The impact of tourism on the authenticity of Japanese traditional culture through the perspective of practitioners of chanoyu, ikebana and noh.

This paper explores how tourism has influenced the authenticity of Japanese traditional cultures such as chanoyu, ikebana and noh, defined as “geido”, due to the rapid increase of the inbound tourism. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, an increasing number of tourists from overseas visited Japan and experienced such traditional cultural practices. However, many of the facilities catering to the tourists were run by amateurs without deep understanding of the traditional practices in question, commercializing the practices seen unauthentic or wrong in the eyes of the expert practitioners. Such commodification challenges the authenticity and continuation of traditional practices undertaken by expert practitioners.This paper explores how the practitioners of traditional culture cope with the commodification of their practices while aspiring to preserve their tradition and authenticity. To discuss commodification and authenticity, the paper uses the key concept of “fueki-ryūkō” described by Basho. This concept divides the culture into fueki, the part that is continuous and the principles of which do not change over time, and the ryūkō, a dynamic part that gradually evolves to reflect the socio-cultural environment of the corresponding era. This paper presents the result of a semi-structured interviews with the expert practitioners of chanoyu, ikebana and noh. The result shows that adhering to the principles of “fueki-ryūkō” promotes the preservation of traditional Japanese culture and helps to co-exist with the commodification.