A bit of insight (although the question certainly isn't solved):
"Anne has been hugely popular in Japan since it was first translated there, in 1952; the story of an outcast rising above adversity through pluck evidently resonated with postwar Japanese, who may have seen parallels to their own situation. (Japanese fans are also fascinated by her hair: the book’s title in Japan is Akage No Anne, or 'Anne of the Red Hair.') Each year, several thousand Japanese visit the island in homage to Anne. In an essay published earlier this year in The Guardian, the novelist Margaret Atwood described asking an audience in Japan about the book’s enduring appeal. She got 32 responses, ranging from the shared love of cherry and apple blossoms to Anne’s ability to stand up to 'that most formidable of Japanese dragons, the bossy older matron.'
In Avonlea, I talked to a 'village resident' in a minister’s collar, who told me he was also a minister in real life and had officiated at more than 500 weddings of Japanese couples, mostly at the Anne of Green Gables Museum."
(Good work, Graham!)
3 comments:
I very much enjoyed the photo of the tourists wearing the fake red braids. According to one of the photos in the slideshow, they rent out the Anne costume so one can have pictures taken while wearing it. Bizarre (though I mean that in a non-judgmental way).
Judge, Graham, judge! Those girls were college aged, for crying out loud!
(I would clearly sew my own dress with puffed sleeves and bring it along...)
The braids (clearly purchased from a gift shop of some kind) do merit some judgment, though I think it's very run-of-the-mill for historically-oriented places (I remember some oddities at Mount Vernon, the last such place I visited). I understand the impulse to sew your own dress and bring it along; I'm baffled as to why you would pay to rent one.
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