Tweet of the Week #145: Cucumbers and Eggplants Ride for Ancestors Spirits
In summer, Japanese people celebrate Obon (お盆), a Buddhist festival honoring the spirits of their ancestors. The festival usually takes place from August 13th to 16th, but some regions keep the celebration in July, following the old calendar. During Obon, families commemorate their departed relatives and invite them back to the human world for a home visit. They often display a cucumber and an eggplant, with four wooden sticks impaled in them, called shouryou uma (精霊馬) and shouryou ushi (精霊牛 ) respectively. The cucumber represents a horse that will carry the spirits home fast to be reunited wi...