That Friday night, I took a break from carving out tree roots to head to the main fairgrounds next to the local high school. It was already dark, and I could hear the music from far around the corner, the bright booth lights illuminating the festival. Half of the wide high school field was lined with food stalls hawking anything from beer to fried chicken to ramen. There was a great shop in the corner of the field that sold wonderful blueberry and banana crepes so delicious that it didn’t matter that they got my order wrong a couple times. Between the food stalls, I frequently ran into my students enjoying the festival. Such are the legitimate perks of being a local at festivals. Just after the massive balloon release on Friday night, some of my students ran up to me. “Sarah-sensei! Sarah-sensei! Do you have scissors?” Of course I didn’t, much to his disappointment. I was confused until he turned around and I saw a bright pink balloon securely tied to his backpack, too tight to untie. I guess he got a free balloon out of the night!
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Local students, including my own, also took to the stage for the snow festival. Our city is a reputed center of kimono production, and the traditional dress often makes an appearance at festivals in the area. For a couple weeks beforehand, one of my JHS first years had been telling me, through miming and key words, how she was going to perform in kimono on stage. And so to my delight on Friday night, I saw my student gracefully stride across the stage. She stuck out, due, in part, to her bright yellow kimono and, in part, to her beaming smile that seemed to reach everyone around her. I was so happy that students could still show off their kimono this year, as the city had wavered about even holding a show at all this year. Indeed, the event was downsized from the seventy-one or so kimono that they had wanted to show off. The show was small, but it captured the audience’s attention, and you could see that the girls and boys were proud to show off such an important heritage of Tokamachi.