"Crowds cheer as young men balance bamboo poles up to 40-feet high with lanterns on their hands, heads, hips and shoulders. It's a centuries-old tradition unique to Japan's Akita Prefecture. Only men are allowed to touch the poles and be sashite, or pole carriers. The women play flutes and drums. One pole carrier is New Zealand college student, Raz Tripp (ph). He says Kanto is rooted in Japan's Shinto religion."
"Miwa Sawano (ph) is a college senior and former Kanto club member. She accepts Kanto's gender roles as part of Akita's traditional culture, but she objects to the club's drinking parties with local residents. MIWA SAWANO: (Through interpreter) Things like sexual harassment happen. Kanto performers wear shorts, and girls' legs get touched a lot by the local men. KUHN: Akita has the most aged population, the lowest birth rate and the fastest rate of population decline of Japan's 47 prefectures."
Japan has more elderly adults than any major nation and is losing nearly a million people a year, with as many as 750 towns and villages at risk of vanishing by mid-century. Rural areas like Akita Prefecture face the steepest declines, with the oldest populations and the lowest birth rates. Centuries-old traditions restrict certain roles to men, and social practices in villages include harassment and exclusion that make young women uncomfortable. Many young women leave rural areas seeking better jobs and to escape gender discrimination, a migration that deepens demographic decline and reduces births.
Read at www.npr.org
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