Tanabata Matsuri in São Paulo
This weekend the Liberdade Japanese quarter was host to the Tanabata Matsuri festival, also known as star festival. It’s a Japanese festival with a tradition of more than 1,000 years, celebrated in Brazil since 1979.
We went to the Liberdade on Saturday, on a shiny day with warm temperature. Liberdade is one of those places in São Paulo that always has a reward in store for its visitors. This weekend the prize was unbeatable: the streets of Liberdade were full of colour and life, with thousands of people (whether from the Far East or not) enjoying a quiet stroll along the streets.
Along the colourful decoration, the central element of the Tanabata are the tanzakus, messages hang from the trees where the public write their petitions to the Gods.
During the weekend there is schedule of colourful folk presentations.
The oriental community takes part in the festival en masse.
The whole album with the pictures I took on Saturday can be found here: Tanabata Matsuri in São Paulo.
Make a note on your calendar so you don’t miss the festival next year - it takes place at the beginning of the month of July.
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July 9th, 2007 at 7:39 am
How come?
I live at Liberdade neighborhood and I didn’t know about this festival and I missed it.
By the pictures I could notice it was amazing and next year I wont miss it again.
I would like also to say that I’m huge fan of your blog and I read all your posts.
As Brazilian I have to thank you to spread information about my country and culture around the world.
Congratulations and keep doing this nice blog.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Prezado Neimar, muito obrigado pelos seus comentários, quê pena que você não ficou sabendo do Tanabata. Fica para o próximo ano!
July 16th, 2007 at 10:35 am
[...] Paulo, Brazil: Tony Galvez posts about the slightly unusual idea of a Japanese Festival in Brazil on his Brazil Travel Blog, with lots of photos from this colorful [...]
July 17th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
[...] ** São Paulo, Brazil: Tony Galvez posts about the slightly unusual idea of a Japanese Festival in Brazil on his Brazil Travel Blog, with lots of photos from this colorful [...]
July 19th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
[...] first stop at the Carnival this week is Brazil! Tony Galvez shares very colorful pictures of the Tanabata Matsuri festival coloring up the streets of Sao Paulo. Tony shares with us that this is an event that happens every [...]
July 21st, 2007 at 1:33 am
[...] Tanabata Matsuri in São Paulo July 9 by Tony Galvez at Brazil Travel Blog [...]
April 18th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Tony,
Kudos on the design and layout of your site. Probably the cleanest and easiest to use of all English language Brazil sites.
Btw, when talking about Japanese, Chinese, Korean…anyone from Asia, the proper term to use is “Asian”, ex. “Asian Brazilian” or “Nippo Brasilian”, not oriental. Oriental is the wording to describe a rug, piece of furniture.
There’s a deep pejorative connotation calling a person “Oriental”. “Oriental” is associated with european colonialism in Asia and racial segregration policies in North and S. America.
Simply put, its as if somone called a Spanish descended person “spic”, “wetback”, “beaner” or “white trash”.
Cheers.
April 18th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Thanks a lot for your comments and compliments, Gringo. Regarding the use of “Asian”, it might well be that I learned English in the UK (where I lived for 7 years). In the UK Asian is used to refer specifically to people from the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan or Bangladesh). It is for that reason that I avoided using Asian here, as well as the fact that it is far too vague (there are no Thais or Vietnamese in the Liberdade neighbourhood). I have done some research and apparently “Oriental” has no pejorative connotations in British English either.
But I definitely take your point about the pejorative nature of Oriental in the States. I’ve also done some research and realized it is an issue. I’m going to reword the entry to avoid causing offence to US readers.
Once again, thanks a lot for your valuable contribution.