By YOSHIAKI ARAI/ Staff Writer
June 30, 2023 at 19:00 JST
KYOTO--Lantern makers here toiled without a day off for the past couple of weeks to meet around 2,700 orders for the city’s iconic Gion Festival in July.
The traditional paper shade lanterns decorate streets, Shinto shrines and festival floats during the celebration, which takes place from July 1 to 31. The highlights this year are on July 17 and 24 when parades of massive floats are featured.
“It makes me happy to see so many people walking under the light of our lanterns,” said the owner of Okugawa Lantern Factory, which was founded in the late Edo Period (1603-1867).
This year, orders for the festival lamps finally returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to the company.
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II