There's Something Fishy Going On Here: The Shimoda Salmon Festival Part One

According to PETA, "There are very serious problems in the world that deserve our attention, and cruelty to animals is one of them." Luckily, cruelty to animals isn't a problem in Japan. It's more of an art, really. From dogs who live their entire lives on a foot-long chain to children who take an unusual amount of pleasure in pulling the wings off of dragonflies and killing squid, it's quite clear that the 'rights' of animals are not taken quite as seriously here as they are in some other parts of the world. What's that you say? Children all over the world enjoy dismembering bugs and bad pet owners can be found anywhere? Well, you're right. But do many other highly-developed nations hold festivals that center around the public tormenting of one species of animal?

Which brings us to the Shimoda salmon festival, the largest of it's kind in Japan. While the innocuous name might lead you to believe that salmon are simply eaten at the festival, there's actually quite a bit more to it than that. The festival consists of three main events: the "salmon catch," the "fast salmon catch" and the "salmon race". For brevity's sake, I'll use this post to focus on the main event, the salmon catch and will cover the other events in subsequent posts.

As the name might imply, the salmon catch does indeed involve the catching of salmon. However, the event doesn't take place in a river or open body of water. Rather, captive salmon are released into a small, shallow pond where crowds of people descend upon them, attempting to capture a fish with their bare hands. Fun for the whole family! Except, of course, for the salmon.
"Hey honey, look! It's like that singing fish we bought at Spencer's LOL!"

"OH MY GOD, A FISH!"

Too small, weak or feeble to catch a large salmon in a small pond? Well, then the salmon kiddie pool should be right up your alley!

After the big catch, the salmon are placed in plastic garbage bags where they generally flop around futilely and slowly suffocate.

You can then pay 200 yen to have a team of old ladies gut, clean and disassemble your fish; the end product is a plastic bag full of grocery store-style cuts of salmon, ready to cook.

Now, you may have already noticed a large number of foreigners in these photos. The reason for this is that the salmon festival is (unsurprisingly) one of the more popular events in the area with the Misawa folk. I'll try not to comment too extensively on this, as Matt should hopefully be posting a video soon that will brilliantly illustrate the manner in which American military personnel carry themselves overseas. I can tell you though, that walking around the festival, it was not at all unusual to hear southern-accented exclamations of "I caught the big one!" Yeah you did.

The young man above decided, for whatever reason, that it would be a good idea to remove his (still living) salmon from the bag and repeatedly slam it, head-first, into the concrete. Whoa! Save it for Osama, bro!
By far, the strangest sight at the festival was the family of santas. For some reason, a Japanese family decided that the best way to get into the festival spirit was to employ the use of matching santa suits. Here we see all five santas assembled, preparing to judge which fish have been naughty and which have been nice.

"Mommy, what is santa doing?"
"Oh, he's just catching a fish with his bare hands, honey."