1816 JAPAN (Shikoku) - Pilgrims in Shōdo Island

Located in the Inland Sea of Japan, the Shōdo Island (Island of Small Beans) is a popular destination for domestic tourism, firstly due to its natural features such as the Dobuchi Strait (the world's narrowest strait - 9.93 m), the Angel Road, Shōdoshima Olive Park and the Kanka Gorge. In addition, tourists are attracted to a miniature version of the 88-temple Shikoku Pilgrimage (124km compared to 1,200km), which begins near Sakate Port and visits in a clockwise fashion 88 temples across the island. The route can be completed in a one-week visit, easier on pilgrims (henro) and tourists alike.

1526 JAPAN (Kansai) - Gagaku (UNESCO ICH)

In this postcard is a Bugaku dance performance (accompanied by a Gagaku orchestra) at Ise Jingū (Ise Shrine), probably during the Spring Kagura Festival. Gagaku (lit. "elegant music") is the oldest of the Japanese performing arts and encompasses three distinct arts: Kuniburi no Utamai (Shinto religious music and folk songs and dance, accompaniment by harp and flute), Komagaku (played as a dance accompaniment and uses only winds and percussion instruments), and Utamono (danced to vocal music whose texts include Japanese folk songs and Chinese poems). It was introduced into Japan with Buddhism from China, and has been performed at the Imperial Court in Kyoto for several centuries. Influenced by the politics and culture of different periods, Gagaku continues to be transmitted in the Music Department of the Imperial Household Agency. It is not only an important cultural tool in confirming Japanese identity, but also a demonstration of how multiple cultural traditions can be fused into a unique heritage.

1426 JAPAN (Chūgoku) - The Hirose Family, Hiroshima, 1987

"Families Struth discovered parallels with his street scenes in the classic family portrait, moved here too by the desire to invoke the unfamiliar and the unconscious from behind a clichéd and generic surface. His family portraits are always taken under the same conditions: the initiative must come from the artist (with a very few exceptions, Struth’s portraits are not commissioned); the family in question, in consultation with Struth himself, determine the location for the shoot and its framing in their garden or home; finally, while it is up to the family to decide on how to arrange themselves and what poses to strike, they are always asked to look directly into the camera." it says on the website of Kunsthaus Zürich, an art gallery in the Swiss city of Zürich.

1206 JAPAN (Kyūshū) - Hakata Gion Yamakasa Festival

Hakata Gion Yamakasa is a Japanese festival celebrated from 1 to 15 July in Hakata, Fukuoka. Its rites centre is on Kushida Jinja, a Shinto shrine dedicated to Amaterasu and Susanoo, founded in 757. It has a seven hundred and fifty year history, attracts up to a million spectators, and in 1979 was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. The sound of the Kaki Yamakasa has been selected by the Ministry of the Environment as one of the 100 Soundscapes of Japan. It is famous for a 5km race through the streets of Hakata, in which compete teams of men bearing on their shoulders yamakasa, which are large 1-ton floats elaborately decorated.

1096 JAPAN (Kansai) - Maiko girls in Gion, Kyoto

Probably that, together with the samurai, geisha are the most distinctive symbol of Japan. Geisha are traditional Japanese female entertainers who act as hostesses and whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music, dance and games. Apprentice geisha in western Japan, especially Kyoto, are called maiko (literally "dance child") or hangyoku ("half-jewel" - meaning that they are paid half of the wage of a full geisha), or by the more generic term o-shaku (literally "one who pours (alcohol)"). A woman entering the geisha community doesn't have to begin as a maiko, having the opportunity to begin her career as a full geisha. A woman above 21 is considered too old to be a maiko and becomes a full geisha upon her initiation into the geisha community.

0887 JAPAN (Hokkaido) - Patriarch Ainu of Shinto Ritual

Ainu (in historical texts Ezo), an indigenous people living in Japan (Hokkaidō island) and Russia (Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands), is one of the most mysterious ethnic groups in the world. They are very distinct from the Japanese people and it seems that before the Tungus invasion coming from mainland Asia the whole archipelago was inhabited by Ainu. Many early investigators proposed a Caucasian ancestry, but recent genetic researches haven't shown any genetic similarity with modern Europeans, but rather with the Tungusic, Altaic and Uralic populations. While some researchers say that they are the descendants of the Jōmon-jin people (who lived 10,000 years ago), another part is of the opinion that the origins of the Ainu can go as far around 35,000-40,000 years ago, during the last major glaciation which united the Japanese islands with mainland Asia. One of their Yukar Upopo, or legends, tells that "The Ainu lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came".

0837 JAPAN (Tōhoku) - Hiraizumi - Temples, Gardens and Archaeological Sites Representing the Buddhist Pure Land (UNESCO WHS)

For four generations, in Heian period (794-1185), between 1087 and 1189, Hiraizumi was the home of the family Hiraizumi Fujiwara, and at the same time the de facto capital of Oshu (an area containing nearly a third of Japan), an important political, military, commercial, and cultural centre, rivaling Kyoto. The area was based on the cosmology of Pure Land Buddhism, which spread to Japan in the 8th century, and represented the land that people aspire to after death, as well as peace of mind in this life. In combination with indigenous Japanese nature worship and Shintoism, Pure Land Buddhism developed a concept of planning and garden design unique to Japan. Following, Hiraizumi - Temples, Gardens and Archaeological Sites Representing the Buddhist Pure Land, comprises five sites, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2011.

0583 JAPAN (Chūbu) - A morning market in Takayama

Located in the heart of the Japanese Alps, Takayama developed its own culture in the last 300 years, because the high altitude and separation from other areas of Japan kept the area fairly isolated. The city and its culture, as they exist today, took shape at the end of the 16th century, when the Kanamori clan built Takayama Castle. In 1936 it merged with Onada, and in 2005 with other nine towns and villages, becoming the largest city in Japan by surface area.

0444 JAPAN - Yabusame

 

A mounted archer is a cavalryman armed with a bow, able to shoot while riding from horseback. This technique was developed by the natives of large grassland areas, for hunting, but also for war. Mounted archery was a defining characteristic of the Eurasian nomads during antiquity and the medieval period, but the practice also spread to Europe and to East Asia. It developed separately among the peoples of the South American pampas and the North American prairies.

0018 JAPAN (Chūgoku) - God-entertainment

Very few Europeans real understand Japanese people, even though many argue that. I recognize that not, and the way in which they have responded to disasters, whether historical or natural, always seemed to me a miracle. Even their art forms seem from another world, and in a sense they are. The postcard received from Ōsakikamijima (Arigatō, Aiko!), a town (and an island) located in Chūgoku region, Toyota District, Hiroshima Prefecture (western Honshū island), capture a scene of kagura (god-entertainment), a specific type of Shinto theatrical dance, once strictly a ceremonial art and today a living tradition of great diversity, practiced primarily in Shimane prefecture and in Hiroshima. As the most famous kabuki, kagura uses elaborated masks and sumptuous costumes and still take place every December in the Imperial Sanctuary, and at the Imperial harvest festival ceremonies.