Latest news with #Sensoji
South China Morning Post
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Tokyo's Sanja Matsuri festival a carnival of bedlam, boozing and even brawling
Sensoji, Tokyo's oldest temple, is a dramatic complex, its large entry gates flanked by two fierce guardians, representing thunder and wind, and a 3.9-metre-tall vermilion lantern – Japan 's largest – hanging down the centre. Advertisement On the third weekend of May, the usual tourist hordes at Sensoji, in the eastern neighbourhood of Asakusa , are overwhelmed by another source of pandemonium, the Sanja Matsuri. For three days, participants in this traditional festival ('matsuri') take over Sensoji, the neighbouring Asakusa shrine and the surrounding blocks. Matsuri are regional gatherings usually held on days that are significant in the Shinto or Buddhist religious calendars, a great way to experience modern Japanese culture mixed with the traditional. And at Sanja, the two don't just meet, they end up in a drunken brawl. Asakusa was the downtown commoners' district during the Edo period (1603-1868), an era of peace and cultural endeavour. Then as now, the area housed artisans, merchants, craftsmen, carpenters, firefighters, food vendors and even members of the yakuza (organised-crime syndicates). The Sanja Matsuri ties all these people together, the event attracting all walks of life. The streets are lined with thousands of lanterns and ritualistic zigzag-shaped Shinto paper streamers. Indicating that a space is sacred, these paper decorations are usually found at shrines, but during the festival, they also adorn businesses and homes. Taiko drummers perform on the streets of Tokyo's Asakusa neighbourhood during the Sanja Matsuri. Photo: Emil Pacha Valencia With close to 2 million people having attended pre-Covid, the festival is one of Tokyo's largest traditional events. Its foundations are religious and in homage to the fishermen who, legend has it, established Sensoji in AD628 after they had found a statue of the Bodhisattva Kannon (the Japanese name for Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy) in a net.
South China Morning Post
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
This week in PostMag: from André Fu's designs to stem cell therapy
Occasionally, there is one thing in the magazine that I just can't stop thinking about. This issue, it's the photo of Jason Li in My Life. Everything about that image is unexpected. How is he suspended in mid-air, completely horizontal and almost a metre from the ground? The pieces of a deconstructed taxi cab in the garage behind him just add to the improbability of the photograph. A great part of this job is these Easter eggs that land on my desk and leave me in awe – both of the subject and the people telling the story, whether photographers or writers. Check out the story and you'll see what I'm talking about. Advertisement At a party last weekend, a man told me his favourite part of PostMag every week is our long-running column My Life. It's one of my favourites, too. We're all a nosy bunch, aren't we? It's such a privilege when anyone, famous or not, opens up to tell us about how they got to where they are – the twists and turns of their journey, the entertaining anecdotes. I always find there's some existential relief in just hearing all the different ways a life can be lived. Li, a professional stunt double, tells Kate Whitehead about going from flips in a squash court to working on Transformers. In this week's main feature, Daven Wu looks at one of the most recent projects by The Upper House designer and architect André Fu. The new Dusit Thani Bangkok is Fu's 'confident mid-career masterwork', he writes, detailing how the architect strove to balance a desire for authenticity with the need for a contemporary feel and relevance. Fu's not slowing down either, ploughing ahead with a spate of openings across Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Taipei and Osaka. Elsewhere in Bangkok, Tim Noonan dives into the world of regenerative medicine as he recounts taking a chance (twice) on stem cell therapy. It's an approach I've never personally had to consider, thankfully, and it was enlightening to read a first-person account. Beyond Thailand, this issue travels around Asia with two features that share a commonality: fishermen and fishing nets. In Tokyo, Manami Okazaki joins the Sanja Matsuri, a festival that started as an homage to the fishermen who founded the city's oldest temple, Sensoji. It's a lively, raucous affair, complete with taiko drumming that often runs into the early hours. In Kerala, large cantilevered fishing nets led Vincent Chow down a rabbit hole as he explores both the historical and modern influence of the Chinese on India's southwestern state – a long, winding tale to spend some time with. Advertisement
