ABSTRACT
The annual meeting of the Asuke Tsukimi-kai (Moon Viewing Society) began promptly at 6:30pm on a late September evening in 2007, out of doors in a courtyard adjacent to the gatehouse at Asuke Yashiki, an authentically recreated rural mountain homestead once typical throughout Aichi and neighbouring prefectures in central Japan until after World War II. Well known as a first-rate cultural heritage tourism site in the region, during the last decade, Asuke Yashiki has often been touted as the model to follow for economic development and community revitalization in Japan's increasing number of depopulated peripheral communities (Iguchi, 2002; Thompson, 2004).
