Ghost Conference held in Hiroshima Prefecture
From Yahoo News:
More than 1,200 people from across Japan turned the secluded basin of Miyoshi into a ghost town of sorts for a late-summer weekend bash dubbed the “World Ghost Conference.”
Showing up in ghost costumes, participants ranging from elderly who grew up on folk tales to young people raised on video games marched to the sound of bamboo flutes and hand drums after joining a risible but serious debate on “spectrology.”
edit: As Don points out, the article translates yokai, which is like a traditional spirit creature type thing, as “ghost”. It’s not really the same as dead people floating around.
Anyway, ghosts seem to be pretty popular in Japan. Kids classes I teach seem to be obsessed with ghost stories and ghost-related books. I’ve met quite a few people here who swear they’ve seen some. I have been to a few ‘haunted’ places in Japan, but I have yet to encounter one.
