Journeys in Japan

The Festival for the Wind (4x33)

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For over 300 years, people in the town of Etchu-Yatsuo, in Toyama Prefecture, have held a festival in early September. The 11 local communities get together to hold a traditional festival, called "Owara Kaze no Bon" to pray to the god of the wind for calm weather and bountiful crops. The local people parade through their neighborhoods all night long, dancing to music played on stringed instruments, kokyu and shamisen. Only unmarried men and women up to their age of 25 can take part. On this episode of Journeys in Japan, our traveler is an Iranian student, Sara Ariafar. She meets with local people as they prepare for the big day...a 24-year-old woman who will be dancing for the last time, and kokyu players who are keeping on their long family tradition.