With a large Chinese population--in addition to cultural and geographical proximity--Japan welcomes Chinese New Year. If you are in western Japan, here is a festival worth seeing:
Nagasaki lights up for the Chinese New Year
by Jun Hongo
Staff Writer, The Japan Times
Jan 30, 2014
Enjoy the Chinese New Year celebration in style at the Nagasaki Lantern Festival 2014, which kicks off on Jan. 31 and runs for two weeks in the city’s Chinatown and surrounding areas.
After Portuguese ships arrived at its shores in 1571, Nagasaki became a major trading port in Japan, and parts of it remained open to foreign trade even during the Edo Period (1603-1868) sakoku (closed-country) policy. Today, as an international city, it’s home to one of the three biggest Chinatowns in Japan, the others being in Yokohama and Kobe.
The highlight of this new year celebration is a display of 15,000 colorful Chinese lanterns, which will line the streets of Chinatown and Chuo Koen park and light the way to the Kofukuji Temple.
Okinawa Looks Like This
Peaceful: a beautiful place for a walk
自己紹介
- Chura
- Born and raised in the USA (NJ), I’ve spent most of my adult life in Japan. One of my favorite places in Japan is Okinawa. To me, Okinawa is a land of stories and an island of music, magic and mystery. The music is shima-uta, songs sung to the rhythm of a three-stringed lute called a sanshin. The magic is in the colors of land, sea and sky. The mystery? Mystery begins where the line between legend and verifiable human memories begins to blur. I am a member of the Archaeological Institute of America, chapter chief of a sanshin study society, and a founding member of the Marine Culture Research Association of Okinawa.