Meanwhile, foreign tourists are flooding into Japan each month, with total visitor numbers and spending poised to smash records this year.
Many visitors are drawn to experience things as they were in the Edo period of “Shogun”, said Naomi Mano, president of Tokyo-based travel agency Luxurique.
“We are an island country, and in the Edo period, everything was secluded,” Mano said. “Now we’re in a phase where we’re actually trying to get people to understand why we do things or the way we did our traditions.”