Tokyo’s Odaiba district played host to Cinco de Mayo celebrations today, marking the same day in 1862 Mexico (Cinco de Mayo translates as ‘the 5th of May), when an inferior and vastly outnumbered Mexican army defeated French forces at the Battle of Puebla, southwest of Mexico City.  

While in Mexico itself Cinco de Mayo celebrations follow a more formal, military format, here in Tokyo they are played out in 2017 in the somewhat unlikely surrounds of Odaiba’s bay side industry and modern, dead-tech shopping and entertainment centers. That the festivities have found their way to Tokyo at all is, perhaps, in large part due to Cinco de Mayo having been adopted in the U.S. where the celebrations have taken on more of the familiar Latin American spirit as a day to appreciate Mexican - American culture.  This is the 5th edition of Cinco de Mayo in Tokyo, the first event having been held in Yoyogi Park in 2013.

 

 

Food and drink seem to be the order of the day at the event (Jose Cuervo maintains a prominent presence) with stalls selling fare from across the Americas.  There’s shopping, too; fans of Mexican wrestling will be pleased to see a collection of wrestling masks on sale, sitting alongside decorative crosses, and bags emblazoned with images of celebrated Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo.  Rather incongruously, Pringles are here, too, and festival goers can get their hands on free samples of jalapeno and onion ‘tubes’.

 

 

This is all well and good, but anyone who’s spent any prolonged length of time in Mexico will have surely seen and felt the warm community spirit of the country, perhaps best displayed in the town zócalo (square) of an evening, when live music sets up, and people come out to dance.  It’s a scene and an atmosphere that is, by turns, beautiful, fun, and enviable (in the sense that the locals move with far more grace and sex appeal than this expat could ever muster, and that they should be unburdened by any buttoned up, no-display-of-emotions-please social norms that saddle the majority where this writer hails from).  Thankfully then, that same spirit can be felt here at Cinco de Mayo in Odaiba, where performers encourage the crowd to swing hips and perform simple steps, and, for the most part, they duly oblige.

 

 

Cinco De Mayo 2017 continues tomorrow, May 6 (10:00 - 21:00)

 

Find more information and images at www.city-cost.com