Homecoming in Obon

I always realize it is a season of Obon when all the grass in the edge of the paddies and gardens, roadside and paths are cut in the heat of the mid-summer. Old people in the villages like to keep their house, gardens and paddies tidy. And especially before the Obon season, they want them cozier than ever. It is because this is the season when their ancestors visit them from the world after. Obon is more or less like Halloween in the western culture. On the first day of Obon, people will go to graveyard to welcome the spirits of their ancestors, and they will send them back after several days staying together in their home. Naturally, they want their home tidy to welcome the spirits.
But there is another reason. In Obon season, many office are closed, and their sons and daughters now living in the city will come home with their children. The old people in the villages want to welcome their descendant more than their ancestors, even if they deny. Older people always love to see their grandchildren anywhere in the world.
Bon dancing will be held in the middle of the village. In many case, the population of the villages are too small to make a dancing circle, and there are no dancing in those villages. In other cases, the festivities of the Bon-Odori are just as the same in the old days, with children coming from the cities.

I know how those children feels, because I was one of them many years ago. They don't have a good time because they don't feel at home in their grandparents' village. They might be interested in some strange things in a strange place. There are old wares they will never see in the city. They might be thrilled pushing a one-wheeled cart around or cut weeds with their sticks. But soon they will be lost, frightened. They will seek their parents who drink beer and talk something they don't understand. Even the language they use sounds strange. They want their daily life back, don't want the festivity of the Bon-Odori.

Still, the slim chance of survival of the mountain villages in Japan lies in these homecoming in Obon season. If the sons and daughters in the city will never bring their children back in the place where their parents live, eventually, there will be no one in the city who knows there still exist such a place as a mountain village. They surely will think it vanished long ago, with nursing stories they heard when they were babies.
There is still a hope that someday those children will return to their ancestors' place to save the mountain villages. I think it is not likely to happen, but there are people hoping it will be.
At least, the old people in the villages will always welcome their grandchildren back.