@article{oai:kanagawa-u.repo.nii.ac.jp:00015231,
 author = {ジョン, サイモン},
 issue = {206},
 journal = {人文研究, Studies in humanities},
 month = {Sep},
 note = {Held on May 3–5 during Tango-no-Sekku, now celebrated as Children’s Day in Japan, the Hamamatsu Festival is the pre-eminent event in the annual calendar of one of Japan’s largest cities, Hamamatsu, which lies in Shizuoka Prefecture. With a history of over 200 years, this festival celebrates the arrival of new-born babies into the world. Huge kites are flown into the sky to foretell bright futures for the babies. Re-organized and revived after the destruction of the Second World War as an optimistic symbol of recovery for industrial Hamamatsu, in 1948 around 50 “chō” or “towns” （more like “suburbs” or “localities”） were part of the first postwar festival. While the basic framework is the same, each of these chō has its own “mini-festival” with peculiar traditions and customs passed down over the generations as well as within the associations to which members of the chō belong, particularly the “Kite-Flying Association.” One of the original postwar participants was Chitose-chō, a central locality with a vibrant entertainment and hospitality industry. It is quite welcoming and invites non-Japanese Hamamatsu residents as well as some people from outside the city, such as the author, to participate in a kind of “foreign legion.” The entire city comes to a stand-still during the festival, and there is a large tourism boost with total participation counted at 1–2 million spectators. Socio-cultural and demographic changes have led to several alterations in the conduct of the festival even as the towns continue to preserve many of the old traditions. The greatest of these modifications was the decisions by various towns to open up the festival to celebrating not only the firstborn son, as was traditional, but also subsequent male progeny and even female progeny. The population decline and the availability of space and time are factors that led to these changes. While the festival had continued unbroken annually for over 60 years, the decision was made to cancel it in 2011 in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster. Then, not even 10 years later, it was cancelled again in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and held in a limited format in 2021 （Chitose-chō chose not to participate） and with a slightly expanded format in 2022. Already under strong demographic pressure, each town has been finding it challenging to develop ways to pass on its traditions in the pandemic era. At a time when physical attendance was not possible, the author conducted a study remotely to see both how the additional, unpredictable, and constantly changing pressures of the pandemic have made this process even more difficult and how the local people aim to pass on their knowledge and skills despite these obstacles. The people of Chitose-chō are optimistic and say they will find a way even though they are strongly aware of the challenges.},
 pages = {43--69},
 title = {コロナ禍における浜松まつりの伝承 －千歳町の事例に－},
 year = {2022}
}