It's Festival Time!

Group picture taken with Mito Komon (the dude with the yellow scarf) - the man of whom Mito City was named after. (To learn about the awesome Mito Komon, click on his name and scroll down to "The History".)
With the beginning of August comes many festivals here in Japan. I love this time of year. This is my second time to experience the festival season in Japan, and I must say that it is not as strange....or I should say different....to me this year. Don't get me wrong, it is completely enjoyable, just very foreign compared to anything experienced in the Western Cultures.
Anyways, thanks to two good Japanese friends who actually took the time to explain to me as best as they possibly could the origins of such festivals: small tidbits as to why many people shake small shrines no their shoulders up and down the streets, why they go along in dashi (similar to parade floats) full of masked men, women, and children as wolves, funny-faced men, or round-faced women and shout "Soran!" at the top of their lungs, etc., I still have a very small understanding to most aspects of these festivals. In fact, anytime I ask a Japanese person why there is this or that going on during the festival, the typical answer I get is "I don't know."
It's not so amazing to me this year that most Japanese people don't understand why the things that go on during festivals go on, probably because I have become accustumed to living in a culture where many things are done just because "it has always been done that way." When I first came, I was told that it was best many times not to ask the question "Why?". I thought then that I could never stop asking that question, because that is one of my favorite questions, but I have noticed that I don't ask it as much anymore. I have gotten too many stumped expressions on Japanese people's faces to really want to ask anymore. Though I do find that I am still incredibly curious, just more cautious of when I ask that three letter question.
So, back from that tangent. My favorite is this festival - the Mito Komon Matsuri. It lasts for three days, with Friday night being a two hour firework show over Lake Senba, Saturday being a day of dance performances up and down the main street of Mito, and Sunday being the big shrine shaking day. It is even more fun when I get to go with my good friends (as you can see in the picture above). I am going to see how many festivals I can go to this summer. They go on at different times in different cities all throughout the summer. They are great fun and a good way to really soak in some culture, even if nobody understands why things are done the way they are done.