Customer Reviews

Pictorial Encyclopedia of Japanese Life and Events

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This book details the festivals and holidays by month and where to go to view and participate. As a gaijin (foreigner) to Japan it has allowed us to experience Japan as a local and enjoy the wonderful customs and culture

This little book is filled with large, high quality color pictures of Japanese festivals and holidays, and supplemented by small descriptions (usually 1-3 paragraphs). This book is great for a quick overview of how many of the traditional Japanese festivals are being celebrated today in modern Japan. The descriptions are concise and only briefly discuss the origin or significance. Despite how small the descriptions are, they are great for getting a general idea of what goes on during the events. The biggest selling point of this book, however, are the hundreds of full color photos that augment these descriptions. Even if you bought a scholarly book about the same holidays and topics, you wouldn't actually see what is like. This book puts pictures everywhere to see how the festivals actually look.

If you want a concise and easy to understand overview of Japanese holidays and events, look no further. The pictures and descriptions should be more than enough to satisfy your curiosity (or set the foundation for future research). You could probably flip through the entire book in an hour or two, but you really should just read it a bit at a time and take it all in.