Another photo from the Sanja Matsuri in Asakusa, Tokyo. This festival happens every year in May and while there are always a few foreign tourists about, like all matsuri it is an event for the locals. The Japanese love and nurture their culture. The guy in the middle is wearing a fundoshi or loincloth. The remains of the rice crop being dried out for later use over the dry winter months.
Japan is a wonderful contradiction of the old and the new.
In this small town many of the older women were still attired in traditional dress. Girls of three and seven and boys of five dress in either their best or traditional clothes and pay a visit with their parents to the local shrine or temple in order to pray for good fortune in life. Not many boys or men wear traditional dress these days which is a great shame because they look fantastic. The pants, which will be familiar from the old samurai movies, are called hakama. The Tanuki is another sort of mythical creature.