Yearly summer fun and age-old rites at Marysville Obon Festival

Erin Wapple was destined to be an Obon dancer.

Her grandmother was once in charge of doling out the kimonos, and the teacher who guided her mother on how to sweep her arms and clack her kachi-kachi (castanets) to Japanese folk music is still leading the ancient dances today.

"We've been dancing ever since you were in my womb," said Wapple's mother, Adelle Wapple, as the mother-daughter duo swayed and spun at the annual Obon Festival on Saturday.

Erin Wapple lives in Oakland now, but she returns to the Marysville Buddhist Church of every year to dance with her mother and honor their ancestors. The ceremony is bittersweet now, after their mother and grandmother, Iris Hatanaka, passed away two years ago.

Hatanaka loved Obon so much that even in her last year, when she was confined to a chair, she sat waving her fan and swinging her arms in tune with the rest of the dancers, Adelle Wapple recalled Saturday with a smile. Now the Marysville resident wears her mother's iris-covered kimono and other dancing accessories in her honor.

"She's with us when we dance," Erin Wapple said. "My mom and I come out here and we laugh."

Under red and white paper lanterns intended to lead the ancestral spirits home, dozens of dancers in colorful kimonos swayed with gentle precision Saturday to songs telling different Japanese stories.

Obon has been celebrated in Marysville for more than 100 years, but most aspects of the age-old tradition are the same now as a century ago. Some dances require castanets, others the Japanese towels known as tenugui and a few the ornate uchiwa fans, which are tucked into dancers' elaborately wrapped waistbands when not in use.

Shinichiro Nakajima, 8, ran around the church grounds in a striped white kimono with small blue koi near the hemline. He was born in Japan and said his cultural heritage is a large part of his upbringing.

Every Saturday he attends Japanese school in Sacramento, he speaks Japanese at home and English at Cordua Elementary, and every other year his par ents take him to Japan so he can visit relatives. Attending Obon in Marysville is an annual tradition.

"Japan is very tiny, just a small island," Shinichiro said. "But there are lots of things to learn."

As he does in school, he spent part of Saturday evening running around with other children — Japanese and not, and talking about his culture when prompted. He said he likes to tell people about going to the Buddhist temple, origami and "that Japanese food is very good."

Like many attendees at Obon, Shinichiro was fascinated by the taiko drummers.

Similar to martial artists, the drummers rhythmically spun and danced as they pounded on their large instruments. Each powerful hit resounded with thunderous noise that echoed in the small temple courtyard.

Lexy Storm and Chris Glover drove down from Paradise to witness their first Obon and said they were happily awed by what they saw.

"They're as great as any symphony I've ever heard," Glover said. "They never miss a beat."

Storm was impressed by the cultural fusion of men and women, young and old, Japanese and other ethnicities that came together for the ancient tradition.

"It really does show that we are all one underneath," she said. "Apart from different food and different customs, we are all the same."

CONTACT Ashley Gebb at 749-4724 or agebb@appealdemocrat.com