[Traditional New Year Festival] Experience Hiroshima Tondo Festival: A Unique Celebration of Tradition and Community
After the New Year festivities, Hiroshima residents hold the Tondo Festival, which is a cherished event!
The Tondo Festival will take place at the Hiroshima Gokoku Shrine on January 15th (Monday). (You may want to use an extension to translate pages in Japanese.)
(Source: Hiroshima Gokoku Shrine)
Be sure to attend it!
This video captures the Tondo Festival held at my son’s school last year.
While the Tondo Festival is celebrated throughout various regions in Hiroshima Prefecture, I have never come across a like event in Tokyo. I think that it is because organizing such an event with soaring flames could be challenging in the confined spaces of Tokyo.
During the Tondo Festival, unique events are held in different areas before and after a main ceremony, and children in Hiroshima eagerly look forward to these activities.
Here is an event from last year’s Tondo Festival that my son and I participated in, where fathers from Hiroshima crafted a large octopus kite specifically for this day.
The Tondo Festival is a longstanding, deep-rooted event celebrated across Japan. It involves sending off the deities welcomed during the New Year by igniting Tondo fires. It is believed that being exposed to the Tondo fire grants safety of the household, good health, and abundant harvests. Additionally, it is said that if one’s kakizome (paper with one’s first calligraphy of the year) is lifted up high in the air by the flames and smoke, one’s calligraphy skills will improve.
I encourage you to visit!
Just maybe your calligraphy skills will improve!
Location: Hiroshima Gokoku Shrine
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