Protocol 7 » assorted musings on life, interaction, design, and beer

Ganko Matsuri

Japan has so many festivals it’s impossible to keep track of them all. Hamamatsu’s Yosakoi Ganko Matsuri is no exception.

Around the middle of March the streets downtown are closed to traffic and opened to 3000+ dancers from around the country. I’ve serendipitously stumbled across the Ganko Matsuri two times… the good fortune of deciding to take a leisurely walk on a nice day. Curious as to the origins and meanings of the Yosakoi Ganko Matsuri, I turned to my students for consultation.

A few of them had heard of the matsuri and a couple of them had even attended. The majority, however, had never attended or even heard of the matsuri, and were convinced I was either making it up or confused. The ones who believed me thought that maybe this was the first year it was held, though I assured them I had been to it last year as well (in total there have actually been six). I tried googling it a couple of times, but only in romaji so my results were limited. I found some pictures of Ganko Matsuri ‘05 but no explaination of the matsuri itself, until I regoogled this morning and found Japundit’s write up, Dance or be Gone, which has provided the insight I have been seeking.

The dictionary definition of ‘ganko’ is obstinate or stubborn, a particularly odd concept to build a dancing festival around. According to the Japundit bit, ganko actually means extremely, or super, which makes a lot more sense.

“Ganko is a word in the local dialect that translates into standard Japanese as hijo ni (extremely) or sugoi (a word overused in everyday speech by younger people in the same way that “awesome” is overused by younger people in the United States, with much the same meaning). So, you could say that the name Ganko Matsuri means Super Festival, and that’s exactly what the organizers suggest in Japanese.”

A lot more sense. I’ll be printing out the article and loading some matsuri pictures onto my ipod in the event that anyone else doubts the veracity of my matsuri tale.