Companies in Japan, officially allow Japanese workers to have two long vacations for a whole year – in summer and in winter. We call them “Bon yasumi” (盆休み summer vacation), “Shogatsu yasumi”(正月休み winter vacation) respectively.
Bon yasumi is set for welcoming our ancestors’ souls from the graves of dead ancestors of the family cemetery to present clans’ homes.
Bon festivals take place in the clan’s home around mid-July or mid-August. In this festival a variety foods are offered to the spirits of ancestors, and their repose prayed for.
People who have moved to the cities to work return to their hometowns during this period.
In towns and villages across the country people wearing Yukata(light cotton kimono), gather for outdoor dances known as Bon Odori (盆踊り) and fireworks(花火) for sympathizing with the spirits of the ancestors.
Visiting a family grave manners (墓参り) commonly would be done in Higan(彼岸).Higan is two periods of seven days with the middle day falling the spring or autumn equinox. Higan means “the other shore” or “in nirvana” in English.
Old Japaneses believed that since our ancestors’ spirits may recall during Higan, so visiting family graves means seeing and talking with our ancestors while Buddhist rites carrying out.
However, modern busy lifestyle deprives our time of visiting the family’s grave(墓参り）. Nowadays, Japanese people have a tendency to close their family’s graves. So to speak,people prefer to be buried as joint funeral with others in huge cemetery. Or we have some choices like – burial with plants, burial at ocean, etc.
Then, when it comes to have no time to visit family’s grave, sometime we ask for professional agents who visit our family’s graves in our behalf. Some temples provide users for online Hakamairi. Even though you can’t visit family’s grave physically, don’t worry! you could access to the temple’s site to see your ancestors and dead family members virtually!!