attached, put things the deceased loved in the ship (such as cigarettes, a small bottle of Sake etc..), and push the ships into the ocean. I remember, my dad took his shirt off and went into the ocean with the ship(made for my grandfather). The local Buddhist monks showed up and made prayers for safe voyages to heaven. It was beautiful to see the shoreline at night, but... as you may imagine, the problem was almost all the ships once pushed into the ocean came back to the shore by the next morning and people had to clean these up ;). I remember I had to get up early in the morning for work (which I hated.. haha..). I think people do not do this anymore. I recall burning the ship ( created for my dad) at the shore in late 90's. We do not live in Minabe anymore but hope to visit there sometime in the future and have dinner at Ginchiro ;)

  • @user-jb7lq7bu7i
    @user-jb7lq7bu7i ปีที่แล้ว

    Originally SINNTOU which there was and the Japanese Buddhism that mingled, and accomplished an original conjugation.
    The tray has each regionality more, and there is the place doing that it is different from this video.
    There are more areas that do not do the act to be said to be ショウロウナガシ either

  • @Despotic_Waffle
    @Despotic_Waffle 7 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    is it only celebrated in coastal towns?, if not how do towns far from the ocean do the lantern ceremony

    • @melimelostudio
      @melimelostudio 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      they use rivers and ponds around. And also use fire as another medium to get the ancestors back to where they are from

  • @Master_Blackthorne
    @Master_Blackthorne 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    This similar to Dia de la Muertos.

  • @PastorThomasson
    @PastorThomasson 7 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Thankfully we can know through the Holy Scriptures about life after death. Jesus came to give life. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Gospel of John 3:16

    • @ryanhatcher8643
      @ryanhatcher8643 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Though there are many Christian people in Japan, the majority are Buddhist. The religion, as a whole, is older than Christianity, and has been in Japan longer than. Christianity has.