Rhea's progress report

I have made a good amount of progress on my research for group 5’s project. Since last time I was able to give my rough draft to sensei to see if I was at all on the right track with my topic of festivals. We both agreed that since the general topic is too broad my sub topic is a very big topic as well. Individual group members are expected to have at least 10 slides per topic and I didn’t want to go overboard with my original plan of almost 20. With this I started to make a rough draft of what I wanted my topics to include without putting in too much information to the point where I would go over time (sensei also wants us students to talk a little bit slower for the Senshu University students so they can follow along with the English presentation). Within my outline I picked out a few festivals that I thought would be okay to add into my topic without covering as much as possible. I started off my research by looking through the history and meaning behind the word matsuri. After giving a definition I was able to define what the “Kami” or spirits are for Japanese people and briefly how/ why they came into fruition. This took up most of my research time as I wanted to find sources that would easily explain the Buddhist or Shinto religion to me. I found out that Kami is closely related to nature and natural events like storms or drastic change in weather. I have still yet to identify who works in traditional shrines, but that will be next on my list of research topics for Tuesday's presentation. After finding a quote that I think will fit perfectly with my topic, I moved on to how shine’s are used in today’s day and age. This is how I slowly transfer back into the topic of festivals, and how it attracted both locals' tourists for all over the globe. This also slightly ties into Lachlan's previous topic of art and how these festivals can be seen as a work of combining traditional customs into an interactive modern art form. I finally moved on to the different festivals. Starting off with the oldest festival recorded in Japan the Omizutori festival. This festival mostly takes place during the late afternoon or evening and involves torch burning. It also take place in Nara. I found a lot of interesting facts about this festival that I can’t wait to share in my presentation. Other festivals I plan to look through include, mikoshi matsuri, Danjiri matsuri (both because they include a moving structure of a parade), Tanabata (star festival), Hinamatsuri (the doll festival), Hanami (Sakura watching), and Naha tug of war. I may take some out or add in if I feel it is necessary, but after this I want to look at western holidays and how they are included into the modern Japanese way of life as well.