Anyway, on Wednesday, I moved to Kyoto. The goodbye was a little bit sad, and Michiko loaded me down with so many gifts and mementos that I finally realised why she'd been convinced I'd not fit all my belongings in one suitcase (including things for my parents and girlfriend). But I showed her! Mwahahahaha. Which is to say that I managed to fit it all in (though the resulting suitcase was horrifically heavy). Weight restrictions may become an issue, though conversely I'm 95% done in terms of souvenir shopping, and probably 100% in terms of personal shopping.
The view from the Shinkansen wasn't great, though the leg room was glorious, and I spent the trip reading up on Kyoto (but no human being can memorise all those famous sites in a limited number of readings) and playing the first of my Japanese games on my DS. Of note is a) that I can understand it enough to use the dictionary for confirmation and readings rather than meaning and b) that I instinctively think of how to translate and localise what I'm reading, even though I have no target audience (even if I translated the entire game for my girlfriend, gameplay would be pretty fiddly since she can't read hiragana or kanji yet).
On arrival at Yamashino Station (one away from Kyoto central), I was met by Hiroko, the mother of the family (does that make the other two the maiden and the...old woman?). She is delightful, being aglow with cheerfulness and general life-force (though also sometimes the impenetrable dialect of Kyoto-ben). She has a tendency to go "yoi-sho" as she walks, which seems to have the vague semantic force of "here we go" or "right, then". After I somehow managed to get my suitcase up three flights of stairs to the guest room, I was introduced to the family Daschhunds, Maron and Coron respectively (from Japanese pronunciations of "Maroon" and "Cologne"). One is male, light brown, jumps up and down a lot, and barks frequently (read: whenever I'm in the room, all the time - it hurts my ears and can make conversation difficult). The other is female, black and placid. Both live in a small enclosure like the ones they use for temporary toddler containment.
Maron (bottom) and Coron (top). Haruka named them, thinking of her late father's "Ron-ron", a miscellaneous cool stuff shop aimed at schoolchildren.
We then went out on the dual mission of meeting Haruka, Hiroko's daughter, on her way out of school, and seeing the infamous nearby Kyomizu ("Pure Water") temple, not in that order. With her bouncy energy and a tendency to reflexively point out sites of interest as we pass them, Hiroko made an excellent guide, and also insisted on buying me tasty things, or making me try free ones (thanks to her, I will never forget the Japanese verb for trying something new, even though I'd never heard it before).
Maiko are trainee geisha. Signs such as this were made compulsory after the Forced Cosplay Incident of 2003, which inconveniently coincided with the Prime Minister's visit to Gion's pleasure quarter.
Kiyomizu Temple entrance...
...with bonus Hiroko.
Fountains where you can purify your hands and mouth using a ladle are a standard part of shrines and temples, but this one had a particularly impressive dragon.
View from the legendary stage of Kiyomizu Temple. Source of the expression "to leap from Kyiomizu's stage", which means "to embark on a new endeavour". Taken literally, probably fatal.
The stage, external view.
The triple fountain after which the temple is named. The water is free (though there is a queue), tasty and full of blessings. One catches it with long ladles, and pours into one's hand to drink, though bowls can be purchased. Enterprising old women brought bottles. I was particularly impressed by the ladle slots, which are equipped with ancient Buddhist UV sanitisers.
Finally, after a trip down Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, two consecutive hill streets filled with cool traditional shops, we met up with Haruka and took a taxi back home. I have since learned that Haruka takes a taxi both to and from school - the walk is 50 minutes of hills, and a traffic accident has left her back in less than perfect condition for it (though it doesn't stop her dancing or leading the school's cheerleading squad or oen-dan).
As for Haruka herself, she fits everything I have learned about Japanese high school girls from anime - she is small, incredibly cute (in a bouncy, musically-inclined sort of way) and proficient both with deadly weapons (Japanese bow and arrow) and supernatural powers (total control over the family dogs). That said, she is also a senior, unlike most high school anime protagonists, and thefore has to study a lot. Incidentally, she's 19 - she had to repeat a year of school due to aforementioned accident. We haven't talked too much yet, partly due to mutual shyness and partly due to language barriers (though at some point I have pledged to practice English with her, and I think hers may be better than my Japanese).
Moreover, Haruka has a kitten. Taruto (named after a Japanese sweet) is 4-6 months old, and when she let him out of his cage (like a hamster one, but larger) to play, he was bursting with energy and chasing anything and everything, periodically sliding on the smooth sections of the floor. A most charming if worryingly hyperactive creature. But, to be honest, the notion of keeping household pets locked up in such narrow confines makes me rather uncomfortable.
Taruto, as motionless as I could get him. Photos of him being cuddled by Haruka did not come out due to exceptional blurring. The photography process was made more dangerous by Taruto's commitment to trying to eat my camera strap.
Earlier, upon arrival, Hiroko had subjected me to a detailed interview about my dietary requirements, for which I felt extremely grateful. Unfortunately, the Urushibaras had broken me, and I admitted to the ability to eat just about anything. But no good deed goes unpunished, and the night's dinner consisted of okonomiyaki - Japanese pancake-like things - shrimp and octopus flavour. Probably my least favourite forms of seafood, which in turn is my least favourite form of food. On the plus side, the Saito family meals are slightly closer to what I consider sane portion sizes.
I also met Fumiyo, the matriarch who, as far as I can tell, largely supports the family through her ownership of an apartment block opposite the house. We haven't spoken much, so all I really know about her is that she was born near Lake Biwa (I asked) and has the best wit of anyone I've met in Japan so far.
Hiroko: "Grandma is 75 years old."
Me: [looking at the fairly perky grandmother] "I find that difficult to believe."
Fumiyo: "Please don't try too hard."
It doesn't sound like that much written down, but it came with deadpan delivery, and the Japanese people I've met so far have all been friendly but not so much with the jokes (though perhaps they didn't expect me to get them?).
This is a good place to note that the younger Saitos go to bed late and get up early (12pm - 6am for Hiroko, and not much different for Haruka). As far as I am concerned this is insane (it's six hours of sleep - I need eight to ten depending on quality), and getting up for the 7.30 breakfast may have contributed to the next day's tiredness (I've tried going back to sleep for an hour or two afterwards, but with limited success).
Before that, though, I was treated to digital camera footage, primarily of the previous day's sports festival (though also of Haruka in a group performance at a dance school - I didn't complain). While Haruka did participate in events such as the three-legged race (also the four-legged race, with three people per team) and the kibasen (three people make a chariot; the fourth is a rider who must divest other riders of their headbands while keeping her own; only after being told this can I believe that this event of brilliance was not made up for the purposes of anime), her true contribution was as leader of the cheerleading squad, so this is mostly what I was shown. After some reasonably standard (if pretty) group dancing came the awesome part. 450 girls (it being a single-sex school) lined up in a block of about 10 by 45 (totally guessing here), wearing all-black. Then they started singing, and, as they sang, they alternately hid and revealed white gloves (for another song, white jackets), making a variety of images ripple across the arena in rhythm with the song. It was quite stunning, and a lot moreso once I relalised that they were singing the full version of Cruel Angel's Thesis, the opening theme to Neon Genesis Evangelion. Truly, there is nothing like a cheerleading captain who's also an anime fan.
At any rate, the next day (yesterday) I set out for South Higashiyama - the same area as before, using Kyoto's extensive bus network. My initial objective was Sanjusangendo - the 33-Bay Hall, technically known as Rengeou-in. I found it quickly, in spite of Hiroko's simple map - after foolishly allowing her to give me her own map to the Internet cafe instead of Haruka's more complex one today, I have realised that each of her maps is perfect with one slight error (say, a mark on the wrong side of the road) that results in lots of getting lost. Forgive me, o Haruka, for neglecting the map you painstakingly drew at the breakfast table this morning.
[real-time interruption] I've moved from the cheaper open seats to a private cubicle after deciding I couldn't tolerate the snores of the sleeper across the room any longer. Sadly, the private cubicle, though more expensive, is also worse in various ways, from dim lighting to a smaller screen and a space bar that goes "click", as well as a pre-tabbed browsing version of IE).
That aside, Sanjusangendo was magnificent. After depositing my shoes in a suitable rack, I walked into the hall itself, named after the 33 bays between its pillars. At either end of the hall, the ancient deities Raijin and Fujin (Lightning God and Wind God, almost literally) guard the premises. Between them are statues of the 28 guardian deities - and 1001 statues of Kannon. The Kannons are each thousand-armed in theory. In fact, they have 42 arms each, but this is OK because each one saves 25 worlds. In the middle lies a much grander and very impressive statue of Kannon. To be honest, apart from marvelling at the scale of the thing, I was more impressed with the guardian deities. They were marvellously sculpted, and each one had a tablet explaining their name, origins (traced as far back as Indian Buddhism, and occasionally beyond, with original names) and interesting facts (such as deviations from traditional portrayals). Photos were very forbidden (signs threatened compulsory camera checks, though I wasn't subjected to one). There were also explanations of the now-ceased Tooshi-ya archery contest, where once a year archers would compete to shoot the most arrows at a target in the temple over 24 hours. The world record holder, from the Meiji era, shot over 13000 arrows, at an average of about 9 per minute, and apparently the majority hit.
This is the one temple so far where I bought a souvenir for myself - the expensive (1000 Yen) version of the guidebook contained excellent photos of each statue, as well as English and Japanese versions of those explanatory tablets I was enamoured with. It's a great resource both for learning more about Japanese Buddhism (did I mention that half of these deities also turn up in Japanese RPGs?) and getting rare religious vocabulary.
Sanjusangendo, main hall. Very, very long.
Kyoto is made up primarily of three things: temples, shrines and schoolkids on trips. The proportions are roughly equal.
A small garden off to the side of the temple. Nearby, a heron poses for the cameras with minimal motion.
I decided to disregard Hiroko's suggestion of visiting Toufukuji temple next, on the logic that it was near Kyoto Station and I could explore it at my leisure as part of that area. Instead, I stayed in South Higashiyama. After establishing that the Kyoto National Museum across the road was temporarily closed (of course), I decided to follow, roughly, the walking guide in the LP guidebook, missing out the already visited Kiyomizu-dera.
The cult of Cthulhu is alive and well in Japan, judging from these sculptures. No better explanation was forthcoming.
Yasuka Pagoda, noteable for its five-tier height, age and complete impossibility of finding the entrance to the surrounding temple. Admittedly, I was a little lost at this point.
Around this point, I got an unexpected phone call from Michiko wanting to make sure I was OK. It was very sweet of her, though a little annoying to be parented so much on my long-awaited independent journey. I feel that, given those at home get an average of three hours' daily writing on my movements, and those in Japan the immediate evidence of me being fine, my outdoor time should be spent exploring Japan, not assurring people that I'm capable of doing so. Conversely, I'm very grateful that my dad's phone calls only come when I'm resting at home, by prior arrangement.
Ninen-zaka, lengthy and picturesque.
Having eventually found my way back to the route, I looked into a small alleyway billed as one of Tokyo's most beautiful old streets (it was very old and had a good atmosphere, but was totally unphotographable) as well as a fairly shameless arcade advertising "shops selling traditional Japanese goods". Incidentally, the whole "please enter willingly" business cropped up a few more times - this Kyoto expression (go-kiraku ni) would be better translated as "please enter at your leisure" or some such.
My next target was Kodai-in, a temple founded by Kita-no-Mandokoro (commonly known as Nene) in honour of her late husband, the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. However, having ascended to the plateau at the entrance, I spotted another, smaller temple, one not even on the LP map, and my intuition told me to investigate. That is how I met Ryozen Kannon.
Ryozen Kannon in all her glory. The statue is only about 50 years old, which may account for the extreme lack of tourists. They don't know what they're missing.
The temple and the statue were built largely to honour the victims of World War II, and the temple contains a Memorial to the Unknown Soldier to pay respect to all the foreign soldiers who died on Japanese and Japan-controlled soil. The graveyard outside was striking, even though I couldn't read the kanji on most of the inscriptions. We're not talking Yasukuni Shrine here (which commemorates Japanese war dead, including Class-A war criminals) - this was the real deal, and one of the memorials was dedicated to fallen Koreans.
Not all readers may be aware that Japanese has a tricky relationship with its military past. There's still a lot of denial about atrocities committed in China and Korea by Japanese militarism during WWII and before, and Yasukuni Shrine is still visited by certain prominent politicians every year on the anniversary of Japan's defeat - even though they know this is viewed very coldly by foreign observers. None of that was felt here.
The temple was nearly abandoned, even by resident monks (though there were a few). You could tell that it was a genuine temple, inhabited and used for worship, rather than a tourist trap - not that there weren't plenty of opportunities to pay for incense to burn for departed relatives and such, but it all somehow felt real and not at all tourist-inclined.
A small prayer hall in the middle of the mausoleum. Note the notice on the bottom left, illegible from this angle.
Detail of the notice, and final proof that this temple is the real deal. I took them up on all parts of the offer (which, by the way, was a significant expansion of the accompanying Japanese).
Inside of the prayer hall. That I was permitted to photograph this is remarkable given the typical blanket ban on photography inside halls and of indoor holy objects. That said, the Buddha statue in the recess was covered in a mystical cloud that darkened it to the point of invisibility, no matter what camera mode I used.
A Jizou shrine.
The above photo deserves greater elaboration. The little things lined on the shelves are Jizou statues, each placed as a prayer for Jizou to look after a dead child. They number in the thousands, the shelves labelled numerically to allow worshippers to find their own statue. The mini-windmills, children's toys and thus offerings to Jizou, spin whenever the wind blows. A few ema hang near the larger shrine, bearing letters written to the children every New Year by their parents. The sense of sorrow emanating from the shrine is somehow more potent than any of the emotions aroused by other sites of worship.
The next few pictures are fairly self-explanatory and come from the Memorial to the Unknown Soldier (incidentally, when I paid the entry fee for the temple, I was given a stick of incense I could light at the central incense cauldron). The care that went into putting all this together is amazing, especially given the temple's apparent obscurity.
A side note here about something I've been pondering since the Meiji Shrine. This is purely subjective, of course, but it feels to me like some places here have spiritual power and some don't. Whether you attribute it to indwelling divinity, the emotions of worshippers, or merely dedicated craftsmanship, there are places that made me go silent in reverence as soon as I set foot inside, and places that, however grand and well-decorated, merely made me go "meh. Another temple". Thus, Ryozen Kannon scores somewhere at the top of my spiritual index - it was made by people who intensely believed in their religion's highest and purest ideals, was made in accordance with those ideals and is now inhabited in accordance with them. This is obvious the second one enters, and outweighs any considerations of age or fame - by contrast, Sensoji, older and grander by far, made me feel nothing. This isn't just a matter of tourist numbers, either - the Meiji Shrine had plenty, yet ranks considerably above Sensoji for me.
Having finished looking around (the inside of the giant statue of Kannon contains shrines to deities overseeing the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac), I finally made my way to Kodai-in. This temple had minimal religious significance, both inherently and gauging by the above index, but featured famous sculpted gardens and a few ancient buildings untouched by the fire which gravely reduced Kodai-in's religious value.
The main garden. Up ahead is a tortoise-shaped island. Nearby, a heron eyes the pond's fish, though they are huge and might well beat it in a fight.
My first Zen garden. The aesthetic sense used to create it is impenetrable.
Further up the grounds. Arranged yet natural.
View just outside the bamboo forest on the hills above Kodai-in.
These two teahouses were designed by the legendary tea ceremony master Sen no Rikyuu. They are ancient, and conform to very specific requirements.
An object lesson both on cultural differences and on the issues surrounding literal versus sense-equivalent translation. The Japanese literally reads "please refrain from [going] beyond this point."
And then there's just the plain lazy (or possibly anti-foreign bias). The Japanese explains that entrance to the temple beyond is not free, so visitors should enter via the main gate around the corner to the left rather than this exit.
My next destination was Maruyama Park, where I had lunch (yes, yakisoba, though this time it was full of unexpected fish) while being pondered by a majestic crow. Sadly, time was pressing on and I couldn't stay and explore the park's many wonders at my leisure.
Kyoto's most famous plant, the Weeping Cherry Tree.
A hungry heron wishes that its afternoon, too, was full of unexpected fish.
Lunch having been had, I turned to Chion-in temple, headquarters of the Pure Land school of Buddhism. Pure Land is as close to Christianity as Buddhism gets - its core teaching is that all you need to be reborn in the Pure Land heaven after death is to accept the Buddha Amida as your personal saviour - and, to me, is a concentrated representation of all the ways in which Mahayana Buddhism can possibly distort the Buddha's original teaching. The original teaching, insofar as I studied it more or less directly at university, is about overcoming the distractions and temptations of worldly things, including blind faith in anyone or anything (the historical Buddha sensibly banned the use of images of himself in worship) and wealth (as displayed, say, by huge temples and golden statues). It also placed the responsibility for enlightenment squarely on the shoulders of the individual. If you want a drastic oversimplification, Mahayana seems like Buddhism adapted to the needs of the masses (having someone to pray to in times of need, emotional security, social cohesion etc.), with its myriad gods and bodhisattvas and elaborate rituals. Which is nice and all, but it's not what the Buddha created the Noble Eightfold Path for, and I don't see how adapting a religion to fulfil one's social and psychological needs will get one any closer to the enlightenment that entails their total transcendence.
But I digress. Chion-in Temple, in case it hasn't been made clear, stands out with its grandeur, having a variety of huge buildings containing a variety of elaborately painted or gilded shrines and statues. It is also curious from an architectural point of view, for example where movement between halls is across nightingale floors that sqeak loudly with every step (experimentation suggests that, while it would take practice, the application of some basic stealth principles would still let one walk across unheard - I managed to get my record down to four or five squeaks).
Several copies of this sign littered the grounds. I think it says a lot about Amida's attitude to his worshippers that the purpose of Pure Land Buddhism is "to free tiresome beings".
Speaking from an engineering point of view, this temple gate ranks somewhere between obscenely huge and gobsmackingly humongous.
The main hall, plus ubiquitous incense cauldron.
I don't know if you can tell, but at this point I was starting to suffer from temple burnout. I wandered through Yasuka Shrine, protector of the entertainment district of Gion, and into Gion proper. Most of the streets were fairly ordinary, modern affairs, and featured clubs with various probable degrees of sleaze. But a few were of genuine historical interest and were worth seeing.
Yasaka Shrine. I was low on time, energy and interest by this point, so I didn't explore it adequately.
A View From the Bridge: Kyoto is full of unexpected hidden pockets of beauty, and Gion's Shirakawa Minami-doori is a prime example.
South part of Hanami-kouji, full of old-fashioned and expensive-looking restaurants and teahouses. Sadly, I saw no geishas - indeed, I have seen none so far, only people who entered willingly into the Maiko Experience from earlier.
By the time I made my way through Gion, my exhaustion had hit its peak and I was feeling pretty unwell, to the point that when I accidentally walked onto the grounds of an impressive-looking temple, I ignored it and carried on trying to find a bus stop. Fortunately, I managed it in the end (coincidentally, very near where I am now in the Manga Kissa) and returned home with minimal problems (the minimal problems being that I didn't know the way back from the station, and for some reason my mobile can't pick up anything said into Hiroko's).
In the evening, I enquired as to the possibility of watching live Naruto (which is broadcast on Thursday evenings) but Hiroko said it wasn't being shown on Kansai television anymore, and TV Tokyo (the usual channel) is not broadcast around here. However, in the event, when Haruka got home she switched the channel to it by accident just as it was about to start. She is a (slightly lapsed) fan of the series, and apparently a Sasuke fangirl, and we watched the episode together. Sadly, because I had to focus on the Japanese (their TV is too old for closed captions), I couldn't talk very much about what was going on beyond quickly trying to fill her in on what she'd missed (without knowing exactly when she'd stopped watching). It felt pretty ironic, me filling a Japanese anime fan on what was going on in my limited Japanese - lucky that I have a fairly developed anime vocabulary in terms of phrases such as "defeat" and "avenge".
Not as ironic as what was to come later...but first, Haruka had a two-hour lesson with a maths tutor. While the living room was thus unavailable (the four-floor house having one main assembly area, and then a lot of separate rooms), I took a nap and amused myself playing more Gyakuten Kenji. I made a lot of progress on the case and learned various vital vocabulary (such as "bullet hole", "bloodstain" and "logical inference"), which will surely serve me well in my archvillain career.
When the time came, I descended downstairs on an appointment to go out to the video store together with Haruka and Hiroko, and the teacher joined us partway as well. We chatted - he comes from Nara, and exhorted me to visit its many religious and historical sites (which I fully intend to) as well as offering to show me around (though I can't tell whether he meant it). Sadly, while I noted that Hiroko was addressing him in special polite language or keigo, I was too nervous to use much of my own (and the way the conversation ran, I couldn't find any opportunities for the honorific sonkeigo anyway, whereas humble kenjougo might have been a little too much). Sigh.
Either way, when we got to the store, I learned that not only does it rent films, but also anime and manga. And the prices! 20 volumes to rent for about 5 pounds! If I thought I could read Japanese manga that fast, and in the time I have...In the end, all I picked up were a couple of volumes of Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) manga, because they looked fun and I haven't seen them in the UK. Also, after mentioning Code Geass as my favourite anime to Haruka earlier, I decided to rent the first disc (only two episodes a DVD? Madness) in order to show it to her, and perhaps even convert her to its glory.
Those who don't know of Code Geass won't appreciate the full irony of this. Apart from a foreigner introducing a Japanese girl to an anime, which in itself isn't that special, Code Geass is a story set in a world where the Britannian Empire has annexed Japan and stripped it of its name and its citizens of rights. The protagonist is secretly a discarded Britannian prince living in Japan, who rallies Japanese rebels to fight back against Britannia for his own complicated reasons. Could it get any better than having a Briton introduce a Japanese person to that?
Or maybe it's just my bizarre sense of humour. At any rate, Haruka says she really enjoyed it, which makes me very happy (assuming she's not just being polite). We're probably watching the second episode today. Given that the rental place, which has the rest of the series, is very close by, and the weekend is coming up, I guess we'll see if she's as fully converted as I was after the first episode.
And then it was the next morning, and after working out the latest contradiction in Hiroko's map (which, to be fair, only cost me ten minutes) and wishing I'd taken Haruka's instead, I was here at the Internet cafe. That is all for now - it is already late enough that I won't have time for sightseeing before I have to get back (6pm, kinda on the early side, but then I also set out earlier in Kyoto), so I'll spend my remaining time here finishing up Internet-related things, I guess.
And finally, bonus Engrish time.
I don't know if it sounds more appetising in Japanese, but this isn't even a mistranslation. Apparently, the best way to replace water lost through sweat...
Based on my observations so far, I am never going into a Japanese restaurant that has English writing outside. It's just not worth the risk.
And finally, from my Internet Cafe cubicle, a proclamation which would be a lot more inspirational if it wasn't written on a rubbish bin.
Fascinating. I know the feeling of temple burnout, having just been to China earlier this summer. Incidentally, the "(verb in imperative form) willingly" signs exist there also, for example, when it comes to taking a luggage trolley at the airport. I did not take pictures of it though. In one restaurant in Beijing there was also "Crispy Fried Grandmother" and "The fish explodes the shrimp" (or something very similar) and other culinary experiences on the menue. While I did take a copy of the menue away with me, I seem unable to find it now, which is a shame. The joys of Engrish...
ReplyDeleteLet me also compliment you on your very engaging and entertaining style of writing your reports. Given their length, it's quite necessary and so far I've managed to read them all to the end. Well done.