Tōrō nagashi (灯篭流し) is a Japanese ceremony in which participants float paper lanterns (chōchin) down a river. This is primarily done on the last evening of the Buddist Obon festival as a way to guide the spirits of the departed back to the other world. Obon takes place on the 13 to 16 of August or July, depending on the calendar you go by. The white lanterns are for those who have died in the past year. Some Japanese believe that we come from water, so the lanterns represent our bodies returning to water (the sea).
