Vanishing Japan: Traditions, Crafts & Culture

Pawnshops and handmade paper, shoe shiners and Shinto jugglers, money rakes and mosquito netting - all these were once a familiar part of daily life in Japan. Many elements of that daily life, like the Obon dances and oreiboko apprenticeships, have no counterpart in any other culture. But with the tremendous changes of the modern age, most traces of traditional life in Japan are fast disappearing. Still, there are a few holdouts, especially in Japan's shitamachi, or working-class neighborhoods. In Vanishing Japan, Elizabeth Kiritani sets out to record the vanishing phenomena of what was once daily life for the residents of these neighborhoods.