# A Blast from the Past

From 1987 to 1992, I was based in Tokyo as a radio and TV correspondent for the BBC. In those days, TV correspondents always worked with a crew of two or three—someone to operate the camera, another to record the sound, and sometimes another person to rig the lights. As a result, I never carried a camera with me. But as a radio journalist, I was never without my trusty cassette recorder and broadcast quality microphone. You never knew when there would be something or someone worth recording.

One day on the way to my local train station, I heard a strange, yet attractive sound coming from around the corner. I wasn't in a hurry, so I decided to investigate. What I saw was a group of chindonya, traditional street musicians, dressed in gaudy costumes. I didn't have a camera, so I can't show you a picture of the group I saw, but they looked very similar to this photo in the Wikimedia Commons. However, I did have my recorder with me, so you can hear what they sounded like.

Download the audio file (2MB .mp3 file)

Like a fairground barker, the man was trying to attract customers to the "grand thank-you sale" at the rather pretentiously named Number One Store—in fact, no more than an ordinary local shop.

I lived a total of nine years in Japan, and traveled over most of the country, but only ever saw this one group of chindonya—a Japanese tradition that seems to be rapidly dying out.