Hōshi, a tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese inn in Komat­su, Japan, holds the dis­tinc­tion of being the sec­ond previous­est lodge on the planet—and “the previous­est nonetheless run­ning fam­i­ly busi­ness on the planet.” Inbuilt 718 AD, Hōshi has been oper­at­ed by the identical fam­i­ly for 46 con­sec­u­tive gen­er­a­tions. Depend them. 46 gen­er­a­tions.

Japan is a coun­attempt with deep tra­di­tions. And if you’re born right into a fam­i­ly that’s the care­tak­er of a 1,300-year-old insti­tu­tion, you discover your­self strug­gling with points most of us can’t imag­ine. That’s par­tic­u­lar­ly true if you’re the daugh­ter of the Hōshi fam­i­ly, a mod­ern girl who desires to interrupt free from tra­di­tion. And but his­to­ry and robust fam­i­ly expec­ta­tions hold name­ing her again.

The sto­ry of Hōshi Ryokan is poignant­ly advised in a brief doc­u­males­tary above. It was shot in 2014 by the Ger­man movie­mak­er Fritz Schu­mann.

Observe: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish appeared on our website in April, 2015.

If you need to join Open Tradition’s free e-mail newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a good way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in a single e-mail, every day.

If you need to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s onerous to rely 100% on advertisements, and your con­tri­bu­tions will assist us con­tin­ue professional­vid­ing the most effective free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to be taught­ers each­the place. You’ll be able to con­tribute by Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!