Japanese culture tours for foreign tourists
A 10-minute clip about special tours for foreign tourists visiting Japan (from Real Time News):
The report says that tours offering foreigners a chance to experience Japanese culture are particularly popular. Two examples are given.
The first tour shown is of a “samurai dojo” in Tokyo where foreigners are given a chance to experience sword fighting. After watching a few professionals who do sword fighting in movies and TV shows demonstrate some techniques, the foreign tourists are given a chance to swing around some wooden swords. An Israeli woman who participated in the tour tells the reporter that she had a lot of fun and she might use some of the techniques she learned in the next fight she has with her husband. (The tour costs 12,000 yen per person, and is organized by HIS.)
Most foreign tourists who visit Japan spend some time in Tokyo, so nearby Saitama is trying to attract some of them to its famous sites. The Saitama prefectural government and HIS have started a “True Japan” tourism program that urges foreigners to “Come to SAITAMA, Next to TOKYO.” The second tour shown in the news report is their “Wear Kimono in Kawagoe with Onsen, Dinner and Samurai Geisha show” tour.
The tour group consists of five foreigners and three Japanese people. After some initial explanation of the contents of the day’s tour, they are taken to a kimono rental shop. While they are trying on kimonos, the shopkeeper tells the camera that foreign tourists tend to pick color combinations that few Japanese people would choose. The foreigners seem pretty happy with their kimonos, but the narrator of the report notes that they are a little too tall for what they are wearing and some of them must wear zori that are too small for their feet. (Apparently HIS, which charges each tourist 13,800 yen, did not think of preparing a few pairs of larger sandals.)
The kimono-clad foreigners walk through the streets of Kawagoe, sampling local foods and enjoying the atmosphere of the old town. They also attract Japanese onlookers who compliment their beauty and want to take photos with them. The French girl notes that she is used to being on the other side of such exchanges.
Their next stop is an onsen. After listening to a quick explanation in English they are given a chance to relax in the warm hot spring waters. Afterwards, a Spanish guy and an Australian guy who are part of the tour group comment on how the onsen felt great and helped them relax.
While they are at the onsen, something odd is going on at a nearby restaurant/theater. When told that a foreign tour group would be coming, the restaurant staff had assumed that “gaijin” would not like to sit on tatami mat floors, so they set up chairs on top of the tatami. When the foreign tourists found out about the weird arrangement, they insisted on sitting Japanese style.
As they finish their meal, a performance of “Mabuta no Haha” begins on the stage. The play is entirely in Japanese, but the actors insert a bunch of katakana words into the play in an attempt to entertain the foreigners in the audience. Most of the foreigners can’t understand a word of the “English” thrown into the play, but they still get some entertainment value out of it. As the tour ends, most of the foreigners declare that they enjoyed the tour very much.
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