Putting on a matsuri isn’t easy. And if there’s one thing that traditional Japanese festivals require, it’s scores of young people — a resource sorely in decline in the Japanese countryside.
“A lack of people is the most important problem we’re facing,” says Ryohei Teraji, chairperson of the Takayama Matsuri Yatai Preservation Association, one of the groups behind the Takayama Festival held in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture. “No matter what, we’ll have no choice but to reduce the scale of our festival.”
“We were always a small village,” says Masaru Kose, a representative of the onsen (hot spring) inn Katsuragi no Sato located in northwest Gifu and one of the organizers of Fukuji Onsen Summer Festival. “The dancers for our henbetei (lion dance) are inevitably getting older. It’s becoming incredibly difficult to pass on our traditions to the next generation.”
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