(Adnkronos) – When in Tokyo the thermometer reaches 38 degrees, even a city accustomed to frantic rhythms seems to slow down. It is the most unexpected face of the Japanese summer, as told by Jiji Press: a season made of shade, ghost stories, night festivals and ancient traditions that invite one to stop and rediscover the sense of community.
Summer heat has been linked for centuries in Japan to ‘kaidan’, ghost stories born in the Edo period as a way to cope with suffocating temperatures through horror tales. A tradition that still survives today, along with yokai, the supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore, also protagonists of dedicated exhibitions and events.
But summer is above all the season of ‘matsuri’, traditional festivals that enliven cities at sunset, with yukata, food stalls, lanterns and fireworks. From Tokyo to Kyoto, up to Osaka, each city celebrates summer according to its own identity. And in August comes O-Bon, the period dedicated to the return of ancestral spirits: families return to their places of origin, visit graves and participate in rituals that culminate, in Kyoto, with the lighting of large fires on the mountains.
The heat doesn’t even stop the desire to be together. With ‘Bon Odori’, people dance in circles until late at night, while music festivals like Fuji Rock attract thousands of people to the mountains of Niigata.
Thus, behind the image of technological and always-on-the-go Japan, summer reveals a country capable of slowing down, rediscovering its traditions, and transforming the heat into an opportunity to rediscover community, memory, and conviviality.
