ISE SHRINE (MIE PREFECTURE)

I and about one and half million people got together for the great Sanja festival in Asakusa.( Tokyo) This is one of the three big festivals of the city and it was the forth or fifth time that I had joined the event. Each time I go I always see something new. I had seen many gangsters ( yakusa) at previous festivals, but this was the first time I saw a whole group of mobsters carrying a portable shrine. ( These men did not carry signs that said ," We are proud to be mobsters. "I could tell that they were gangsters by looking at their hairstyles, tattoos, sunglasses etc. ) They were much more aggressive in the way they moved their portable shrine down the street. Bystanders (and photographers) who got in the way of the shrine were unceremoniously pushed aside. I often feel somewhat like a bullfighter when I am taking photos of a moving portable shrine. (Mikoshi) I am almost always in front of the mikoshi , walking backwards. When I was photographing the Mob's portable shrine I felt like I was next to an especially dangerous bull! Needless to say the mob did not respect the Police Department's ban on standing on a moving portable shrine. This behavior is considered by the authorities to be both dangerous and disrespectful of the god thought to be inside the Mikoshi. The mob's opinion was " Hey, we have been standing on portable shrines, waving our traditional fans around at the Sanja festival for centuries. If we want to continue this custom for centuries we will, and it is no one else's business but our own!"