The long time popularity of the championship seems to reflect how much people miss their hometowns and old days. In Japan, many people leave their hometowns to enroll in universities, or to start working. It's not easy to meet people who were born and raised in Tokyo. People from outside Tokyo tend to get tired of living in the spiritual desert, Tokyo. A few months ago, it was reported that the long term popularity of a Japanese restaurant in Shinbashi/新橋, Tokyo was because the restaurant had a way of reminding its customers of their old days in their hometowns. (Shinbashi/新橋 is popular with a lot of businessmen as an entertainment town). In the restaurant, there are shelves of notebooks; each notebook has the name of a high school written on its spine (click here). ts customers are free to read them. If you find one with the name of your high school, you can leave your comments in it. If there isn't one, you can add a new notebook for your high school. Many comments written by people from the same school or same town make you unwind, and encourage you to struggle on your life in Tokyo (click here).
Although I've moved many times since I was a little girl, I've never missed my hometown (I could say that Osaka is my hometown). However, I always feel closer to people from my high school than from my university when I first get to know them after graduation. I don't know why.
