"Sado Island" Tourism Pamphlet 📖 "Memories of Sado Once More" Flexi Disc 🎶 Niigata Kotsu Co., Ltd.
[Introduction to Niigata Paper Ephemera] 🧐
"Sado Island" Tourism Pamphlet 📖
"Memories of Sado Once More" Flexi Disc 🎶
Niigata Kotsu Co., Ltd.
A set consisting of a guidebook pamphlet and a flexi disc (thin record) featuring folk songs, produced by Niigata Kotsu for passengers on their Sado sightseeing buses.
A quintessential example of a tourist souvenir from that era, capturing both the scenery of the destination and the memories of the trip in both paper and record form 📖
[Commentary on Contents, etc.] 🧐
⚫︎ The flexi disc contains Sado folk songs such as "Aikawa Ondo," recorded by the singers and musicians of the Niigata Kotsu Folk Song Research Society, and the liner notes on the jacket feature the catchy slogan, "Even the bus driver sings."
It suggests that the songs were so well-loved that the bus drivers themselves would sing them for passengers on board, and the lyrics for Sado Okesa, Aikawa Ondo, and Ryotsu Jinku are also included.
It is clear that this was not just background music, but a planned product designed to let visitors take the folk culture of Sado home with them.
⚫︎ The pamphlet is structured to cover a wide range of information necessary for a tourist guide, including an overview of Sado, annual events, history, scenic spots, performing arts, local cuisine, souvenirs, and dialects.
Although what is shown is only a portion, it conveys just how packed with content those bus tours were at the time.
⚫︎ The annual events section lists festivals month by month, such as the Cherry Blossom Festival, Mine Festival, Ryotsu Tanabata Festival, and Aikawa Festival, and industrial data on the Sado gold and silver mines, fisheries, and livestock is also concisely summarized. The introduction to scenic spots features photos of Senkaku Bay, the Osado Skyline, and the ruins of the Sado gold mine tunnels, while the performing arts section covers traditional Sado arts like Bunya puppet theater, Harukoma, and Noh. With the inclusion of a guide to local dialects, it possesses the character of an introductory book on Sado culture that goes beyond a simple tourist guide.
📖 "Tourism memories to listen to and read" as told by paper—songs on the bus and a pamphlet left in your hands.
By combining these two paper media, it was designed to allow travelers to take home memories of their trip through both sound and text.
The fact that a sightseeing bus company at the time was independently producing folk song records is fascinating in itself, and it is rare to find the pamphlet and flexi disc remaining as a set. As a document conveying the history of Sado tourism and the planning history of Niigata Kotsu, as well as a collectible item that brings the tourism culture of the Showa era to the present, I believe this is a highly valuable piece 😌
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