Today, shameless as ever, I asked once again who, exactly, was going to the fireworks festival.
As usual, the younger girls' group did not reply. The (abandoned) boys answered one after another, though none of them wanted to leave early.
I came to the riverbank three hours ahead of time, thinking I could simply wander around.
It turned out that there were quite a few stalls along the riverbank as well, though what they sold was highly uniform.
Plenty of girls appeared in yukata.
The police and security personnel along the road had also begun deploying early.
In the afternoon, the air was warm beneath a cool breeze. Once the sun went down, the temperature dropped sharply; even after putting on my jacket, I could still feel a slight chill.
Today's crowds reminded me of nearly seven years ago, when I followed the flow of people and, quite by accident, found myself at the ICONSIAM shopping centre on the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand.
Four months pregnant, I edged carefully through the crowd with my belly before me.
New Year's countdown fireworks blossomed across the sky, so close that fragments from them could fly into my face.
When the fireworks ended, the crowd pouring away was immense. I had no choice but to walk a very, very long way. With about the final kilometre to my accommodation still ahead of me, I managed to hail a tuk-tuk and paid a little fare before finally making it back to the guesthouse where I was staying.
After everything ended tonight, I thought, would I probably have to walk home as well?
About ten years ago, I also went to a fireworks festival in Japan. That time, it was pouring rain.
No matter how hard I try to remember, I cannot recall which city I saw those fireworks in. I retain only the faint impression that it was a city by the sea.
Because of the rain, those of us who had bought tickets were rather bedraggled. Only when we reached the car park on the way out did we discover that quite a few people had crowded into it to watch the fireworks.
They had a good view and did not have to stand in the rain. How clever.
After nightfall, looking from the Yodogawa riverbank towards Umeda, the river view was truly beautiful.
This is what makes the many-coloured life of a city so beguiling.
Yet the more densely the crowds gathered, the lonelier it felt. In this way of living, where people cluster together in little thickets, to be a solitary particle drifting outside them is something strange.
Because it does not conform to social norms.
So, in a foreign country, how far must one go before one can be said to have blended into the norms of the local society?
Obeying its laws, respecting its unwritten rules?
At seven o'clock sharp, the fireworks began. Perhaps because I had chosen to “make camp” near the exit, far from the section of riverbank where they were being launched, I could not hear the music.
Apart from a small number of low-altitude fireworks, most remained clearly visible even from some distance away. Japanese fireworks are also very good at producing an extraordinary variety of forms and patterns.
Still, I could not help feeling that the free, twenty-minute display I saw last year at Lake Tōya in Hokkaido might actually have been more impressive?
Later, I read the comments in an Osaka Taiwanese community group. Apparently there were fewer sponsors this year, which was why the fireworks were not as impressive as last year's.
In any case, watching fireworks is still something joyful and delightful.
The crowd was even more overwhelming on the way out. At one point, it was so tightly packed that no one could move, though overall everything remained quite orderly.
There were so many people at the venue that the mobile signal failed. Later, two classmates still managed to find where I was; they really were rather impressive.
Afterwards, some of us arranged to go to an izakaya. When it closed, I went on to a nightclub with several Taiwanese classmates.
It had been a long time since I had gone to a nightclub. I had a thoroughly good time inside, and felt as though I had recovered some of my middle-aged vitality.
I walked home along streets drawing close to dawn.
When I was young and studying abroad, I had neither the money nor the ability to give myself a happy life.
Having a certain foundation of material means really is rather important.
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