Goldfish Festival – Nishikasai
Breeding and keeping goldfish is almost a national sport here in Japan. I don’t think I have ever met anyone who has never kept some sort of Goldfish. On Sunday I happened to be in Nishikasai, just on the border between Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture, and saw the annual goldfish fair or festival. Originally from China, breeding goldfish has been popular in Japan for hundreds of years and these days there are a lot of different varieties, colors, and sizes. This goldfish festival had most of the best breeders in the East Tokyo and Chiba areas, with fish going from 10 yen a piece to 80 000 yen for the rarest kinds! There was also a huge kingyo-sukui (catching goldfish) event in one of the ponds, but not as big as the one I saw in Mishima a week earlier (a subject for the blog sometime next month). Kids were wading out in the pond to catch as many fish as possible in a few minutes. If I ever have a house with a garden (I doubt it) I’ll make sure to have the garden pond stocked with a lot of goldfish!
This reminds me of the bon odori festivals here in NorCal, where at some you’ll see proud little kids marching around with a bag of newly-won goldfish and a parent trudging behind with a resigned look…since those poor fish won’t last long in just a bowl! Thanks for reminding me that it’s festival season here too…time for a photoshoot or two over the next few weekends, perhaps?
(We don’t have as many as the mothership, of course, but there’s still a surprising number: http://www.japanese-city.com/calendar/events/p/obon-location.php/)
And one of the homes I grew up in had a natural depression that wound up being perfect for a pond (especially since water needed for A/C was being pumped out anyway). Wound up with four goldfish that had the. best. personalities. ever. and even wound up with names. So much fun! They grew to ginormous proportions, which meant forever scaring away raccoons and egrets. I suppose that wouldn’t be as much of a problem in Japan…especially if you spend 80K Yen on one. That fish would *so* be staying indoors…
Haha… thanks for sharing your goldfish stories! I really hope these kids all have proper aquariums at home, but I think they do. You can buy a starter kit for about 12 USD in most fish stores, so it’s not a big thing to keep some goldfish. To be able to keep them in a pond outdoors sounds like heaven! And yes, I think I have seen fish for much more than 80K living outdoors, but hardier koi and not these flimsy goldfish! (^-^)
Oh, I bet that was a lot of fun!
So many beautiful and cute goldfish!! ^-^
It was! Another lucky random find from just rambling around in Tokyo. (^-^)
A lot of us get goldfish as kids here too. There’s such a thing as a goldfish toss, a sea of cups each with goldfish in them are set on a table and we toss ping pong balls to get them. As an adult I think it’s terrible (poor little fishies), but as an eight year old twit I really wanted that goldfish. I usually got someone bigger to get it for me. But I still like the memories.
Haha… it sounds like a lot of fun though! I hope the fish aren’t too stressed out… (^-^;)
This is simply fabulous! Who knew there were such thing as goldfish breeders? Of course there must be, but I’ve just never thought about it before! I feel a goldfish themed-painting coming on…
Oh you must! Even I have done a few goldfish and koi themed paintings,they’s so “paintagenic”! (^-^;) Hm…. picturesque?