So remember sometime last month when there was that whole fiasco of how Bon Odori should be prohibited from be participated by Muslims and that for a moment, there were some debates about whether it should be held this year? It even got to the point that royalty got involved too.
But fret not because the 46th annual Bon Odori organized by the Japan Club of Kuala Lumpur, Japanese School of Kuala Lumpur and Embassy of Japan and supported by the Selangor state government was well received and celebrated with a huge crowd (30,000 – 50,000 visitors) at Shah Alam Sports Complex on 16th June.
Considering that Bon Odori has been cancelled for two years during the pandemic, for it to make a huge comeback this year is not that surprising. As the country is already in a state of endemic, proper SOPs were put in place – so while the crowd is still larger than anticipated, visitors were still expected to stay safe and follow proper SOPs.
Revisiting what Bon Odori is:
Bon or known as Obon is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honour the spirits of one’s ancestors. Celebrated for 500 years, the Bon Odori festival is now more commonly celebrated with a less religious aspect of event and is held as an event during summer festivals. It has become less of an event with religious tradition to it and more of a cultural festival that everyone can be part of.
The many customs of Bon Odori involve dressing in the summer yukata, enjoying stall foods such as takoyaki, okonomiyaki and kakigori which means shaved ice in Japanese; following up with the participation in the Bon Odori dance and later ending the festival with some fireworks display.
Bon Odori festival has been celebrated in Malaysia as part of the cultural exchange between Japan and Malaysia, so in short, the annual festival has been around for so long, that it was almost incredulous to think there was a controversial debate about it. But by now, the Bon Odori festival is known to be another lively cultural festival from Japan where Malaysians can experience it in the comfort of the summer cool event right here.
At any rate, let’s hope this will be another good reminder to be open to cultural differences and learn to enjoy them.
Here’s to hoping for another year of an eventful matsuri (event in Japanese) to come.
Jasmine RCK is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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