The 21st Penang Bon Odori Festival was held on 15 July 2017. The event, which was held for the first time at the Queensbay Outdoor Carpark this year, attracted some 30,000 visitors.
Toray Group companies in Malaysia have been involved in this annual event as sponsoring companies. This year, 10 Japanese employees assisted in running the “goldfish scooping” and “yo-yo fishing” games booths. We also contributed household water purifier torayvino™ as a prize for the winners of the lucky draw held at the end of the event.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Malaysia. In the stage, we not only had the traditional bon odori (a traditional Japanese dance performed during summer), and Japanese drum performance, but also yosakoi dance (a traditional Japanese dance combined with modern music performed at festivals) and cosplay dance which were performed by Malaysian students. The event was a pointer to the wide acceptance of Japanese culture in Penang.
In addition, there were a lot of stalls selling Japanese food, including the famous takoyaki (a ball-shaped Japanese snack made with octopus and wheat flour-based batter) shop “Tsukiji Gindaco”, that cannot be found in Penang. Both the Malaysian and Japanese people enjoyed this traditional Japanese summer events.
