“Sato-gaeri”: The Culture of Population Mobility During The Bon Festival in Kikai-jima, Amami Island, Japan

“Sato-gaeri”: The Culture of Population Mobility During
The Bon Festival in Kikai-jima, Amami Island, Japan

In the 1960s, many people left their village for cities or urban centres in Japan to get a job or to study continuously and this is the beginning of the families which left villages and did not comeback. The conditions of this depopulation drove me to conducts this research on the phenomena of people returning to their home town (satogaeri) during the Bon festival. For the purposes of this study, qualitative approach was employed to gain in-depth knowledge related to the people moved to cities and the families are left behind. The study was conducted in Japan there are the Kikai Island, Kagoshima City, Uji-Shi, Nagoya City, Kobe –Nishinomiya, and Osaka in Japan.
The Bon festival for Kikai-jima people is exist but not all the families lives in mainland Japan come to home. On the condition, especially for old people did not very happy because not all the children gathered in home. The most of linkage the Kikai-jima people lives in mainland and the family live behind only for appreciate as to send the parcels for ancestors or telphon call with her or his mother and father. For the family live behind the situation as usually and to understand about the situation. But, some of Kikai-jima people lives