Even the Departed are Abandoning Japan’s Countryside

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Amy Chavez, Even the Departed are Abandoning Japan’s Countryside. Japan Times, July 26, 2015.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/comm ... japans-countryside/
("it is becoming more common these days to move graves to where the family has gone to [ie, cities] * * * It’s more convenient to worship the dead when they’re close, and this way, the entire family doesn’t have to make the long trip back to their hometown. Since people are cremated in Japan, it’s only the contents of the urn [inside a grave] that need to be transferred. So now, in another ironic turn, the dead are pursuing the living!”)

My comment:
(a) The essence of the article is the quotation above. Some Japanese opt not to return annually to countrysides to sweep ancestral graves and pray there, but instead move ashes to cities.  Unlike me, you may not be interested in Japan, to want to read the article.

(b) “In Japan, August brings o-Bon, the Festival of the Dead, when — per Buddhist tradition — the souls of ancestors come back to visit the living. During this four- to five-day period starting Aug 12, special lanterns are set out in front of houses to assist the navigation of the deceased back to their ancestral homes. Offerings of rice and sake are placed in front of the family butsudan (shrine) and the grave sites are ritually cleaned.”
(i) o-Bon お盆 (or Bon festival), where “o” can be written as kanji 御 (to show respect; otherwise meaningless), and 盆 is shorted from 于蘭盆/盂蘭盆.
(ii) In Taiwan, the entire July in LUNAR calendar is 鬼月 (not 盆). No lantern is put out, but an incandescent light bulb is left on in evenings of that month (so that ghosts travel at night will not get lost) -- rarely with cooked rice and sake also--OUT in front of a home. Family butsudan is uncommon in Taiwanese families.
(iii) Bon Festival
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Festival
("The festival of Obon lasts for three days * * * When the lunar calendar was changed to the Gregorian calendar at the beginning of the Meiji era, the localities in Japan reacted differently and this resulted in three different times of Obon”: (A) 関東地方 observes o-Bon in mid-july of solar calendar; (B) most of Japan in mid-August of solar calendar; and (C) a small minority of places in mid-August of LUNAR calendar)
(iv) A family butsudan (kanji 仏壇) is very small in Taiwan, up on a small shelf on the wall (due to lack of living space).  For Ms Chavez to translate “family butsudan” as shrine is simply wrong: In Japan, “shrine” 神社 is reserved for shinto (“temple” 寺 for Buddhism).

(c) “The countryside is symbolic of a time * * * before Bon dances became National Intangible Cultural Treasures.”

Intangible Cultural Property (Japan)  無形文化財
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intangible_Cultural_Property_(Japan)

The term contrasts with
(A) Intangible Cultural Heritage, of UNESCO
(B) Tangible Cultural Property (Japan)  有形文化財.

(d) “And the return of so many people has created its own industry. The minshuku (guesthouses) and ryokan (inns) are full”

ryokan (inn)  旅館
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryokan_(inn)(section 3 Minshuku 民宿)
(e) “our small island of 549 people * * * I’ve known for the past 18 years living on Shiraishi Island * * * the views of the Seto Inland Sea 瀬戸内海”

Together with her Western husband (Google returns do not say whether they have kids), American-born writer Amy Chavez lives in Shiraishijima. See Shiraishi Island  白石島
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiraishi_Island
(part of the municipality of Kasaoka, Okayama Prefecture 岡山県 笠岡市)

(f) “A large truck was waiting at the bottom of the hill and a small Traxcavator had limped up the wide cement steps to the top. There, the machine’s crane was lifting gravestones out of their plot.”
(i) Traxcavator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traxcavator
(ii) Go to images.google.com to see what a Traxcavator looks like.