Between the 1st and 15th of July, if you're in the Hakata area of Fukuoka, you'll be seeing quite a lot of men walking around in the following:

It might be a bit of a shock to the system at first (those are the same loinclothy things that Sumo wrestlers wear, by the way!) but there's a rhyme and reason to why and when each of these outfits are worn. Happi, by the way, are a style of kimono coat that used to be worn by servants, shops and firemen; mostly because they display an organisation/family's crest on the back as easy identification. [Here] for more info.

Firstly the most vital:

The Water Happi Style

This is the most famous and most "revealing" outfit when it comes to the Hakata Yamakasa. The bits go like this:

This outfit is worn ONLY when performing an actual race with an actual Kakiyama (carried float), so you don't have to worry about being besieged by bare bottoms unless it's one of the few days in the festival with a planned run.

The origins are fairly simple: The Funboshi or Shimekomi is a long cloth about as wide as a man's hips, and it's wound around in a certain decided way to produce the above look. Until the invention and import of mass-produced underwear into Japan, this was the basic undergarment that men wore. Around the back, two folds of the material sort of wind around before going under so you get to see the best of both butt-cheeks, but all the important stuff is packaged away. Not bad for one piece of cloth!

The Water Happi's origins are a little less clear; nobody seems to know if it's unique to this festival or not but its function is pretty simple. It's very thin and light, crested on the back and usually tied up as above... and made to take on water. As the festival participants get incredibly hot running around in mid-summer (even though it's 5 in the morning), while they run they'll get covered in water from supporters. The Kakiyama's carrying poles also get saturated as part of pre-race proceedings. So an outfit that can get wet again and again is optimal.

The Headbands are interesting; their pattern denotes rank. As they're actually a towel (or a bit of material, anyway) when the
long happi is worn they're used as more of a belt. Like this my guess is they keep the sweat out of the eyes.

The shoes are interesting; I've been told that once upon a time the festival was run in straw sandals, the kind that travelling priests still seem to wear here. They would wear out and break really easily though, especially under all the water pressure, so Bridgestone (that tire company!) came up with this Tabi (traditional kimono-friendly sock) that's made of uber-durable stuff and has a rubber sole. These are incredibly comfortable as they're made to fit the foot, and last years of racing.

The photo here is very properly styled; expect to see a lot of round, floppy bellies when the competitors are actually running around.

Next:

The Long Happi: Formal Style

This style is the one you'll see lots of around town. For the duration of the festival, it's the utmost formal attire: you're allowed to wear it to weddings and funerals and business meetings. It's one of the perks of being a Yamakasa participant to be instantly recognised while walking down the street / chowing down in a restaurant / going to a meeting.

Of course, a lot of companies in Fukuoka are very respectful of the Yamakasa season. Just today a story came to our office about someone getting yelled at for trying to schedule a meeting with a Hakata-based company during Yamakasa. What were they thinking...

It goes a little something like this:

You see how handy that cloth is? The Long Happi is worn over singlet and pants that seem to be a uniform, but not particularly special. They look like really thin material too. Nobody had much to say about these parts.

The traditional Japanese Geta (wooden slippers, you might know them from other more fabulous Kimono styles) are worn with this. Notice that the man on the left has proper, high-tiered wooden slippers while the one on the right has flat ones.

There's a sort of spongy, plastic/rubber alternative to the proper Geta that I've seen in shops that's probably just as acceptable, although only wooden Geta make the proper click-clack noise on concrete that's kind of like horse hooves. 

And last and probably least: super-special combo.

This guy KNEW I was taking a photo..... D:
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As an aside: I've seen a lot of this style around too, during the setup of Kazariyama (the 8-9 metre tall, extravagant floats left around town that are for display only) and nearby the home base of each team.

As you can see, they're basically the white understuff paired with the Water Happi, probably as a lighter / more comfortable alternative for heavy lifting that still identifies you as a member of your team / festival volunteer. There's no special name for this style.

About the Patterns: Some more Geography Involved!

You may have noticed the variety of prints in both the Long & Water Happi around town, either if you're in Fukuoka right now or from photos of the event. As you may have guessed, they're all to do with which district (in Hakata's case nagare, or stream) you belong to, but it gets a bit more subdivided after that too.

The 7 Nagare (streams) or old subdivisions of the old Hakata city; each divided into their sub-blocks. From an article in a Japanese newspaper.

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It's all in Japanese, with my scribbled notes for the name of each Nagare/stream.

To recap: each of these streams has a team that runs in the Oiyama and other events in the Hakata Yamakasa Festival. Each year their running order changes, so that a different team gets the lead. Also each subdistrict within each stream gets a turn at hosting that stream's Yamakasa-related activities. They're called the Touban, or leader. Their duties include displaying the Kakiyama once it's ready, providing a storage and building place for it while it's not, feeding and watering the participants and other housekeeping activities. As certain events are attended only by the Touban members of each Stream, it's both a bragging right and an honour when it's your turn.

So. It's different for every Stream but the basic rule is, every subdivision has its own Happi design. That's a lot, huh? For a quick reference, here's a chart:

Click for bigger.

Notice the little black boxes with white writing? Those denote each Stream. So within each Stream you have x amount of subdistricts, who each have their own traditional design. See how some streams only have the one pattern? those have at some point in history decided to all share the one uniform. For the record they are Higashi, Nakasu, Nishi and Chiyo. They're a bit easier to spot and remember but a lot of the time you'll just be overwhelmed by pattern.

Then you have:

So these are all the designs. It doesn't really matter one way or another, but if you find yourself attached (by work or other means) to one part of Hakata during the festival you'll probably get to know your local patterns. That way you'll know who to cheer for come the real event!

As part of the Higashi Nagare/East Stream, with their base this year close to our office, it's kinda nice to see them going about their daily lives all around and getting up to various setup activities. You feel like you're part of the team somehow. Also if you get to know the local streams you can ask people from Hakata which nagare they're from... they tend to be pretty house-proud to be a part of this history.

Now for a little Real Estate Taxation Law...

Until partway into the 20th century, Japanese houses used to be mapped not by blocks but by Streets. Each frontage onto a major street counted you as being part of that district. This partway explains the strange shape of the purple Ebisu district... it follows the road right through two others. It used to be that the tax on your property, too, was calculated by how much street frontage you had. So really skinny, long houses became a cheap way to do business.

This all changed to the block system some time ago. So that now the districts are mapped out and people billed according to the sizes & physical boundaries of their properties.

BUT! in a place like Hakata, where many vital parts of a very important event, hundreds year old subdistrict rivalries and family pride was tied in with the identity of that district, it was a very hard sell. Eventually they did it, combining and compromising some of the old identities while getting to keep the irregular shape of their "Stream" districts.

I found this in the old office, a guide to the old happi patterns from before the property reshuffle:

The photo's a bit blurry so you can't make out the individual town names, but. Where now there's about 50 designs in the old days there were over 100. You can see how people would be cut to see their old heritage being thrown out like that. But then again some towns have gone with it and made one pattern for the whole district. You lose that individuality but the "team" feeling is a whole lot stronger as a result. HM... like the guy on the love advice radio program said this morning, every choice means losing something. Or something.

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So that's the story of the Happi! Many things have happened since its writing, and there will be some beefy updates to come as events quieten down.

A heads up to those in town: while the main Yamakasa is yet to start, there will be some adorable primary school kids pulling 2/3 size Kakiyama around town over the weekend! Including a pass through Kushida Jinja at 3pm on Sunday. Don't miss it if you want a prelude to the real thing, it's quite amazing how fired up everyone gets! You'll have "Yoissha Yoissha" in your head all day afterward....