The Big Sort: 17 - Noon at Mino Festival
Lunch time at Mino Matsuri
Gifu
2022.05
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Mino's May festival is known for 2 things: the pink omikoshi adorned with hand-dyed and handmade Mino paper flowers, and the street comedy show, which dates back to the 19th century Edo period. This year, the show included performances by high school kids and local dads playing female roles in wigs, tights, heels, and dresses. They played it safe at first. There was word play and puns about the Mino regional dialect, self-deprecating jokes about how tourists all go to Takayama and drive straight past because there's nothing to see. Then it got political. There were digs at the Hiroto Fujii, the Minokamo city governor who once took bribes, and some role play between Princess Mako and her husband Kei Komuro, who had just failed the bar exam in New York for the second time. They had everyone from the seated octogenarians with permanent frowns to the young mums and their little kids cracking up.
As soon as the clapping subsided, the crowd dispersed. The clock struck 12. In true Gifu fashion, everything stopped for lunch. They took over every shaded spot imaginable while the tough guys sat manspreading in the sunshine.