Arts, Faculty of
Anthropology, Department of
DSpace
UBCV
Gunawan, Rosalie Tatiana
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
This thesis explores how the town of Katsuura in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan leverages notions of Japanese national identity for community revitalization (chiiki kasseika) through the town’s formation of the Big Hinamatsuri (Biggu Hinamatsuri). Started in 1988 in Katsuura, Tokushima, the Big Hinamatsuri began in reaction to poor economic conditions when a cold snap devasted the agricultural town’s mikan orange crop, the town’s primary export. Held annually from mid-February to late March in a public display hall, the Big Hinamatsuri is a festival that draws on elements of nostalgia and national identity by embellishing features from Hinamatsuri, a beloved tradition with roots in the Heian period (794–1185 CE) that is celebrated annually across Japan on March 3 by displaying sets of ornamental dolls within the home to wish for the health and prosperity of girls. This study examines the close association of the Big Hinamatsuri with Katsuura’s image and tourism promotion to understand how national identity is reproduced using tourism as a conduit for community revitalization. I investigate the political and historical elements shaping community revitalization in Japan and Tokushima Prefecture, analyze portrayals of Katsuura depicted in tourism promotion, and draw on ethnographic interviews to demonstrate how the town and residents of Katsuura make use of non-local traditions to align with national narratives of the rural for the town’s continuation. I assert that Katsuura’s formation of the Big Hinamatsuri and close association of the festival with the town’s image and tourism promotion (re)produces notions of Japanese national identity to attract people to the rural town and revitalize the community through heritage tourism.
HANDING DOWN DOLLS AND TRADITIONS: THE BIG HINAMATSURI AND COMMUNITY REVITALIZATION IN TOKUSHIMA, JAPAN by Rosalie Tatiana Gunawan B.A., The University of Alaska Anchorage, 2016 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Anthropology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2024 © Rosalie Tatiana Gunawan, 2024 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Handing down dolls and traditions: the Big Hinamatsuri and community revitalization in Tokushima, Japan submitted by Rosalie Tatiana Gunawan in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Anthropology Examining Committee: Dr. Millie Creighton, Associate Professor, Anthropology, University of British Columbia Supervisor Dr. Sabina Magliocco, Professor, Anthropology, University of British Columbia Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Christina Laffin, Associate Professor, Asian Studies, University of British Columbia Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Jennifer Kramer, Associate Professor, Anthropology, University of British Columbia Additional Examiner iii Abstract This thesis explores how the town of Katsuura in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan leverages notions of Japanese national identity for community revitalization (chiiki kasseika) through the town’s formation of the Big Hinamatsuri (Biggu Hinamatsuri). Started in 1988 in Katsuura, Tokushima, the Big Hinamatsuri began in reaction to poor economic conditions when a cold snap devasted the agricultural town’s mikan orange crop, the town’s primary export. Held annually from mid-February to late March in a public display hall, the Big Hinamatsuri is a festival that draws on elements of nostalgia and national identity by embellishing features from Hinamatsuri, a beloved tradition with roots in the Heian period (794–1185 CE) that is celebrated annually across Japan on March 3 by displaying sets of ornamental dolls within the home to wish for the health and prosperity of girls. This study examines the close association of the Big Hinamatsuri with Katsuura’s image and tourism promotion to understand how national identity is reproduced using tourism as a conduit for community revitalization. I investigate the political and historical elements shaping community revitalization in Japan and Tokushima Prefecture, analyze portrayals of Katsuura depicted in tourism promotion, and draw on ethnographic interviews to demonstrate how the town and residents of Katsuura make use of non-local traditions to align with national narratives of the rural for the town’s continuation. I assert that Katsuura’s formation of the Big Hinamatsuri and close association of the festival with the town’s image and tourism promotion (re)produces notions of Japanese national identity to attract people to the rural town and revitalize the community through heritage tourism. iv Lay Summary This thesis examines the Big Hinamatsuri, a festival held during the spring in Katsuura, Tokushima Prefecture, Japan, and the ways Japanese national identity is used in community revitalization. Started in 1988 after a cold snap devasted Katsuura’s primary export and the town began to look for ways to become less dependent on an agricultural economy, the Big Hinamatsuri was held to create an alternate economic stream through tourism. The festival has since come to represent Katsuura and Japan on the national stage for the 2016 and delayed 2020 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, respectively. This study looks at the symbols of Japanese national identity used for tourism promotion in rural areas, such as the Big Hinamatsuri, to attract people to the countryside and create an economically sustainable community. v Preface This thesis is an original intellectual product of Rosalie Gunawan, based on archival research and fieldwork conducted by the author from March to May 2023. Drafts of this thesis were reviewed by the author’s supervisor, Dr. Millie Creighton, and committee members Dr. Sabina Magliocco and Dr. Christina Laffin, as well as an external reviewer, Dr. Jennifer Kramer. The fieldwork discussed was approved by the UBC Behavior Research Ethics Board (BREB) under the title “Big Hinamatsuri: Tourism, Community Revitalization, and Identity,” BREB number H23-00198. The author was responsible for all major areas of research design, concept formation, ethnographic data collection and analysis, and manuscript composition. vi Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ............................................................................................................................... iv Preface .............................................................................................................................................v Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. viii Glossary ........................................................................................................................................ ix A Note to the Reader.................................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... xii Dedication ................................................................................................................................... xiv 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................1 2. Local Involvements: Positioning the Researcher and Methods .............................................6 2.1 Positionality .................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Methods........................................................................................................................... 8 3. Literature Review ....................................................................................................................11 3.1 Contextualizing Regional Revitalization ...................................................................... 11 3.2 Revitalizing Regions Through Tourism........................................................................ 13 3.3 Hinamatsuri for Revitalization ...................................................................................... 14 4. Ethnography .............................................................................................................................16 4.1 Entering The Hina Doll Village .................................................................................... 16 4.2 A Second Life of Buildings and Dolls: Contextualizing the Big Hinamatsuri ............. 23 4.2.1 An Introduction to Katsuura Town ....................................................................... 23 4.2.2 An Overview of the Big Hinamatsuri ................................................................... 24 vii 4.2.3 Regional Differences of Hinamatsuri in Tokushima ............................................ 28 4.2.4 Jōshi no Sekku and the Origin of Hinamatsuri ..................................................... 29 4.2.5 Ningyō Kuyō: Memorial Services for Dolls .......................................................... 30 4.3 From Big to Bigger: The Spread of the Big Hinamatsuri ............................................. 33 4.3.1 The Hina Doll Village: Hinamatsuri Across Katsuura ......................................... 33 4.3.2 Sharing Community and Aid: The Zenkoku Katsuura Nettowāku ....................... 36 5. Analysis .....................................................................................................................................38 6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................49 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................51 viii List of Figures Figure 1. The main entrance of the Ningyō Bunka Koryūkan ...................................................... 18 Figure 2. The centerpiece hina doll display .................................................................................. 19 Figure 3. Dolls displayed at the Ningyō Bunka Koryūkan ........................................................... 21 Figure 4. Roadside displays on the Sakamoto Ohina Kaidō in 2019............................................ 34 ix Glossary Romanization Japanese English Chiiki kasseika 地域活性化 Community revitalization; regional revitalization. Dairibina 内裏雛 “Imperial palace dolls” representing a noble lord and lady in formal court attire from the Heian period. Dango 団子 Dumplings made from rice flour. Often served with three to five round dumplings on a skewer. Furoshiki 風呂敷 Cloth covers used to wrap and transport items; typically square and with distinctive patterns or designs. Furusato ふるさと Hometown; native place. An imagined aesthetic of the countryside. Furusato-zukuri ふるさとづくり Native place-making. Happi 法被 A type of Japanese short-sleeved overcoat often worn during festivals. Hina 雛 A type of doll that is displayed during Hinamatsuri. Hinadan 雛壇 A tiered platform covered in a red cloth used to display hina dolls. Often in three, five, or seven tiers. Hinamatsuri 雛祭り A festival held on March 3 that celebrates girls. Commonly translated to “Girls’ Day” or “Doll’s Day” in English. Jōshi no Sekku 上巳の節句 One of five seasonal festivals that was established in the Edo Period, celebrated on the 3rd day of the 3rd month of the lunisolar calendar. Jūnihitoe 十二単 A type of formal court dress worn by female nobles. Consists of twelve layers of robes. Kana 仮名 Hiragana and katakana, the phonetic vernacular syllabaries used for written Japanese. Kimono 着物 Traditional Japanese clothing (lit. “thing to wear”); the national clothing of Japan. Kominka 古民家 An old Japanese-style house commonly found in the countryside. Usually built before World War II. Kosode 小袖 The innermost layer of the jūnihitoe. Kuyō 供養 A memorial service for the deceased. Machi-zukuri まちづくり Town planning; urban development. Often headed by local grassroots organizations. Matsuri 祭り Festival; typically associated with traditional holidays. x Mikan みかん A type of semi-seedless Japanese orange. Also known in English as a satsuma, mandarin, or tangerine. Mochi 餅 Rice cakes traditionally made by pounding short grain rice into a paste. Ningyō 人形 Doll; lit. “human-shaped.” Ondo 音頭 A type of song with a swung 2/2 rhythm commonly used in Japanese folk music. Temizuya 手水舎 A small pavilion in Shinto shrines with a water basin used for ritual cleansing. Sokutai 束帯 Traditional Japanese clothing worn by male nobles in the imperial court. Sudachi すだち A small green citrus fruit. A specialty of Tokushima prefecture. Yusanbako 遊山箱 A type of three-tiered lunch box originating in Tokushima prefecture. Often associated with picnics for Hinamatsuri. Zazen 座禅 Sitting meditation, the primary practice in Zen Buddhism. xi A Note to the Reader All translations that appear in this text are the work of the author, Rosalie Gunawan, except where otherwise indicated. Following Japanese naming conventions, Japanese names appear with surname preceding given name, except in the case of individuals who are commonly known in the English language speaking world with their given names preceding their surnames. All photographs that appear in this thesis were taken by the author. xii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the wisdom and generous support of many individuals. First and foremost, I am indebted to my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances in Katsuura and Tokushima, without whom I would not have a research project. I would especially like to thank Hiraoka Takemi, Nakanishi Hitomi, Masui Kyōko, Shirakusa Chizuru, Azuma Yoshie, Takeda Takako, Hayami Kazumi, Kagami Kiyomi, Konishi Takashi, Nagayama Shōgo, Akiyama Ryōta, Nii Satoko, Fujiki Chiemi, Inai Minoru, Kimberly Spacapan, Shōhei Yoshida, Mark Fennelly, Lance Kita, Bethany Johnson, and my former students from Katsuura Junior High School – your actions and thoughts continually inspire me and conversations with each of you have shaped some part of this writing. I am forever grateful to have a second furusato in Katsuura thanks to all of you. The guidance of professors in the Anthropology and Asian Studies Departments were key in developing and refining the thoughts laid out in this thesis. I owe a special thank you to my supervisor, Dr. Millie Creighton, for always providing thoughtful feedback and encouraging me throughout this whole process. To my committee members, Dr. Sabina Magliocco and Dr. Christina Laffin – thank you for always leading with empathy and challenging me to think critically about the implications of community research. I am also grateful for the instruction of Dr. Carole Blackburn, Dr. Alexia Bloch, and Dr. Leslie Robertson, whose seminars inspired some of the foundational ideas in this thesis. I am fortunate to have received financial support from various institutions to carry out this project, including the UBC Institute of Asian Research (IAR)’s Research Fellowship and Research Travel Grant, the Inter-University Center (IUC)’s Nippon Foundation Fellows xiii Scholarship, UBC Anthropology’s Graduate Student Travel Fund, and UBC Faculty of Arts’ Graduate Award. Graduate school is challenging in the best of times, but especially so when disrupted by a pandemic. I am eternally lucky to have found a community in my friends in Canada that have helped me through unprecedented change and uncertainty. Thank you to my friends from UBC Anthropology, Green College, the VOC, and the Hudson house, all of whom have lent a sympathetic ear, advice on my scattered thoughts, or an escape through climbing and the outdoors at some point: Rodney Stehr, Guy Leckenby, Cheryl Ng, Lara Grevstad, Erin Socholotiuk, Eli Alexander, Bing Yan, Fumiya Nagai, Cailin O’Hern, Katrin Schmid, Ewan Wright, and so many more. I am also thankful for my yowly boy, Loki the Siamese cat, for his emotional support and cuddles – cats have a way of soothing the soul like no other. I would not be where I am today without the support of my family, especially my mother, Tristi Gunawan. There’s something special about being the first in the family to obtain a graduate degree, and this would not be possible without the generations of hard work and sacrifices that have enabled the opportunities I have been afforded. This degree is for all of you. Finally, I owe my gratitude to my partner, Justin Sze. Thank you for your endless patience, delicious meals, late nights in solidarity, climbs, writing feedback, and all the little things you do to make my life easier. You are an angel. xiv Dedication For the people of Katsuura 1 1. Introduction Awa Katsuura, the mikan orange town Truly a golden mountain of oranges! Everyone in a circle now, won’t you sing? The orange farmer girl’s orange farmer girl clapping in time, “Hey hey Katsuura, hey come on now!” Dancing with a full heart Katsuura Folk Dance Song (Katsuura Ondo 勝浦音頭) 1 The countryside and city have long been imagined as polar opposites. As a haven for simple, slow-paced, traditional ways of life, the countryside is contrasted with the city, a hub for diversity, constant motion, and cutting-edge innovations. The rural-versus-urban divide is also often characterized by detractions—the countryside, inconvenient and slow to adopt new ideas, and the city, stressfully busy and lacking meaningful connection. With the vast majority of citizens in countries of the Global North residing in urban areas, there has been an increased interest in greener grasses, literally and figuratively. This is especially the case in Japan, where over ninety percent of the population now reside in urban areas (United Nations Population Division 2022), in stark contrast to the concentration in rural areas prior to the 1950s (Funck 2007, 231). Those who are shirking bustling metropolitan 1 By Umewaka Chōtaku (梅若朝啄), date unknown. The lyrics in the original Japanese are as follows: Awa no Katsuura, mikan no machi yo 阿波の勝浦 みかんの町よ Honni kogane no mikan yama ほんに黄金のみかん山 Minna wa ni nari みんな輪になり Uta o-janai ka うたおじゃないか Mikan musume no mikan musume no tebyōshi de みかん娘のみかん娘の手拍子で Katsuura yoiyoi, yoitokona 勝浦ヨイヨイ ヨイトコナ Marui kokoro de hito odori まるい心でひとおどり 2 areas for the seemingly more relaxed countryside are categorized under various groups, cleverly named after the shape their migration pattern takes on: U-turn migrants, who leave the countryside for the city only to return back to live in their countryside hometown once again; J-turn migrants, who similarly leave the countryside for cities and later move to a city in the region where they were raised; and I-turn migrants, urbanites who relocate to a rural area they have no prior experience living in (Japan Organization for Internal Migration, n.d.). These various groups each have their own reasons for moving to the countryside, but motivations for relocating include a desire for a quieter lifestyle, interest in agriculture, and hopes for deeper social relationships (Obikwelu, Ikegami, and Tsuruta 2017). Interest in the rural is frequently accompanied by an underlying rejection of globalized Western capitalistic culture, with the city standing as a symbol of its influence. In contrast to the urban, the countryside symbolizes a purer, pre-industrialized way of life that preserves cultural traditions and values of the nation though its opposition to the global and is romanticized by urbanites and government alike as the antidote to modern fears of decreasing belonging and a vanishing cultural identity (Ivy 1995; Robertson 1991). This romanticized image of rural life has been employed through tourism marketing from local and national government alike to bring visitors to the countryside to live, play, and work. At its core, this is a study that explores how the rural contains symbols of the nation, and symbiotically how Japanese nationhood is reproduced at the local level to advance community revitalization (chiiki kasseika 地域活性化). Specifically, it examines the Big Hinamatsuri (Biggu Hinamatsuri ビッグひな祭り), a festival that takes place in Katsuura, a small town of 4700 people in Tokushima Prefecture. The Big Hinamatsuri draws on elements of nostalgia and 3 national identity by embellishing features from Hinamatsuri 雛祭り,2 a beloved tradition with roots in the Heian period (794–1185 CE).3 It is celebrated annually across Japan on March 3 by displaying sets of ornamental dolls within the home and at public stores and businesses to wish for the health and prosperity of girls. A full Hinamatsuri set miniaturizes a Heian imperial court wedding, with the bridal couple sitting hierarchically atop the tiered display. The most recognizable element of Hinamatsuri is the hina4 dolls for which it is named, particularly the noble couple dolls at the center of the displays. These dolls, called the dairibina 内裏雛, represent a lord and lady in formal court attire from the Heian period. Through the ancient court system and its influence on Japanese traditions, Hinamatsuri and its dairibina dolls are inextricably intertwined with notions of Japanese national identity. But how does all of this tie in to rural areas, tourism, and Japanese nationhood? The Big Hinamatsuri connects all three concepts: the rural town of Katsuura, a festival created specifically for economic means, and hina dolls as symbols of national identity. Started in 1988 in Katsuura, the Big Hinamatsuri came about as a reaction to poor economic conditions when a cold snap devasted the agricultural town’s mikan orange crop, their primary export. Local volunteers, with support from the local government, turned to tourism as a means of creating an additional stream of economic revenue, deciding on an initiative that was less subject to the 2 The name Hinamatsuri is simply a combination of hina, the name of the dolls displayed during Hinamatsuri, and matsuri, meaning festival. It is commonly known in English as Doll’s Day or Girls’ Day. 3 The establishment of Hinamatsuri itself as a celebration with hina dolls on the third day of the third month formally dates back to the Edo period (1603–1868). 4 Written in Japanese as either 雛 as a Sinograph or ひな in the hiragana syllabary. The word hina etymologically can be traced to mean “chick,” a young bird, before it came to be associated with the dolls displayed in Hinamatsuri, and was commonly written as hi’ina ひいな. During the sixteenth century, hina took on an additional meaning of “small and lovely,” due to the onomatopoeic sound of a chick’s chirp (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, s.v. “ひな 【雛】[Hina]”). 4 whims of nature: the public display of hina dolls in an enormous, exaggerated version of a Hinamatsuri set. Towering over eight meters tall, the Big Hinamatsuri’s main display today is composed of about thirty thousand dolls and one hundred tiers, in stark contrast with the standard public Hinamatsuri arrangement of up to seven tiers and fifteen dolls. The hina dolls exhibited in the festival are collected by donation from households across the country and viewed by tens of thousands of visitors to the Big Hinamatsuri each year, according to festival representatives interviewed for this study. Interestingly, Katsuura did not have any distinct traditions of Hinamatsuri prior to the establishment of the Big Hinamatsuri—no history of hina doll production, unique celebrations, nor a special connection to Heian court culture. Why was Hinamatsuri selected, then, as a theme for the Big Hinamatsuri, Katsuura’s community revitalization initiative? What makes the festival attractive to tourists, according to organizers and visitors? And how does the Big Hinamatsuri fit into nationwide trends of using symbols of Japanese national identity for community revitalization? The above questions drive the research outlined in this study. This thesis explores how Katsuura leverages notions of Japanese national identity for community revitalization through the town’s formation of the Big Hinamatsuri. In particular, I explore the close association of the Big Hinamatsuri with Katsuura’s image and tourism promotion to understand how national identity is reproduced using tourism as a conduit for community revitalization. The following sections will examine the political and historical elements shaping community revitalization in Japan and Tokushima Prefecture, analyze portrayals of Katsuura used in tourism promotion, and draw on ethnographic interviews to demonstrate how the town and residents of Katsuura make use of non-local traditions to align with national narratives of the rural for the town’s continuation. 5 This thesis is composed of six sections. In section two, I briefly outline my positionality and associations with my field site of Katsuura, research methods, and research participants. In section three, I review the pertinent literature related to this study regarding festivals and community revitalization, national identity markers incorporated into tourism, and research on Hinamatsuri. Section four delves into the nuances of the Big Hinamatsuri and describes the results of my ethnographic study, illustrating the festival’s role in Katsuura’s economic activation and establishment as a site for local identity expression. Section five analyzes the results of this study, and the final section presents conclusions. 6 2. Local Involvements: Positioning the Researcher and Methods 2.1 Positionality My choice of Katsuura as the field site for this study is a result of my own prior personal involvement in the town. From 2016 to 2019, I was assigned as an assistant language teacher to the Katsuura Town Board of Education through the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program, primarily teaching English at the town’s sole junior high school, occasionally instructing classroom visits at the two local elementary schools, and serving as the main teacher at a weekly English conversation class for adult community members. During the time I was employed in Katsuura, I watched as the pattern of depopulation in rural areas continued to unfold in the town and the schools where I taught, with the classes at the junior high school dropping from two per grade to one lone class with students from both feeder elementary schools, displaying the devastating impacts of a decreasing birthrate and outbound migration from rural towns across Japan. Coworkers and friends who had grown up locally constantly bemoaned these changes, recounting stories to me of bustling hallways with four or more classes per grade during the height of Katsuura’s population in the 1950s at schools that have since shuttered their doors due to a declining student population. My status as a teacher and a representative of the “international” community by being one of a handful of foreign residents, and one of only two Americans,5 in Katsuura allowed me a 5 I highlight my nationality to acknowledge the privileges I held as a native English speaker from a country belonging to the Global North. Despite being of mixed Asian (Chinese-Indonesian) and white ancestry and therefore not conforming to the still prevalent stereotype in Japan of Americans as primarily white, the reactions and treatment I received as a US citizen were vastly different from those experienced by other non-Japanese residents I met in Katsuura who were from Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. Rarely, if ever, did friends and acquaintances bring in these other foreign workers’ perspectives when discussing concepts of internationalization (kokusaika 国際化), potentially displaying a bias for certain types of representation when adopting other cultural insights into the Japanese system. 7 unique position in the town’s social fabric with invitations and access to spaces that may have been more difficult to encounter as a short-term visitor to the area. During my first spring in Katsuura, I was approached at my English conversation class by a member of the Sakamoto Genki Nettowāku さかもと元気ネットワーク, a grassroots organization based in one of the outskirt districts of town, who was promoting a new event called the Sakamoto Kimono Matsuri さかもと着物祭り(“Sakamoto Kimono Festival”), a spin-off of the town’s long-standing community revitalization initiative that is the Big Hinamatsuri. Attending the Sakamoto Kimono Matsuri along with a large group of friends and colleagues I had invited from my network of JET Program participants garnered significant media attention in local prefectural news and television broadcasts, as a gaggle of foreigners in the countryside is wont to do. This event served as my introduction to Katsuura’s community revitalization efforts and due to the positive coverage and response of the inaugural event, I was subsequently invited to collaborate on other projects through the Revita Katsuura Community Revitalization Center (Revita Katsuura-chō Chiiki Kasseika Kyōkai レヴィタ勝浦町地域活性化協会), the town’s community revitalization center. My volunteer work at Revita ranged from event conceptualization, translation work, participant recruitment, and interpretation on-site at events to facilitation and active participation in event proceedings: facets primarily drawing on my “international” perspective as an American. I was also a member of some of the traditional Japanese arts and culture groups in Katsuura during my personal time. I took up the shamisen, a traditional Japanese three-stringed instrument, and was both a dancer and musician for the 8 town’s main Awa Odori6 dance group, both cultural activities that brought me to perform at many of Katsuura’s festivals and events. I recount this background to my involvement in Katsuura to color my selection of it as a research site as “we can better understand and evaluate an ethnographic text if we know something about the writer, the experiences upon which the text is based, and the circumstances of its production” (Robben and Sluka 2007, 2). My personal experiences in Katsuura as a consumer of and agent for local tourism sparked my interest in undertaking this project as a means to reflect on and analyze the community revitalization processes that I witnessed. Furthermore, the relationships I fostered during my time living and working in Katsuura were foundational to conducting research for this project and many of my former colleagues and friends agreed to be interviewed as research participants while I was conducting fieldwork in spring 2023. 2.2 Methods In line with the standard practice for sociocultural anthropologists, my research methods adopt an ethnographic approach utilizing participant observation and semi-structured interviews (Bernard 2011). I conducted in-person fieldwork in Katsuura from March 29 to April 8, 2023: the peak of Katsuura’s tourist season due to being when the town’s two most popular events, the Big Hinamatsuri and Katsuura Sakura Matsuri 勝浦さくら祭り(“Katsuura Cherry Blossom Festival”), are held. I engaged in participant observation at the Big Hinamatsuri and around the town of Katsuura daily, surveying how other visitors were interacting with displays and events 6 Awa Odori 阿波踊り is a large dance festival in Tokushima Prefecture, held during the Obon season in August and considered one of the prefecture’s specialties. One of the biggest tourist attractions, the festival sees over one million visitors during its four-day period. 9 and actively participating myself by behaving similarly to gain an embodied understanding of the event proceedings, and recording my observations in field notes. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with ten participants. I utilized my existing connections with contacts in Katsuura to recruit participants, some of whom suggested and introduced me to other potential participants, and some of whom agreed themselves to serve as interlocuters in my research. In order to gather a multifaceted perspective of the Big Hinamatsuri, I recruited participants with various relationships to the Big Hinamatsuri: 1) organizers or volunteers, those with a more involved relationship with the festival, 2) Katsuura locals, those who had visited the festival over the years and likely had a more nuanced understanding of the town’s community revitalization efforts, and 3) out-of-town visitors, those whose impressions of the Big Hinamatsuri were likely to be less shaped by repeated exposure through various networks. I strove to recruit participants from diverse backgrounds to see if any patterns immediately presented themselves across generational, gendered, cultural, or occupational differences. The ages of my participants ranged from late twenties to mid-eighties and were split evenly across the traditional gender binary lines: half male and half female. None of my participants identified to me as nonbinary. Although the majority of my participants were born and raised in Japan (five in Tokushima and one in the Greater Tokyo Area), three came from non-Japanese ethnic backgrounds and did not encounter Hinamatsuri and other Japanese cultural traditions as lived traditions in their own childhood. However, all participants had been living in Tokushima for at least six years. Interviews were conducted in Japanese or English, depending on the participant’s preference. 10 Of the participants who had some deeper connection with the Big Hinamatsuri, involvements ranged from being the chairperson of the non-profit organization behind its operations, a former Katsuura regional revitalization officer and graphic designer of the festival’s promotional materials, and volunteers who had donated hina dolls to the festival or helped set them up for display. In addition, two of my participants were currently employed in local tourism boards in Tokushima. Although given the choice for increased privacy and anonymity through the use of a pseudonym, each of my participants asked to be identified by their real name. I respect their wishes and thus identify participants by their actual names in this study. Interview questions were broadly structured around experiences of the Big Hinamatsuri, community revitalization in Katsuura, and rural identity. These interviews lasted from thirty minutes to two hours and were recorded using a handheld IC recording device at a location chosen by participants in homes, cafes, or offices, or over Zoom. For some participants, their interview followed a visit with me to the Big Hinamatsuri event space to stimulate conversation and prompt later discussion on this study’s themes. Any noteworthy remarks from these informal conversations were recorded in my field notes after the matter. These ethnographic interviews were transcribed and analyzed for themes of rural and national identity in conjunction with my field notes. Inspired by the approach to reconstructing interview quotations by Laura Nelson (2000), quotations drawn from interviews in this study are generally written to convey meaning and tone, rather than a verbatim reproduction. In addition, to supplement the qualitative data gathered from interviews and participant observation, I also conducted content analysis of promotional material of the Big Hinamatsuri, such as posters, brochures, websites, and social media accounts. 11 3. Literature Review 3.1 Contextualizing Regional Revitalization Regional revitalization has been positioned as a key policy for the Japanese government since the nation’s fertility rate began to steadily decline in 2008, though concerns about the declining population predate this. The reasons why population decline would prompt a government to take serious countermeasures may be intuitive—having less people leads to a shortage of labor which in turn weakens the economy—and is only exacerbated by the steady domestic out-migration since the 1950s to urban areas such as Tokyo, which now accounts for over a third of Japan’s total population. The overcrowding of urban centers with new urbanites who are primarily young people leaving the countryside in search of increased education, broader employment opportunities, and a more convenient lifestyle creates a precarious situation for these regional areas that see little inbound movement of residents. Under the second Abe cabinet (2012–20207), concrete measures to rectify this imbalance came with the establishment in 2014 of the Headquarters for Overcoming Population Decline and Vitalizing Local Economy in Japan which specified four targets for regional revitalization: 1) generating stable employment in regional areas, 2) creating a new inflow of people to regional areas, 3) fulfilling the hopes of the young generation for marriage, childbirth, and parenthood, and 4) creating regional areas suited to the times, preserving safe and secure living, and promoting cooperation between regions (Matsuka 2017). The inflow of people to regional areas has also served an important function in regional development and economic stimulation. 7 Abe assumed office on December 26, 2012, but his cabinet’s activities commenced in full in January 2013 after the New Year holiday break. 12 According to Akiko Ito, Director General of the Secretariat of the Headquarters for Overcoming Population Decline and Vitalizing Local Economy in Japan, “Successful cases of regional revitalization have often been the result of people outside a particular region discovering an appeal that the local residents had failed to notice, and carrying out activities that harnessed that appeal” (Ito 2019; translation provided by the Government of Japan). While simultaneously relying on an outsider gaze to reimagine regional identity, Ito’s statement also signifies the government’s investment in the creation and promotion of distinct regional appeals. The succeeding Suga cabinet (2020–2021)8 continued to prioritize regional revitalization as a key policy, this time with an emphasis on agricultural reform and tourism (Government of Japan 2020). To further bridge the gap between urban and rural areas, and largely owing to pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic that demanded adaptation to remote methods of communication to reduce infections, the Suga administration also oversaw the creation of the Digital Agency in 2021 to ensure “everyone can benefit from digitization” (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet 2021). Although Suga resigned from office one month later due to mounting disapproval from both party members and the public, his successor, Kishida Fumio, has expanded on the digitalization effort with his Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation (Dejitaru Den’entoshi Kokka Kōsō デジタル田園都市国家構想デジタル田園都市国家構想). 8 Although Suga Yoshihide ran on a platform that promised to uphold many of his predecessor’s policies, including those concerning regional revitalization as a component of the Abenomics economic policies, it is interesting to note Suga’s own links to rural Japan. In stark contrast to Abe’s family lineage of politicians, Suga grew up in rural Akita prefecture as the son of a strawberry farmer and schoolteacher. While serving as Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications under the Abe administration, Suga also initiated the furusato nōzei ふるさと納税 (hometown tax) system in 2008 that allows urban-dwelling taxpayers to donate a portion of their income and residence tax money to a regional area. Taxpayers can choose what they wish their donations to contribute towards (often public services such as disaster relief, child welfare, infrastructure upgrades, or preservation of traditional cultural arts) or select a gift, most commonly a food item of a regional specialty. 13 Affectionately nicknamed “Digiden” (Dejiden, written as “Digi田”), this vision includes initiatives to improve digital infrastructure and technological fluency through the establishment of dedicated training programs. Additionally, the Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation advocates for digital services such as the creation of a human resource support system (Government of Japan 2021) to fill in the labor shortages felt by an aging population in rural areas and enhance connection between urban-trained workers and rural communities. 3.2 Revitalizing Regions Through Tourism Tourism plays a key role in propelling regional revitalization through economic stimulation and job creation, supporting local businesses, diversifying the economy, and promoting regional products and attractions (Telfer 2014). Tourism also contributes greatly to soft power: the harnessing of intangible resources such as culture and ideology to influence interests, with the byproduct of positive diplomatic relations (Nye 1990, 166-167). The Japanese government has understood the capital that soft power wields through the propagation of its popular culture and traditional culture, from icons such as Hello Kitty (Yano 2013; Tsutsui 2010) to local rituals turned UNESCO heritages such as the Toshidon (Foster 2015) in soothing anti-Japan sentiments abroad (Iwabuchi 2014). Domestic travel campaigns have been used as a method to influence people to physically visit regional areas over time. Beginning with the Discover Japan (Disukabā Japan ディスカバー・ジャパン) campaign of the 1970s, the countryside began to be depicted as a place to reconnect with the soul of the Japanese identity for urbanites who had adopted a more globalized way of life (Ivy 1995). This interest in rediscovering one’s own cultural heritage as domestic tourists was expanded into the Exotic Japan (Ekizochikku Japan エキゾチック・ジャパン) 14 campaign in the following decade, where tours promised to explore an exotic, pre-Westernized past Japan (Creighton 1997). These campaigns reveal the idealization of cultural heritage, particularly in rural areas where the industrialized touch has been slower to infiltrate than that of the metropolis. Government policies regarding leisure travel reveal a state’s ideal vision for its citizens, with one’s leisure time being seen as the time most freely spent. David Leheny (2018) argues that in Japan’s case, the Japanese government’s definition of a “good citizen” is one who reinforces an idea of Japanese uniqueness while conforming to some semblance of Western advancement. Scholars have studied how ideas of Japanese uniqueness are expressed as a component of national identity in tourist destinations, such as through history tourism of the Edo era (Creighton 2009), media and contents tourism of morning drama series (Scherer and Thelen 2020), and heritage tourism through folk traditions (Foster 2013). 3.3 Hinamatsuri for Revitalization Hinamatsuri has primarily been analyzed for the symbolism in its displays and expressions of social hierarchy. Various scholars have examined the use of Hinamatsuri in home education (katei kyōiku 家庭教育) and kindergarten education (yōchien kyōiku 幼稚園教育) and to teach social values (Takeda 1995; Koyama 2017), as well as the gendered ideals of modern Japan expressed in hina doll displays (Murguia 2011). The study of Japanese dolls has also been a subject of interest. Alan Pate (2004; 2008) has written about the history and characteristics of the types of hina dolls and their evolutions over the eras, while Judy Shoaf (2010) has explored the history and views of Japanese dolls in Western media and diplomatic relations. Others have theorized about specific doll types. In a case study of the Tokushima village of Nagoro, which has gained significant media attention for 15 the mass displays of kakashi scarecrows,9 Atsuko Hashimoto et al (2020) assert that these scarecrows have come to preserve the village’s identity through the museumization of rural life. The use of Hinamatsuri for community revitalization has gained some scholarly attention in the last decade. The first and most extensive study was of Tokushima’s Big Hinamatsuri and based on fieldwork that was completed in 2013. This study, conducted by Yamada Shinya (2015), a folklorist at the National Museum of Japanese History, focused on how folk customs of Hinamatsuri are adapted for contemporary community revitalization. Another study by Kogawa Yoshiko (2018), an undergraduate student at the University of Tokyo, focused more broadly on Hinamatsuri used for tourism in Kaifu, Tokushima and Hita, Oita during 2017, asserting that the spread of tourism Hinamatsuri across the nation has occurred due to the dissemination of form and grassroots teaching of hina doll display methods. The literature above shows a need for research on Hinamatsuri to go beyond descriptive accounts and include critical analyses of tourism. In addition, as the existing literature on Hinamatsuri used for community revitalization is limited to the research of festivals until 2017, this thesis aims to contribute more recent fieldwork of the Big Hinamatsuri. Lastly, by expanding scholarship about this area beyond the Japanese language literature, I hope to generate interest in the international scholarly community of community revitalization and Japan studies to stimulate a more robust dialogue on this subject. 9 Nagoro is located three hours away from Katsuura. Similar scarecrows have been spotted elsewhere around the prefecture, particularly in other depopulating rural towns and villages such as Kamiyama, Koyadaira, and Katsuura. 16 4. Ethnography 4.1 Entering The Hina Doll Village Fieldnotes – March 30, 2023: It was spring, the time for new beginnings. Having arrived in Katsuura for the first time since I had moved back to North America in August 2019, I awoke anticipating the magnificent cherry blossoms that friends had told me were at their peak. As I drove through town, I was swept away by the picturesque scene unfolding before me: delicate pale pink blossoms clustered on row upon row of trees and dotting the surrounding mountains with swatches of blush, yellow rapeseed flowers sprawling across entire fields, and greenery spreading across the valley like a majestic green carpet. Nostalgic memories of past springs in Katsuura flooded my mind’s eye. The Katsuura Cherry Blossom Festival had begun a few days prior. In the Ikuna neighborhood’s Roman Kaidō ロマン街道 (“Romantic Road”), festive colorful paper lanterns were strung across the cherry trees that stood along the banks of the river and LED flood flights were positioned at the bases of the trees, ready to showcase the beautiful blooms after dark. The main events for the festival were to be held in three days, on Sunday, April 2. Members of my old Awa Odori dance group would perform later that day and I was excited to see my former teammates and their families again, as the festival was sure to bring the community together. My goal for today, however, was to visit the Big Hinamatsuri. The festival theme for 2023 was “Beauty and the Beast” (Bijo to yajū 美女と野獣) paying homage to Katsuura’s Hinamatsuri and the ongoing dinosaur fossil excavations that have been drawing attention since the first discovery was made in the Tazukawa area in 1996. This year, the Big Hinamatsuri was slated to run from February 25 until March 31, meaning I only had a few days left to visit the 17 festival and take field notes. 10 Luckily, the Big Hinamatsuri event hall is very conveniently located beside the Roman Kaidō, as well as other popular community spots such as the Katsuura michi no eki 道の駅 (“roadside station”), Yottene-ichi よってネ市 (“Yottene Market”), and the Revita Katsuura Community Revitalization Center (レヴィタ勝浦町地域活性化協会). I pulled into the dusty parking lot beside the Ningyō Bunka Koryūkan 人形文化交流館 (“Doll Cultural Exchange Center”), the official name of the event hall where the Big Hinamatsuri takes place. The parking was already quite full and there were families and pairs strolling under the cherry blossoms, basking in the warm spring sunlight, as well as shoppers with bags of fresh produce coming from Yottene-ichi. As I made my way to the Ningyō Bunka Koryūkan, I couldn’t help noticing anew the nondescript nature of the building’s exterior. A former timber factory, it resembled a warehouse rather than an exhibition space with its beige metal walls and rusted fixtures. The only clues as to what this building contained would be gleaned from the décor near the front entrance, and the prominently displayed ten-meter long pink, cherry-blossom-patterned sign that spanned across the front pillars and read “Original Big Hinamatsuri” (Ganso Biggu Hinamatsuri 元祖ビッグひな祭り) in large Japanese script and “Big Hina doll’s Fest.” in smaller English text. Another banner read “The Dinosaur Village and Hina Doll Village Where Cherry Blossoms Bloom” (Sakura saku kyōryū no sato hina no sato 桜咲く恐竜の里ひなの里) and posters promoting this year’s event were plastered on walls around the entryway. A large Taiwanese flag was conspicuously displayed to the right of the front door, which I assumed was 10 After visiting, I learned that the Big Hinamatsuri was extended until April 9 to accommodate a tour group from Taiwan. 18 to welcome a tour group from there. I’d heard there had been groups from other countries visiting this year as well, though no other flags were visible today. Perhaps most strikingly, flanking the entrance there was an enormous, amorphous green plaster statue of a dinosaur bearing a dopey expression—beauty and the beast, indeed. Standing at least five meters tall, it towered almost as high as the building. I wondered who had made it. Figure 1. The main entrance of the Ningyō Bunka Koryūkan Approaching the entryway, I could hear the nostalgic minor-key jingle of the classic Hinamatsuri song, “Joyful Hinamatsuri” (Ureshii Hinamatsuri 嬉しい雛祭り), being played on the loudspeakers inside on a loop. I entered the building and was chirpily welcomed by a lady who looked to be in her sixties, identifiable as a festival volunteer by her bright pink happi coat. After paying the three-hundred-yen ($2.60 CAD) general entrance fee, I strode towards the exhibition hall and my eyes were immediately drawn to the main attraction in the center: a towering, eight-meter-tall, tiered pyramid of dolls. Composed of primarily hina dolls arranged with their accompanying accessories on the red-carpeted hinadan platforms, the entire eight-19 sided display was topped by a miniature palace modeled after a Heian aristocrat’s residence. Compared to privately held Hinamatsuri displays that are made up of a maximum of seven hinadan platforms and fifteen dolls, this grand version spanned five hundred platforms and thousands of dolls. A large banner hung from the ceiling above this massive display that read “Global Big Hinamatsuri” (Gurōbaru Biggu Hinamatsuri グローバルビッグひな祭り). Figure 2. The centerpiece hina doll display Strolling through the rest of the exhibition hall, the displays and the specifics of their compositions soon began to blur together—there were dolls everywhere you looked. Red-carpeted tiered steps stood high in front of all the available wall space with no break, glass display cases containing more dolls at their bases. Several more, smaller, pyramid displays filled the spaces between the walls and main display. One pyramid included signage indicating it was created by local elementary school students as a form of community service. I recalled how the junior high school students I taught in Katsuura had similarly helped with festival preparations. 20 Spring motifs of cherry blossoms were present in the hall, as outside. Mixed among the dolls were fluffy balls of fabric double-layered cherry blossoms and artificial branches of the common five-petaled cherry tree in pink and white, bringing an ombré effect to the dominant hues of red in the exhibition hall. A live sapling near the hall’s entrance featured a sign from the Flower Association of Japan (Nihon Hana no Kai 日本花の会) noting a new cherry cultivar of 2020: Katsuura Hinazakura 勝浦雛桜, literally, “Katsuura hina doll cherry blossom.” Some unique dolls stood out to me, such as the antique ones showcased in a glass case near the performance stage, the oldest dating to the late Edo period (1780s–1868) according to the accompanying signage. Across from these cases, a recreated dairibina (“imperial palace dolls”) labeled the “Revived Big Hina Dolls” (Yomigaetta “Biggu Ohina-sama” 蘇った「ビッグお雛様」) loomed two meters high and were made from plaster and recycled Big Hinamatsuri posters and flyers used to promote the 2020 festival which was cut short due to COVID-19. Another pair of smaller plaster dairibina dolls donned miniature happi coats in a shade of pink matching those worn by the Big Hinamatsuri volunteers. As I wandered towards the back of the hall, I discovered the entrance to a side hallway. Within, in what appeared to be a section dedicated to dinosaur displays, I spied two dolls dressed in dinosaur onesies. Reminiscent of the five-meter statue outside of the building, there was also another large plaster dinosaur statue here, although this statue appeared more professionally made and its species easily identified as a tyrannosaurus. There were also approximately a dozen plaster dinosaur skeletons of various species and sizes. A narrow stairway near the entrance led upstairs to the Hina Rekishi Shiryōkan ひな歴史資料館 (“Hina Doll History Archive”). On this floor, a replica of the first ever Big Hinamatsuri 21 display in 1988 immediately stood out: even as a half-sized model, it was approximately one fifth the size of this year’s centerpiece, demonstrating the scale in which the festival has grown in the intervening thirty-five years. Along the wall were more antique hina dolls and cases of varied dolls from around the world, arranged as pairs of dolls with their originating country’s flag serving as labels. Interestingly, the only dolls here with a Japanese flag label seemed to be of Ainu people, as evidenced by their Ainu motif patterned headbands and the doll with a thick beard, blue eyes, and light brown hair. On show was also a collection labeled the “Japan-United States exchange dolls” (Nichibei kōryū ningyō 日米交流人形), composed of a series of Victorian-style dolls that had been gifted to Katsuura by the former mayor of a small town in Tennessee when a Katsuura-based manufacturing company began its overseas operations there.11 Figure 3. Dolls displayed at the Ningyō Bunka Koryūkan Framed flyers from past Big Hinamatsuri promotions filled one wall’s surface. A sign by the Big Hinamatsuri executive planning committee (Biggu Hinamatsuri Jikkō I’inkai ビッグひ 11 The manufacturing company, Nakatetsu Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Gaisha Nakatetsu 株式会社ナかテツ) operates factories in Iga, Mie and Katsuura, Tokushima. It expanded operations in 2006 to Telford, Tennessee with the establishment of Nakatetsu Machining Technologies, LLC. All three factories produce bearing components and automotive parts through machine turning process. 22 な祭り実行委員会) stated that the original flyers used to be handmade until the tenth festival in 1998. Flyers from then until this year hung on the walls, their designs becoming sleeker and more colorful by the year. Dinosaurs were featured on the flyers of the past four years and Olympic stickers from 2017 until 2020 proudly promoted the Big Hinamatsuri’s inclusion in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics and the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. On the remaining wall space were informational panels about the origins and history of Hinamatsuri and the Big Hinamatsuri, some in translated English in addition to Japanese. Apart from the few descriptive labels throughout, I realized that these were some of the only lengthier explanatory text panels in the entire exhibition. On the first floor, the main explanatory panel was a set of hand-drawn posters by Katsuura high school students that offered a concise history of Hinamatsuri and explained elements within a common household display. As I made my way to the exit, I stopped by the final area, the Katsuura local product corner. Here there were souvenirs available for purchase: foods produced with regional specialties such as mikan oranges and sudachi citrus, handcrafts of indigo dyed fabrics or bamboo figurines, and colorful yusanbako, three-tiered lunch boxes traditionally used in Tokushima during Hinamatsuri. There were also tables set up for visitors to consume purchases of freshly made sweets associated with Hinamatsuri such as the dango and strawberry red bean mochi. Across the room, in a section labelled the “foster parent corner” (sato-oya kōnā 里親コーナー) there were cases of hina dolls priced from a thousand to three thousand yen ($8–26 CAD). Definitely more affordable than a brand-new set of dolls that could cost thousands of dollars. I had spent a considerable amount of time at the exhibition, much longer than most other visitors I observed—many were grandparents or young parents with young children whose 23 attention spans no doubt limited their time spent at the hall—who had mostly walked through the displays while snapping pictures here and there. It was getting close to closing time, so I decided to just quickly stop by the Katsuura Roadside Station next door and head home. A long day, and the first of many visits to the Big Hinamatsuri this research trip. 4.2 A Second Life of Buildings and Dolls: Contextualizing the Big Hinamatsuri 4.2.1 An Introduction to Katsuura Town The Big Hinamatsuri originated and continues to take place in Katsuura, a town located in the Katsuura district, Tokushima prefecture on the island of Shikoku. Geographically, Katsuura is in the southeastern region of the prefecture, about an hour’s drive away from the prefectural capital of Tokushima city. It was established as a town in 1955 as part of the Heisei era municipal mergers (Heisei no Daigappei 平成の大合併),12 combining the former town of Yokose and village of Ikuhina (Katsuura-chō 2013). Katsuura takes its name from the Katsuura River that runs north to west through the center of the town—much of the town is located in the basin of this river and enclosed by mountains from all sides. Katsuura is a rural town, defined in part by its low population density of seventy inhabitants per square kilometer13 and relatively remote access.14 In March 2023, the population of the town consisted of 4791 people, half of what it was seventy years ago; over forty-six percent of the population is sixty-five or older and the average age of residents sits at fifty-six years old (Katsuura-chō 2023). The town has an agriculturally focused economy and is the 12 See Rausch 2006 for more on these municipal mergers. 13 For comparison, the nationwide population density of Japan is 332/km2 and the density of Tokyo is 6,363/km2 14 There is only one major road that passes through the town boundaries, serviced by infrequent buses (eight to ten a day, roughly once every two hours) running from the Tokushima City center. The nearest JR train station is fifteen kilometers away: roughly a three-hour walk. 24 prefecture’s longest-standing and largest producer of unshū mikan, a type of semi-seedless Japanese orange. Katsuura’s largest tourist attraction is the Big Hinamatsuri, which welcomes over thirty thousand visitors annually, though it also holds a popular cherry blossom festival in the spring and draws many visitors in the winter for mikan orange picking. Since 1996, Katsuura has been gaining attention from the paleontology community for discoveries of some of the oldest dinosaur fossils to be excavated in Shikoku and Japan—the recent discovery of Iguanodon tooth and tail fossils in 2022 are believed to be the oldest of their kind found in Japan (Yoshida 2022) —and the town has recently begun holding a dinosaur festival in the summer that includes dinosaur themed workshops, crafts, and food. In addition to these seasonal attractions and festivals, Katsuura is famous for maintaining Kakurin-ji Temple, the twentieth temple of Shikoku’s 88 Temple Pilgrimage. 4.2.2 An Overview of the Big Hinamatsuri The Big Hinamatsuri is a public event that was started as a community revitalization initiative in Katsuura, Tokushima in 1988. Following declining demand of the town’s main industry of mikan oranges due to a rise in production in other competing regions during the 1970s, and prompted by a particularly harsh cold snap in 1981 that further impacted economic reliance on this source, the Big Hinamatsuri was chosen as an event to revitalize the town by the local town office (Yamada 2015, 98). The first Big Hinamatsuri was held in the Katsuura town gymnasium from April 2 to 3 and organized by the Katsuura Town Office committee called 25 Chiebukuro ちえぶくろ,15 then comprised of ten young employees. This inaugural event saw the display of a large pyramid display of hina dolls composed of one hundred platforms. Since its inception, the Big Hinamatsuri has undergone several structural changes. In 1992, the organizers for the event shifted from the local government committee to the Katsuura branch of a Tokushima community revitalization group called Idobatajuku 阿波勝浦井戸端塾.16 This administrative change to a private corporation, which gained non-profit organization status in 2002, was able to expand the number of people involved in putting on the Big Hinamatsuri as participation was no longer limited to employees of the town office (Yamada 2015, 102). Another significant change to the festival’s structure was the purchase of an old timber factory building by Idobatajuku in 2004, which became a dedicated building in the Ikuna neighborhood of Katsuura for the Big Hinamatsuri and is now called the Ningyō Bunka Kōryūkan (“Doll Cultural Exchange Center”). This acquisition not only eased the time-consuming labor of setting up the doll display each year within a short time span, but also allowed for the festival to be held for longer periods of time as it no longer interfered with other events taking place at the public town gymnasium. Chiefly, the purchase of the Ningyō Bunka Kōryūkan resulted in expanded space to display additional hina dolls and provide a year-round storage space for them, which was key in the Big Hinamatsuri’s continued growth as an event. 15 Chiebukuro 知恵袋 literally means “bag full of wisdom” and is often used to refer to a person or source of advice. 16 The origin for this name comes from idobata 井戸端 (“beside the water well”) and juku 塾 (“cram schools” that offer supplementary lessons outside of regular school hours). In premodern Japan, wells were a social center for villagers who would gather around them to draw water or wash laundry and simultaneously chat about gossip and local happenings. The name Idobatajuku plays on these concepts by combining the idea of studying by an ancient center of village social life. 26 Storage for the excess of dolls became a key concern for the organizers over time. In the beginning, the Big Hinamatsuri organizers put out a call for the temporary loan of hina dolls, possessions that many community members already had in their homes and would not be using during the April event period as they or their daughters had grown past the age of displaying hina dolls. The organizers had originally planned to return the dolls they collected from people in Katsuura and its neighboring areas back to their owners after the festival’s conclusion. However, when it came time to return the dolls, many of the owners expressed that they did not want their dolls returned to them as they had no use for them, and so the event organizers ended up keeping over three thousand hina dolls (Yamada 2015, 101). Since then, the Big Hinamatsuri collects and displays hina dolls that are gifted to the Ningyō Bunka Kōryūkan from not just Tokushima residents, but from individuals across Japan. In addition to organizing the Big Hinamatsuri as its main activity, Idobatajuku’s mission connects to other local interests. According to the Big Hinamatsuri’s official website, the Katsuura Idobatajuku was established with the aim of undertaking community revitalization (chiiki no kasseika 地域の活性化) through community development (machi-zukuri まちづくり) in order to contribute to the improvement and development of the region for local residents (Awa Katsuura Idobatajuku 2022a). They identify five actions relating to the activities of the following to accomplish this mission: 1. The preservation and transmission of doll culture 2. The conservation of dinosaur fossils and related natural resources 3. The cultural exchange between urban (toshi) and rural (nōson) areas 4. The outsourcing of various tasks of the local government 5. The management and administration of town facilities 27 These goals place the Idobatajuku in a position to work closely with the local government to support activities that are beyond the festival that prompted their formation. The preservation and transmission of doll culture through hina dolls is the main activity of the Idobatajuku, particularly through the activities of the Big Hinamatsuri. Due to the excess of hina dolls that are donated to the Big Hinamatsuri from across the country, each year the Idobatajuku is left with more dolls than they are able to display at the festival. Leftover dolls are then passed on to other regions for their own Hinamatsuri themed community revitalization initiatives, for display at national events, and even gifted to interested individuals.17 The Big Hinamatsuri’s collection of hina dolls has been displayed at events as prominent as the Olympic Games, both in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and delayed 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo. In an interview with Inai-san, the chairperson of the Idobatajuku, the appeal of the Big Hinamatsuri was identified as its internationalization (kokusaika). This is in part from displays of hina dolls internationally at the Rio Olympics, but also due to the gifting of over three thousand dolls to the Japanese Brazilian community afterwards, as well as to the United States and some European countries. Tour groups from various countries also visit the Big Hinamatsuri each year, with the majority in recent years coming from other Asian countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In 2023, the year this study was conducted, the Big Hinamatsuri was even extended an extra week to accommodate an incoming tour group from Taiwan who were visiting to experience Katsuura’s springtime activities. 17 I was also gifted a set of hina dolls by the Idobatajuku while I was conducting fieldwork. While I was initially offered a full set of fifteen dolls, I opted to just take home a set of the imperial couple dolls with some of their accompanying accessories due to luggage space constraints in bringing them back to Canada. To my surprise, I was told to pick any dolls I wanted to keep from the exhibition hall displays. 28 It is important to note that Hinamatsuri, and the customs that are carried out as part of the Big Hinamatsuri, is not unique to the town of Katsuura, nor has it had a particularly deep-rooted history in the area. At most, some of the celebrations when the festival was started reflected broader customs in the Tokushima region. However, prior to the establishment of the Big Hinamatsuri, Katsuura was not known for having a distinctive Hinamatsuri that set it apart from other areas of Tokushima. The Big Hinamatsuri’s appeal thus has always utilized widespread understandings and customs of Hinamatsuri. 4.2.3 Regional Differences of Hinamatsuri in Tokushima Over time, the Big Hinamatsuri has shifted from being an event that draws on some regional elements to a festival whose main charm is almost wholly in its performance of generic aspects of a nationally celebrated holiday. While the reason for selecting the concept behind the Big Hinamatsuri is rooted in Hinamatsuri’s widespread appeal to potentially propel it to national renown (Yamada 2015, 100), 18 in the beginning, the Big Hinamatsuri did retain some characteristics of regional celebrations of Hinamatsuri. One regional difference of Hinamatsuri in Tokushima is the date of its celebration on April 3. In premodern Japan when the lunisolar calendar was in use, the date of Hinamatsuri was closer to April 3 in today’s terms, although once the solar-based Gregorian calendar was adopted after modernization, Hinamatsuri became fixed on March 3. The inaugural Big Hinamatsuri followed the lunar calendar, even though Hinamatsuri was celebrated across Japan on March 3 by this 18 Also of note is the word choice of a loanword rather than an existing Japanese word in the festival name. Biggu in Biggu Hinamatsuri (Big Hinamatsuri) is derived from the English-origin loanword “big,” which has a similar meaning in Japanese of “large” or “important,” as opposed to a more commonly used Japanese language prefix such as dai. For further reading on the use of loanwords in the Japanese language and loanwords’ connections to identity, see Hosokawa 2023. 29 point, following a preference for the historic lunisolar date of Hinamatsuri that Tokushima people celebrated on at the time. Gradually, the Big Hinamatsuri came to be centered around the March 3 date. Another regional element in the early Big Hinamatsuri celebrations is the use of yusanbako 遊山箱, a type of traditional lunchbox in Tokushima that is composed of multiple stacked compartments. Newspaper reports from the 1988 festival saw families attending the festival with their children and eating from yusanbako by the doll displays (Yamada 2015, 101), a custom in Tokushima closely associated with Hinamatsuri where yusanbako packed with seasonal Hinamatsuri foods would be taken on picnics. While yusanbako can be seen on display at the contemporary Big Hinamatsuri exhibition, the customary use of them is not common at the festival any longer. 4.2.4 Jōshi no Sekku and the Origin of Hinamatsuri A main function of the Big Hinamatsuri concerns the underlying symbolism of the hina dolls displayed in the festival. Historically, Hinamatsuri is said to have roots in a purification ritual originating in the Chinese Shangsi Festival. This practice came to be known as the Jōshi no Sekku 上巳の節句 seasonal festival in Japan that took place on the third day of the third lunar month, a day that some scholars have thought were deemed unlucky due to the repetition of odd numbers, and symbolically cleansed personal impurities with water (Murguia 2011, 231; Takeda 1995, 79-81). Early on, this ritual purification involved using paper dolls as a proxy to transfer bad luck, then casting them into streams or rivers to literally wash the evil far away from the body (Murguia 2011, 235). This predecessor to Hinamatsuri is still practiced in some areas of Japan, most famously in the Mochigase district of Tottori city, Tottori prefecture, and called nagashibina (“floating doll”) ceremonies. 30 However, in the early Edo period (1603–1868), the purification rites of Jōshi no Sekku no longer typically involved the discarding of paper dolls in water and began to take on a fixed display of dolls instead. By the late 1700s, the displaying of dolls on the third day of the third lunar month to bring on good luck came to be known as Hinamatsuri and resemble the display of imperial court dolls seen contemporarily (Takeda 1995, 79-81). One of the alternative names for Hinamatsuri is the Peach Festival (Momo no Sekku 桃の節句) due to the peach blossom blooming period (late March to early April under the Gregorian calendar) occurring around the original lunisolar calendar date of Hinamatsuri. Peach trees and blossoms continue to be common motifs in traditional Hinamatsuri displays, despite them not being in season around March 3, and symbolize longevity and fertility (Ohnuki-Tierney 1990, 201). Hinamatsuri continues to contain aspects of the early Jōshi no Sekku purification rituals, namely in its use of dolls to ward off ill omen. The main purpose of Hinamatsuri celebrations is for families to wish for the health and prosperity of young girls through the in-home display of ornamental hina doll sets that are typically gifted to girls before their first birthday. These dolls are annually put up in homes by mothers and daughters a few weeks before March 3 and usually put away immediately after. Many families stop displaying these sets as their daughters grow older, usually by the time they become teenagers. 4.2.5 Ningyō Kuyō: Memorial Services for Dolls Remnants of the rites of Jōshi no Sekku can be seen in ningyō kuyō 人形供養 (“doll memorial service”). Although the display and use of hina dolls today is more decorative in nature, the concept of dolls absorbing evil in lieu of their human counterpart underlies aspects of the treatment and ownership of hina dolls. Many of the participants in my study mentioned the belief that dolls contain a soul (tamashii) of their own and therefore cannot be simply thrown 31 away or donated after they are no longer displayed – instead they must be spiritually cleansed through a doll memorial service and then properly disposed. Ningyō kuyō memorial services are performed by a temple or shrine and have traditionally involved the burning of dolls that have fulfilled their function of protecting their owner. Nowadays, some places that perform memorial services choose to burn goma wooden votive sticks in place of the dolls themselves as a more environmentally friendly option (Gygi 2023, 198). After the memorial service is completed, the dolls are considered to have completed their protective role and can then serve a new function as purely decorative objects that no longer house a soul. As decorative objects, it is then acceptable for the dolls to be placed outside for the longer periods of time typically required for public display and allowed to naturally deteriorate. The role of doll memorial services as a part of the Big Hinamatsuri has evolved over time as well. In the beginning, memorial services were performed after the end of the festival and dolls that were damaged and determined to no longer be appropriate for display were burned en masse. However, as concern over carbon dioxin emissions and their resulting environmental pollution increased, this incineration process was discontinued and a memorial service that only burned goma sticks in lieu was held for dolls prior to their being publicly displayed instead (Yamada 2015, 104). Now, hina dolls are collected for the memorial service about one month before the festival’s start in exchange for a processing fee of five thousand yen ($43 CAD) and one memorial service is conducted for all dolls received that year on the day following the end of the Big Hinamatsuri’s doll collection period. Doll memorial services are actively advertised each year, as seen on this call for dolls on the official Big Hinamatsuri website: Do you have any hina dolls that you no longer display in your home? 32 Let’s take our beloved dolls to a memorial service to thank them for watching over our growth alongside our families. Dolls have long been said to have souls and should not be carelessly thrown away. Surely there are some people who are worried about this. Taking your dolls to a memorial service will ease your worries. (Awa Katsuura Idobatajuku 2022b; my translation) There are numerous reasons why people choose to give up their hina dolls. Traditionally, a hina doll set is gifted to each newborn girl, either passed down from previous generations or bought new by parents or grandparents. Anthropologist Fabio Gygi gives two factors that have influenced this tradition: a shrinking population and outmigration to urban areas (2023, 210). Population decline has affected the number of children born, leading to a surplus of dolls and deficit of children for whom to display them, and the concentration of the population in urban areas has resulted in more condensed living spaces that can store hina doll sets, leaving them left behind in family homes in rural areas. One of my interview participants, Nakanishi-san, described her family’s choice to donate their dolls to the Big Hinamatsuri: My daughters’ hina doll sets are fairly compact so we still have them in our house, but once my niece grew up my sister asked me to take them to the doll memorial service. This was right in the beginning after the Big Hinamatsuri was started and we were glad to have brought them in rather than just leaving them laying around the house. Just throwing them away was also out of the question. We thought it was great to be able to take the dolls in to be properly prayed for and undergo the memorial service, and then have everyone enjoy viewing them afterwards. For many other families like Nakanishi-san who gift their dolls to the Big Hinamatsuri, the driving force behind this decision is practicality. Donating hina dolls for display at the Big Hinamatsuri allows these family heirlooms a chance to be admired again rather than tucked away deep in a closet and taking up storage space, especially when they serve no practical purpose with the household’s daughters grown up and out of the family house. Furthermore, giving the 33 dolls the chance to be put on display avoids the fate that many dolls undergo of being incinerated or thrown in a landfill: a painful ending for expensive dolls that hold sentimental value. Another one of my interlocuters, Hiraoka-san, told me that the Big Hinamatsuri is often referred to as the “second life of hina dolls” (hina-san dai-ni no jinsei 雛さん第二の人生). 4.3 From Big to Bigger: The Spread of the Big Hinamatsuri 4.3.1 The Hina Doll Village: Hinamatsuri Across Katsuura Starting with the Big Hinamatsuri now held at the Ningyō Bunka Kōryūkan, various Hinamatsuri events and displays have been carried out each year to activate Katsuura during the springtime. These events, such as the displays along the storefronts in the Nishioka and Yokose neighborhoods and the events in the Sakamoto district, collectively turn “the whole town into a Big Hinamatsuri” (Katsuura Tourism 2021). The first neighborhood Hinamatsuri event that was started originated in the Sakamoto district, an area located on the westernmost outskirts of Katsuura. Celebrating the 2002 grand opening of the new lodging and rural experience facility called Fureai no Sato Sakamoto ふれあいの里さかもと,19 the first day of operations was symbolically chosen to be on March 3 (Fureai no Sato Sakamoto, n.d.). In addition, Fureai no Sato Sakamoto pioneered a new Hinamatsuri event in the former school’s gymnasium: the Sakamoto Ohinasama no Okuzashiki 坂本おひな様の奥座敷 (“Sakamoto Hina Doll Inner Parlor”). A separate identity to the Big Hinamatsuri was established through this event by doing away with the hinadan tiered platforms, with the 19 Fureai no Sato Sakamoto is housed in the former Sakamoto Elementary School building. The school suspended operations due to depopulation and a lack of students in 1999, three years prior to being repurposed as Fureai no Sato Sakamoto. 34 event organizers emphasizing the appreciation of individual hina dolls instead by eliminating the hierarchical traces of traditional Japanese social hierarchy symbolized by the hinadan (Yamada 2015, 106–107). This event at Fureai no Sato Sakamoto later evolved to include other houses and shops in the Sakamoto area, spreading beyond the confines of a single exhibition space in a concurrent event called the Sakamoto Ohina Kaidō 坂本おひな街道 (“Sakamoto Hina Doll Road”). During this event, hina dolls and their accessories are displayed under the eaves of buildings, on walls, and in gardens, turning the whole area into an attraction: traditional kominka country houses with quintessential Japanese dolls on view for visitors to step back in time and imagine themselves walking through the neighborhood in an era when both these houses and dolls were more commonplace. Figure 4. Roadside displays on the Sakamoto Ohina Kaidō in 2019 Another newer addition to the Sakamoto Hinamatsuri programming is the Sakamoto Kimono Matsuri さかもと着物祭り (“Sakamoto Kimono Festival”) which started in 2017.20 Held during select weekend dates in March, this event offers an experiential tourism opportunity 20 This event was cancelled from 2020 to 2023 due to COVID-19. 35 through kimono rentals and dressing along with complimentary hair and makeup services for attendees, as well as the chance to ride a rickshaw on the Sakamoto Ohina Kaidō. Similar to the hina dolls displayed across town, the kimono borrowed for this event are gathered from households who have found little use for them as the wearing of traditional Japanese clothing has dwindled over the years. The volunteers who help with the kimono dressing service, primarily retired middle-aged to elderly women who learned the intricacies of this art during a generation when doing so was more commonplace (Valk 2021, 6), are able to share their knowledge with younger generations who have not had the opportunity to learn these customs. In 2021, the Sakamoto Ohinasama no Okuzashiki and the Sakamoto Ohina Kaidō were included under the activities of a rebranded event title: the Sakamoto Ohina Meguri さかもとおひな巡り (“Sakamoto Hina Doll Tour”). This new event included an additional location at the Sakamoto Hachiman Shrine, nicknamed the Hina Yashiro ひな社 (“Hina Doll Shrine”), with hina dolls set up on the shrine steps and colorful cloth decorations set up around the shrine grounds and seasonal flowers filling the temizuya water basin.21 Both the Sakamoto Ohina Meguri and Kimono Matsuri are planned and executed by the Sakamoto Genki Nettowāku 坂本元気ネットワーク, a grassroots organization that was established in November 2016 to revitalize the Sakamoto district. In addition to the Sakamoto district events and displays, other populous neighborhoods in Katsuura have also organized to activate their respective areas during Hinamatsuri. In the 21 According to a friend employed at Fureai no Sato Sakamoto, the idea for turning the shrine into a main exhibition space for the event was borne out of a COVID-19 response—locals, as a physical distancing measure, had started filling the shrine’s water basin with flowers to prevent visitors from using it, while also keeping the basin and area visually pleasing. 36 Nishioka and Yokose neighborhoods, shops that are located along the Prefectural Road 16 (Tokushima Kendō 16-gō 徳島県道 16号) main road in Katsuura set out hina doll sets and related decorations under the front of their buildings throughout February and March to align with the event dates of the Big Hinamatsuri. 4.3.2 Sharing Community and Aid: The Zenkoku Katsuura Nettowāku The Idobatajuku prides itself in creating the original Big Hinamatsuri in Japan in Katsuura, Tokushima. Since its inception, it has inspired other Hinamatsuri events in other towns and cities that share the same Katsuura name, as well as the formation of a national level of sister cities in 2003 called the Zenkoku Katsuura Nettowāku 全国勝浦ネットワーク(“National Katsuura Network”). These successive Big Hinamatsuri iterations have been developed specifically with the aid of the Idobatajuku organizing committee from the Tokushima Big Hinamatsuri. The Katsuura Big Hinamatsuri organized by the Katsuura city local government in Chiba Prefecture was the second Big Hinamatsuri to be developed. Started in 2001 after members of the Idobatajuku gifted the Chiba organizers with seven thousand hina dolls, the organizers for this festival took a similar approach to their Tokushima predecessor by displaying hina dolls in vast quantities and numerous tiers in an exaggerated version of a Hinamatsuri display. Rather than a pyramid of dolls as its main draw, the Chiba Big Hinamatsuri primary attraction is the display near Japan Railway (JR) Katsuura Station where over 1800 dolls cover the sixty stone steps leading to Tomisaki Shrine (Chiba Prefectural Tourism & Local Products Association 2024). Since these dolls are displayed outside, organizers put up and take them down from the shrine’s steps each day of the ten-day festival, along with other roadside doll displays near the station. In a process slightly different from the Tokushima approach to gathering dolls and 37 performing memorial services, the Katsuura city government calls for the donation (kizō 寄贈) of up to 350 hina dolls a year to the Big Hinamatsuri, costing doll owners a processing fee of 10,000 yen ($86 CAD) per “donated” set, with only heavily damaged dolls undergoing a memorial service (Katsuura City 2023). Nachi-Katsuura in Wakayama Prefecture is the last member of the Zenkoku Katsuura Nettowāku. Their special Hinamatsuri, the Nanki Katsuura Hina Meguri 南紀勝浦ひなめぐり(“Nanki Katsuura Hina Doll Tour”), was started as a disaster relief initiative—namely, in the wake of the damage wrought on the Kii Peninsula in Wakayama Prefecture, including Nachi-Katsuura, from Typhoon Talus during fall 2011. To aid recovery efforts in the area and provide economic support through tourism, representatives from Katsuura, Tokushima and Katsuura, Chiba provided and visited the Wakayama town to set up five thousand hina dolls in the JR Kii-Katsuura Station. The main attraction for this first event was akin to the Tokushima Big Hinamatsuri’s main pyramid display, though on a smaller scale (Yamada 2015, 109). In later years, the Nanki Katsuura Hina Meguri’s pyramid exhibit was moved to the Nachi-Katsuura town gymnasium and cultural center and other roadside displays came to be incorporated in front of shops in the town’s downtown core around the Kii-Katsuura Station. Furthermore, the main pyramid display was regionalized to include 13,300 hina dolls, a number paying homage to the 133-meter length of the area’s famous Nachi Falls (Travel Vision 2016). 38 5. Analysis The first time I ever visited the Japanese countryside was while I was a university student studying abroad in Hokkaido. I had travelled with my cohort of about fifteen fellow exchange students as part of our Japanese Cultural Experiences class that met once a week to practice various “Japanese” activities: tea ceremony, rice planting, zazen meditation, furoshiki wrapping techniques, and kimono wearing. This trip to Akaigawa, a village about an hour’s drive from Sapporo, was our longest immersive activity of the program, lasting three nights and four days during the summer of 2015. Our visit consisted of cultural activities and cooking with the village elementary school students, touring local farms and helping harvest and sort produce for sale, homestays with local villagers, and visiting nearby tourist destinations. A decade after this trip to Akaigawa what I remember most are elements of the Japanese countryside: fresh-picked produce bursting with flavor, bright stars twinkling in the pitch-black night sky unobstructed by artificial light pollution, and hospitality from local villagers. Akaigawa, a village with a population of just over a thousand residents and an economy primarily reliant on agriculture and tourism, may be particularly successful in its marketing of quaint village life to visitors like my cohort of exchange students.22 However, Akaigawa is 22 Akaigawa is a member village of the non-profit Association of the Most Beautiful Villages in Japan (“Nihon de Mottomo Utsukushii Mura” Rengō 「日本で最も美しい村」連合), a chapter of the Federation of the Most Beautiful Villages of the World, which seeks to promote regional revitalization through local economic development. This organization was created in the face of the Great Heisei Consolidation (Heisei no Daigappei 平成の大合併) of 1999–2010 in which towns and villages were merged to produce half as many municipalities with the aims of decentralizing local government and sustaining communities in response to population decline and weakening financial security. The criteria for membership in the Association of the Most Beautiful Villages in Japan include having a village population of under ten thousand people, identifying two or more specific local resources that are based on landscape or cultural uniqueness, and implementing activities that preserve the village’s self-identified unique local resources. 39 certainly not an outlier when it comes to Japanese rural areas’ use of the furusato trope—an image of a nostalgic rustic landscape undisturbed by wanton urbanization brought about by globalization—and other markers of Japanese national identity to entice visitors to the countryside for tourism under the auspices of community revitalization. The town of Katsuura similarly employs the concept of furusato and nostalgia in its tourism promotion and community revitalization initiatives. The Big Hinamatsuri and other celebrations capitalize on several elements that are unique to its rural situation in order to repurpose them for a gaze nostalgic for a pre-industrial past. In particular, the Big Hinamatsuri makes use of the accumulation and disuse of customary relics, such as hina dolls, that remain in ancestral homes in the countryside and which have more practical storage space than their urban counterparts, as well as grassroots organization borne out of small community ties and the appeal of rural aesthetics to transport tourists to a seemingly authentic recreation of the past. To better understand the processes at work in rural identity making, I begin my analysis by providing background on regional revitalization in Japan, the concept of furusato, and the role of the Japanese tourism industry in (re)producing nativist identity. Regional revitalization has long been on the Japanese government’s radar and positioned as a key policy since the population began to steadily decline in 2008. The reasons why population decline would prompt a government to take serious countermeasures may be intuitive—having fewer people leads to a shortage of labor which in turn weakens the economy—and is only exacerbated by domestic migration to urban areas such as Tokyo, which 40 now accounts for over one third of Japan’s total population.23 The overcrowding of urban centers with new urbanites who are primarily young people leaving the countryside in search of increased education, broader employment opportunities, and a more convenient lifestyle creates a precarious situation for these rural areas that see little inbound domestic migration of residents. As depopulation of rural areas poses major problems for local economies, one of the main ways the Japanese government has attempted to stimulate the economy and bring people back to the countryside is through tourism. Tourism trends show us what is considered an attractive, marketable draw for consumers and tourism initiatives typically capitalize on symbols of regional, and subsequently national, identity. Over the years, the Japanese government has rolled out various travel and tourism campaigns that leverage the furusato trope: the imagined landscape and aesthetic of rural life harkening back to a nostalgic, comparatively better collective past. Furusato can be translated into a variety of words in English—home village,24 hometown, birthplace, native place, old village, home. In Japanese, the Sinographs most commonly associated with furusato are 故郷 (lit. “past” + “native place”) and 古里 (lit. “old” and “birthplace”), though furusato is more commonly written in the kana syllabary as ふるさと, signifying a preference for the native Japanese word over the Sinitic loanword to represent a cultural authenticity found and produced solely in Japan (Robertson 1991, 14-15). In contrast to the English equivalent for denotating birthplace or hometown (or the answer to “Where are you 23 This number is based on calculations for the Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Yamanashi, Ibaraki, Gunma, and Tochigi in addition to the Tokyo Metropolis. The Tokyo Metropolis alone holds about eleven percent of the country’s population. 24 I borrow Millie Creighton’s (1997) translation of furusato as “home village” to encapsulate the nuances of Japanese community life over the North American “hometown.” 41 from?”), furusato implies a connection to an ancestral place, regardless of if one has actually lived there or not. Furthermore, it evokes a particular image of a rustic landscape filled with resplendent nature. Green forested mountains with lush rice fields blanketing the valley enclosed within, thatched-roof houses dotting the greenery bisected by meandering rivers, and clear skies: all symbols that draw on a lifestyle aesthetic filled with a rustic, unsophisticated sense of simplicity that is encapsulated by the term soboku 素朴 (Robertson 1991, 13). Together, this imagined landscape and aesthetic are deployed to tug on the heartstrings of the Japanese consciousness and harken back to a nostalgic, comparatively better collective past. Jennifer Robertson (1991) refers to this affective appeal as the “landscape of nostalgia” that has been deliberately evoked through the process of furusato-zukuri, or native place-making. Furusato-zukuri utilizes the furusato trope in policy, mass media, and the tourism industry to construct belonging on a national and local level through “a political project through which popular memory is shaped and socially reproduced” (14). Just as my 2014 field trip to Akaigawa, a place where one needs only to Google Image Search in order to verify the use of furusato scenery in its dominant portrayals, came about as a part of a school course with the primary objective of teaching the complexity and importance of select symbols of Japanese culture,25 furusato-zukuri continues to play a significant role in reproducing nativist aesthetics as a key component of Japanese national identity. A commonly deployed symbol in furusato-zukuri is the regional festival (matsuri), especially those held at local-level shrines or temples. Festivals in Japan, not unlike their 25 For further discussion on study abroad programs and the dissemination of a hegemonic national identity that focuses on dominant culture to the detriment of peripheral narratives, see Doerr (2018) and Bodinger de Uriarte et al. (2020). 42 European counterparts, have historically served important roles in their communities of practice and are often intertwined with the area’s own historical, religious, and economic development (Porcu and Foster 2021, 18). Contemporarily, festivals tend to go hand-in-hand with tourism marketing: a popular festival serving as the conduit for tourists to visit a specific area and experience a slice of local culture in an immersive environment. Furthermore, through linking festivals to the abstract realm of an idealized past in furusato, a particular festival can evolve to become “generically representative” (Ivy 1995, 12–13) and embody ideas of nationhood—the local becoming a symbol of the nation. Nations, as Benedict Anderson (1983) defines them, are imagined communities that are shaped by dominant ideologies and images in mass media. Consequently, national identity not only portrays the character of a state, but also its interests (Akagawa 2014, 29) and can be expressed in a variety of modes—newspapers, photographs, museums, maps, architecture, censuses, cultural traditions, national language, and landscape. As a facilitator of national identity with its own vested interests, the Japanese government’s endorsement of furusato-zukuri in policy and mass media shows a desire to define itself through negation (Ivy 1995, 26). More than simply imagining the Japanese nation as having collective roots in a distinctive cultural landscape, furusato-zukuri aligns itself in opposition of postwar urban society—an overcrowded, impersonal, and dispassionate globalized society—in favor of interconnected, loving, and compassionate traditional community (Robertson 1991, 24-25). Rural is seen as the antithesis to urban in this definition. This turn in embracing a “rural” identity signifies a growing concern from the Japanese government about a perceived threat of cultural loss and growing disconnection with the nation that have been brought about by modernization and Westernization (Creighton 1997, 242). To 43 solve issues of “homelessness” and incentivize (re)connection to a national narrative of shared history and culture, the Japanese government has championed regional revitalization as an important policy. Regional revitalization incorporates furusato-zukuri projects with the aim of economic rejuvenation to attract visitors and retain residents in rural areas in order to balance urban overcrowding and support aging communities. The Japanese tourism industry, as a function of mass media that propels state ideology, has been a main player in regional revitalization and invites domestic and international visitors alike to participate in the (re)production of identity. Travel campaigns from the late 1900s demonstrate how the Japanese tourism industry has encouraged the (re)discovery of a nativist national identity. Beginning with the Discover Japan campaign of the 1970s, the Japan National Railways sought to promote solitary, small-scale travel to the generically imagined rural landscapes of furusato in its advertising posters and other imagery as a way of reconnecting with the origins of a lost Japanese identity (Ivy 19995, 35). In analyzing the subjects of Discover Japan’s advertisements, Millie Creighton notes that the dominant image portrayed was of a single young urbanite Japanese woman against the backdrop of an obscure rustic scene, such as unnamed temples and forests, emphasizing the encounter of the subject and the landscape in stark comparison to conventional tourist promotions that focus on identifiable famous icons (1997, 245). Discover Japan and its juxtaposition of the urbanite’s self-discovery of a lost authentic identity paved the way for another travel campaign by the Japan National Railways in the 1980s called Exotic Japan. Exotic Japan built on Discover Japan’s nostalgic imagery by adding a layer of self-exoticism through promoting locations in Japan such as Nagasaki, Mount Kōya, and Kyoto—places with influences from China, Central Asia, and Persia, respectively (Ivy 1995, 48–44 19). The identity of Japan as seen through this campaign no longer hinged on the generic nation’s self, but in its opposition to what it is not: the foreign other. Anthropologist Marilyn Ivy interprets this marketing strategy as appealing to a post-war generation that is more familiar with Western (read: U.S.) influences and to whom Japanese customs and traditions themselves have become exotic (1995, 54). The common thread for these two travel campaigns lies in the journey home to a nostalgic past, drawing consumers into a trip that encounters a purported authentic Japanese culture. Through this marketing of symbols of Japanese tradition and rural Japan, Millie Creighton further analyzes the imagined past as helping “today’s Japanese cope with the fear of culture loss in the present, and allow them to move into the future, by promising that somehow the basis of community belongingness associated with a preindustrial past…will not perish in yet another wave of internationalization” (1997, 252). Similar to past travel campaigns’ use of symbols of generic Japanese traditions, the Big Hinamatsuri’s appeal is in general customs and traditions seen as commonly practiced in Japan. Rather than particular types of hina dolls, unique celebrations, or regionalized customs, it represents a tradition easily recognized across Japan as a part of a nativist national identity. Hinamatsuri’s symbolism can be seen through its iconography of Heian court culture, particularly in the style of clothing worn by the dolls, drawing nostalgic connections to a past golden age of Japanese culture through association. The dominant iconography in Hinamatsuri displays harks back to the Heian era (794–1185), a period when the ruling Yamato clan26 sought to establish a distinct cultural identity, 26 The Yamato people, also known as Wajin, are the dominant ethnic group in Japan that are genetically descended from the Yayoi people who migrated from China and Korea and the Indigenous Jōmon people (Ohnuki-Tierney 1993, 31). Since the twenty-first century, the other commonly accepted distinct ethnic groups in Japan are the Ainu and Ryūkyū people. 45 today known as kokufū bunka 国風文化 (“national culture”), that was separate to imported traditions from China and Korea (LaMarre 2000, 3). The creation of a distinct cultural identity of the dominant state influenced the activities of the Heian imperial court system, the culture of which has had lasting influence on contemporary Japanese traditions, including Hinamatsuri and its displays. At the center of the hina doll display are the dairibina 内裏雛 (“imperial palace hina dolls”). These elaborately dressed dolls depict an imperial couple in a marriage ceremony, and surrounding them on descending steps are ladies-in-waiting, court entertainers, servants, and various marriage gifts. The dairibina dolls are often identified in English media and scholarship as the emperor and empress of Japan (Pate 2008, 95), though not all dairibina actually contain specifically identifiable elements linked to either. Garbed in imperial court clothing, the male dairibina (obina 男雛) dolls wear sokutai robes that are reserved for the emperor and for civil and military court officials, and the female dairibina (mebina 女雛) dolls wear the jūnihitoe twelve-layered robes for female court attendants. Today, the clothing style worn by the dairibina dolls can be seen worn by members of the imperial family, who are claimed by some (particularly right-wing nationalists) to be descendants of the Yamato state rulers that established the imperial court system, though most scholars agree that there is little historical evidence backing this claim. Of course, a significant symbol of Japanese national identity to many Japanese citizens, particularly the conservative learning ones, is the center of this ancient to early modern court system: the emperor. As outlined in Japan’s current constitution, the emperor is “the symbol of 46 the State and the unity of the People” (Kenpō 1946, chap. I. art. 1).27 Under the Meiji Constitution of 1890, he held political power as the head of the Japanese Empire. It would be remiss to not highlight that the imperial family across history is seen by many as purveyors of traditional Japanese culture due to this historical background. One of my interlocuters, when asked specifically about what aspect of Japanese culture hina dolls represent to him, responded, “The emperor. If it relates to the emperor it seems quite Japanese. (Tennō desu yo ne te ten ne. Tennō de naru to, nanka Nihonppoi to omoimasu ne. 天皇ですよねって点ね。天皇でなると、なんか日本っぽいなと思いますね。)” However, it is also important to note that the majority of my interlocutors did not explicitly recognize or acknowledge a link between the dairibina dolls and the emperor system, so it is beyond the scope of this study to explore what traces of the emperor appear in the dairibina and the resulting implications their celebration in Hinamatsuri might have, and I will instead focus on the lasting influence the culture of the Heian-era court has had on contemporary Japanese traditions. One of the enduring symbols of Japanese tradition is the kimono, the national dress of Japan. The predecessor to the modern-day kimono clothing can be found in the kosode innermost layer of the jūnihitoe (Valk 2021, 28)—the jūnihitoe being the style of dress worn by the female dairibina doll. The term “kimono” itself, which simply means “thing to wear,” came into common usage during the mid-nineteenth century in response to the growing influence of Western clothing and the need for a word to describe the Japanese clothing style (Valk 2021, 28). Kimono and their use have changed over time, with the wearing of kimono becoming 27 Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, “The Constitution of Japan,” Prime Minister’s Office of Japan, May 3, 1947, https://japan.kantei.go.jp/constitution_and_government_of_japan/constitution_e.html. 47 increasingly standardized and incorporating stricter rules to resemble the more formal use of them today. As an item of national identity, the kimono represents the evolution of the Japanese state itself over time, with various aspects of the kimono industry, historical transformation, and gendered use having been researched by anthropologists of Japan (Valk 2021; Dalby 2001; Goldstein-Gidoni 1999). By using recognizable symbols of Japanese culture and tradition such as hina dolls and kimono, public festivals like the Big Hinamatsuri can be seen as performing a cultural identity that (re)constructs a community’s notions of authenticity (Magliocco 2001, 168) based on cultural heritage. When examining the town of Katsuura as a representative of rural areas, this identity can be interpreted as one that upholds traditional practices as a center of authentic Japanese culture in opposition to urban areas where such practices were first shirked in favor of global/Western cultural expressions of identity. Examining the Big Hinamatsuri from the perspective of tourism theory provides additional considerations for understanding the appeal of this festival from a tourist’s point of view. Social scientist Dean MacCannell has posited that tourism absorbs some of the social functions of religion in constructing meaningful experiences of society that are often missing in modern life; in other words, that touristic motivations are shaped by a desire for authentic experiences (MacCannell 1973, 597). The caveat here is that the search for authenticity is often hopeless—what is viewed as “authentic” varies largely depending on one’s understanding of the processes behind the creation of a tourist destination—but ultimately lies in the perceived genuineness on display. Japanese visitors to the Big Hinamatsuri, especially those who do not celebrate Hinamatsuri in their own homes and recognize it as a nostalgic custom, may feel that partaking in the Big Hinamatsuri’s celebrations connects them to Japanese traditions. For non-48 Japanese tourists, visiting the Big Hinamatsuri may be an experience of “authentic” Japanese culture; that is, lived Japanese culture that is presented by local organizations representing their own community interests. Expanding on MacCannell’s theories (1976), tourists seek authentic experiences beyond staged “front” regions that are built up for the purposes of sightseeing and desire to experience the unscripted “back” regions of a destination’s real, everyday use. When this notion is applied to Katsuura, a place that has embraced Hinamatsuri as a way to revitalize the entire town, the “front” region of staged performance can be seen as the Big Hinamatsuri event space. The staged performance here comes with its beginnings as a local government backed initiative and its location in a lumbermill building that lacks a personal history of doll display—a history that can be perceived as “inauthentic.” Conversely, the “back” region can be interpreted as the other Hinamatsuri events and displays throughout town—grassroots efforts put on in front of residents’ real homes and businesses where visitors can get a glimpse of local life and daily use of these neighborhoods. Hinamatsuri in the Sakamoto neighborhood in particular supports this position. From the repurposing of a former elementary school as an exhibition space, traditional kominka country houses to view doll displays at, and kimono wearing experiences during the festival period, the Sakamoto Hinamatsuri events play off additional nostalgic symbols of Japanese traditions and heritage to create immersive activations of the neighborhood. This embodied experiencing of nostalgic locations and customs—ones seemingly still used by local residents—aims to transport tourists back to an authentic recreation of the past. The past assuages fears of disconnection in the modern world brought about by increasing Westernization and rural depopulation, thereby reaffirming cultural identity and reassuring a return to a furusato of shared values and belonging. 49 6. Conclusion Community revitalization has become a topic of heightened concern for a wide range of interest groups. From federal government agencies who see repopulating regional areas as the sustainable solution to urban overcrowding to anthropologists who lament the loss of peripheral traditions as successive generations able to carry them on disappear, nearly everyone has an opinion on how community revitalization should be undertaken and the best method to do so. The research outlined in this thesis has investigated community revitalization from the lens of tourism promotion, using Katsuura’s Big Hinamatsuri as a case study to analyze the symbols and processes that are selected for tourism initiatives in rural areas. More specifically, this thesis has explored how Japanese nationhood is reproduced at the local level to advance community revitalization through examining how the rural contains symbols of the nation. The town of Katsuura did not have any specific ties itself to the folk custom of Hinamatsuri that underpins the Big Hinamatsuri prior to its establishment, but rather the theme of Hinamatsuri was chosen as a community revitalization tourism initiative due to the ubiquity of hina dolls abandoned in houses in the countryside and the widespread recognition of a tradition celebrated nationwide. The Big Hinamatsuri’s appeal is in general expressions of Hinamatsuri, using symbols of generic Japanese traditions instead of regionally specific ones. Rather than particular types of hina dolls, unique celebrations, or regionalized customs, it represents a tradition easily recognized across Japan as a part of a nativist national identity. Hinamatsuri’s symbolism can be seen through its iconography of Heian court culture, particularly in the clothing worn by the dolls, drawing nostalgic connections to a past golden age of Japanese culture for many Japanese people. These symbols of national identity allowed the Big 50 Hinamatsuri to expand and spread to other regions over time, appealing to a nostalgia towards vanishing folk practices central to Japanese national identity. As sociologist Bella Dicks (2003) writes, places have become exhibitions of themselves, curating a set of cultural values central to their identity in order to attract tourists. Katsuura, a town which has adopted the nickname of “The Hina Doll Village” (Hina no Sato ひなの里), exhibits values of connectedness to Japanese traditions and customs through the specific symbolism of hina dolls used in tourism promotion and community revitalization. In turn, hina dolls represent a pattern in rural areas’ use of invented traditions of Japaneseness to market themselves as authentic sites of interconnectedness and belonging: the antidote to Westernization/globalization and its accompanying loss of national self. This thesis explored how Katsuura incorporates notions of Japanese national identity into its community revitalization initiatives through the town’s creation of the Big Hinamatsuri. By examining the close association of the Big Hinamatsuri with Katsuura’s image and tourism promotion, national identity is reproduced using tourism as a conduit for community revitalization. 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Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Anthropology
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Creighton, Millie R.
Handing down dolls and traditions : the Big Hinamatsuri and community revitalization in Tokushima, Japan
Text