Japan was under blackouts (when the electricty worked) for much of the war, so I doubt it was done during the war years, even though it’s part of an important o-Bon tradition of paying respects to ancestors. People struggled to even have minimal food to eat in those years, and many Kyoto citizens fled to comparative safety in mountain villages. Kyoto too was occasionally bombed (Nishijin and Fushimi, for example, were firebombed), so I suspect blackouts would preclude lighting up the mountainsides.
0 comments
ex-expat says:
Aug 17, 2005
I wonder if this was suspended in 1945? (a day after the Japan announced it would surrender)
nils says:
Aug 17, 2005
Japan was under blackouts (when the electricty worked) for much of the war, so I doubt it was done during the war years, even though it’s part of an important o-Bon tradition of paying respects to ancestors. People struggled to even have minimal food to eat in those years, and many Kyoto citizens fled to comparative safety in mountain villages. Kyoto too was occasionally bombed (Nishijin and Fushimi, for example, were firebombed), so I suspect blackouts would preclude lighting up the mountainsides.