gThe Festivals of Commerce and Industryh were
hosted by the Kamagaya Chamber of Commerce and Industry from the end of July to
the beginning of August in the city. The chamber comprises six of storekeeperfs
associations and they ran each festival in their own region.
Among them is the one held by gthe Council for Promotion of Development around Kamagaya Stationh. The festival continued from 4 pm to 9 pm on July 28 and 29 in a rotary square near Tobu-Kamagaya Stationfs east exit and in the Pear Road shopping center near the west exit.
Common menus in a Japanese festival such as fried noodles (yaki-soba), sausages, finely crushed ice with syrup on the top (kaki-gori), beer, and kinds of soft
drink were sold to visitors at stands along sidewalks. And visitors also enjoyed various games
such as scooping goldfish (kingyo-sukui) at stands. A lot of toys and accessories that children like were on sale.
Liveliness came back to the shopping center, and it seems that the festival
fairly improved returns of stores.
In the daytime, some groups in the city performed
on Japanese dances such as yosakoi-soran
dance and shofuku dance, and then many citizens took part in a Bon dance from
the evening in the rotary square. The Bon
dance has its beginning in Buddhism. It is said that people used to dance
together during urabonfe, one of the
Buddhism events, to comfort and send off spirits of their ancestors in olden
days. This dance is called gNembutsu
danceh (nembutsu means gprayer to the
Buddhah in Japanese), which evolved into the Bon dance later. The style of a Bon dance is different from region to region in Japan.
gThe Festivals of Commerce and Industryh
are parts of the attempts by the Kamagaya Chamber of Commerce and Industry aiming
at providing citizens and members of storekeeperfs associations in each region
with the chance to communicate with each other and at revitalizing the town.
Such a festival to come next is the 38th Citizen Summer Festival that will be held from 10 am to 6 pm on August
25, Saturday, in the area of Shin-Kamagaya with the parking lot of the
City Hall as the center. Many citizens look forward to this
festival, which is the biggest event in the city, every year.
Background: About the city of Kamagaya
Kamagaya is surrounded by large cities of
Funabashi, Kashiwa, Matsudo, and Ichikawa. Therefore the citizens usually go
shopping to the neighboring cities, and it leads to slow business in some parts
of the city. The gap is widening between active areas such as the vicinity of
Shin-Kamagaya Station and dull ones such as the Green Street shopping center.
As an area around Shin-Kamagaya Station was
redeveloped, recent five or six years saw the remarkable increase in the
numbers of residents and the construction of a shopping mall, a general
hospital, and residential areas near the station.
The city with a population of around
109,000 today is located at a traffic hub where three of private railroads
(Hokuso Development Railroad, Tobu Noda Line, and Shin-Keisei Line) intersect
and you can go to Haneda Airport and Narita Airport in about an hour by train.