Matsuri 祭り(Japanese word for festival) is one best activity to enjoy Japan every time you have a chance to visit the country. Since I am pretty late for summer festival and not yet into winter festival, I feel glad that my dorm manager invited me to see a festival held in Kishiwada city, Osaka. I found out that this festival is the biggest and the most famous Danjiri Matsuri among other similar festival which held all over Japan. Many people even from other prefecture come to Kishiwada to see the Danjiri from many groups of neighborhood area. Generally, this festival becomes a symbol of gratitude from the people towards the Shinto Gods as they get blessings through the harvesting season. Several groups of people will gather as one group representing their district and walk along the street while pulling the danjiri or portable shrine which has been build for several years ago with a really huge cost. Every houses in one district should at least appointed one family member to contribute this event,  regardless age and gender. It means that one danjiri group will contained at least 50 people working together to represent their district with pride. I didn't count exactly how many danjiri was at the festival, but I think it was more than 15 groups.

My dorm manager was very excited that some students managed to see this festival with him because he has been participating in this festival for more than 50 times since he was a little boy living in one neighborhood at Kishiwada City. He proudly depicted his hard work when he was assigned to pull the robe, and continuously upgrading his role as he gets older every year, until he could be in the centre possition of the danjiri. Despite the fact that I only saw the practice session of the groups, I felt very lucky because I can get accompanied by a person who was indeed a participant of the festival. Moreover, my friends and I could freely move all around the city because there were less people there. So we could see the attraction from several different spot, which was amazing. I don't think I can experience such thing if I went there by myself. However, the fact that it was just a practice didn't undermine people's excitement to came over and watch the whole session from 1 pm to 5 pm that day. 

To see people really hustling in order to make the danjiri move astonished me that much. I can really see the value of hard work of Japanese people through this festival. I mean, come on, no one will condemn you when you don't want to participate into this event. Then people were still able to be involve into the festival and let themselves became super exhausted after the whole festival finished. People's participation also proves that Japanese people have a high community-based society. Most of them, not to be stereotyping some people who don't, are really attached into their community and willing to give any kinds of participation to increase the neighborhood's pride. I saw some students, young adults, grandfathers, moms with their babies, even the district leader participating into this festival and make sure that every component of the festival works well. Some people even challenge their defiance by standing, jumping and dancing on top of the danjiri while it was being pulled along the road. It was beyond crazy and dangerous but they let it be. Danjiri festival is also cost expensive, from the making process to the execution, even the post-event when some accident unfortunately happened, for instance a danjiri crashed the electricity pole of crashed someone's house whereupon the district should pay for the penalty. 

As I came to Japan not just merely as an exchange student (or traveller to be exact :P), I also have additional responsibility to complete at least my thesis proposal in order to graduate on time. That's why I am very delighted and grateful at the same time because I can literally observe the cultural and social value from Japanese people, which then processed as their common identity. One other good point to be highlighted is no matter how old and smart you are, if you don't contribute even just a single drop of your sweat to the society, it will definitely means nothing.