#tanabata

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"Tanabata has a story about two stars, 織姫（Orihime）and 彦星（Hikoboshi）. In Japan, Orihime is described as a woman who weaves cloth, and Hikoboshi as a man who tends cattle. The two are separated by the 天の川（Amanogawa, the Milky Way）, and it is said that they can meet only once a year, on the night of July 7."

"People in the past wrote words and poems on 梶の葉（kaji leaves）and entrusted their wishes to them. Kaji leaves are known as a plant closely connected with Tanabata. The custom of writing wishes on tanzaku today still carries the history of Tanabata, in which people polished their skills, wrote words, and gave shape to their wishes."

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"The decorations included not only tanzaku, but also various crafted shapes, such as hōzuki lantern plant shapes, account book shapes, watermelon shapes, and brush shapes. The brush and account book shapes were likely connected with wishes for writing and learning. For merchant families, the account book shape may also have carried a wish for good business. Shapes such as watermelon and hōzuki also expressed the feeling of summer."

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"Tanabata was also connected with お盆（Obon）. In the old lunar calendar, the Obon season came after Tanabata on July 7. Obon is a Japanese event for welcoming the spirits of ancestors. Tanabata also included the sense of purifying oneself before welcoming the ancestors and preparing offerings.

It becomes easier to understand why sōmen noodles, gourds, watermelon, and fruit were connected with Tanabata when we look at it as an event before Obon. Tanabata foods were summer flavors, and at the same time, they were also things offered at a seasonal turning point."

"In Hokkaidō, there is a Tanabata custom called ろうそくもらい（rōsoku morai, candle receiving）. Children go around to houses in the neighborhood, sing a song, and receive candles or sweets. To explain it to people overseas, it may be easier to imagine it as something a little like Halloween.

Teruteru Bozu てるてる坊主 are little cloth dolls made to pray for rain to stop, if you've watched Weathering With You you've definitely see them before :)

In mid to late summer, typically on the seventh day of the seventh month of the year according to the lunar calendar, Tanabata, also called the Star Festival, is celebrated in Japan.

Originating from a a Chinese festival called the Qixi festival, it celebrates an old legend of Princess Orihime, the daughter of the Sky King who was also called the Weaving Princess, and Hikoboshi, a herdsman who tended cattle. Orihime symbolizes the star Vega and Hikoboshi symbolizes the star Altair, which can be seen on clear nights in July in the Northern Hemisphere. According to legend, Orihime and Hikoboshi met each other and fell deeply in love, getting married with the blessing of Orihime's father shortly afterwards.

After they got married, they both got distracted from their duties, resulting in the Sky King, Orihime's father, forcibly separating them from each other by placing the Milky Way between them as a barrier that was impossible to cross.

Orihime, being heartbroken, begged her father to reconsider his decision, and in the end, he compromised by allowing Orihime and Hikoboshi to meet each other once a year.

The Tanabata festival first arrived in Japan in the Nara period (710 AD to 794 AD) in 755 AD and it became a tradition in Japan around the Heian period (794 AD to 1185 AD) and at the time, it was called Kikkoden or "the festival to plead for skills." Since its inception, it became customary for girls and women to pray for better sewing and handcrafting skills and for boys and men to pray for better handwriting.

Though Tanabata isn't a national holiday in Japan, it's a very popular summer tradition and many cities in Japan hold a festival for it at some point in the summer, some of which last for days or even an entire week, usually involving events like parades, games, fireworks, and dancing. One of the main traditions during the festival is to write wishes on a small piece of paper, then hanging the paper on bamboo. Traditionally, different colors of paper would be used to symbolize certain things, but nowadays, the association is less strict. Good handwriting remains an important component of the process, however, as the better one's handwriting is, the better one's chances of their wishes becoming true is thought to be.