Thursday, February 20, 2014

Have You Ever Heard of the Parade of the Prostitutes ?

'Scuse My French But I Ain't Making This Up

 

Not to worry, ladies.  No women were harmed in this celebration.

The photos were taken, yesterday in Naha, Okinawa, Japan at a reenactment of ancient history.

Credit must be given to Okinawa2Go! Project on Facebook for some of my text, today.

women dance, riding wooden horses

They reminded me that the Juri-uma Parade was February 19th this year.

That would be, the 20th of January, by the Chinese calendar.

Kimono clad women dance riding wooden horses

The event took place in the Tsuji district of Naha City.

classic dance, riding horses,m wearing kimono

Allegedly, this was an area of brothels, back in the old days.

There were no real live hookers on the streets while I was there. I kept checking for you.

As the story goes, girls who were sold to be courtesans, were called "Juri."

Uma, means horse.  So, I guess you could call it the Hookers Horse Parade.

circle of women in kimonos, riding hobby horses while dancing

Back in the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom these girls only got to see their family once a year.

That was during the Juri-uma Parade.

dance while riding hobby horses

So, it was a pretty important celebration.

How any person could sell their daughter, beats the devil out of me.

But, if I was a girl, I would worry about it.

Didn't somebody, once say, "History repeats itself"  ?

Read more about this event at the Ryukyu Shimpo

And, here's an old video of the festivities, from way back when:








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