Kimono Anthropology

Unbeknownst to them, the proprietors of the online kimono dealer Ichiroya send out weekly emails of self ethnography. They are truly insightful and tell news worthy information about life in Japan that CNN or BBC could never imagine. They (husband and wife them Ichiro and Yuka) write about history, politics, and anything else that might effect their Kimono and traditional handicraft business.
Since I have not asked permission to publish any of these emails, I will give you their website and an blurb from the newsletter. If you feel inclined asked to be put on their mailing list.

An excerpt from the news letter: We came to live in this town two years ago, and this year, we had to be one of hancho(leader) of this community association. There are 8 groups in this area, each group has about 20 houses The houses started to be built about 16 years ago, and in the past 10 years, they had kept this summer bon odori festival.The festival needs quite a lot of preparation, so there was a log of discussion but since small kids are looking forward to this event and in this summer holiday season, many families come back to meet their parents taking their kids, so grandpa and grandma living in this area can take their grandchildren to the festival, so we have decide do continue this event. This year it was supposed to be held on oater August 23rd, but we had to postpone to Sunday because of rain, and we had to set to the earlier time instead of night.Usually many dancers in yukata comes, but because of the postpone, many women dancing group could not come, so it became more like game event for children, but we found many adults were having fun too.
email: info@ichiroya.com
Website: http://www.ichiroya.com/