Hōshi: A Short Documentary on the 1300-Year-Old Hotel Run by the Same Japanese Family for 46 Generations

Hōshi, a tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese inn in Komat­su, Japan, holds the dis­tinc­tion of being the sec­ond old­est hotel in the world—and “the old­est still run­ning fam­i­ly busi­ness in the world.” Built in 718 AD, Hōshi has been oper­at­ed by the same fam­i­ly for 46 con­sec­u­tive gen­er­a­tions. Count them. 46 gen­er­a­tions.

Japan is a coun­try with deep tra­di­tions. And when you’re born into a fam­i­ly that’s the care­tak­er of a 1,300-year-old insti­tu­tion, you find your­self strug­gling with issues most of us can’t imag­ine. That’s par­tic­u­lar­ly true when you’re the daugh­ter of the Hōshi fam­i­ly, a mod­ern woman who wants to break free from tra­di­tion. And yet his­to­ry and strong fam­i­ly expec­ta­tions keep call­ing her back.

The sto­ry of Hōshi Ryokan is poignant­ly told in a short doc­u­men­tary above. It was shot in 2014 by the Ger­man film­mak­er Fritz Schu­mann.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in April, 2015.

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