Japanese Tourism Posters

While in some countries you can see movie posters on every wall and others have slogans of revolutionary movements, Japan tends to have beautiful posters of temples and museums in store windows and train stations.

In the case of temples,  as religion has become less important for most Japanese, the cultural practice of seasonal tourism has conversely become a more important source of revenue. Hence the posters that extol the beauty of a temple in the spring and fall, especially at night time when lighted. This is one is from Shoren-in, a small  temple in Higashiyama in the Eastern part of Kyoto.

A more famous temple in Kyoto, Kiyomizudera is shown dramatically in relief against the Kyoto skyline. To see this view at night would involve a trudge through the paths on the other side of temple and a climb up the hill to look back.

I actually prefer to visit the temples during the day in natural light before the crowds arrive for the evening though  this poster from Nara illustrates how beautiful the temples can look under the night sky.

 

Another common subject is the storehouse of treasures that temples have gathered over the centuries and periodically put on display to the public. This one is for an exhibition of treasures from Miidera Temple, one of the largest temple complexes in Japan.

Museums and historical sites, a designation that covers almost every town in the country, have posters that highlight their unique features. This scenic poster is for a train ride to see the Maples changing colors during the Koyo Matsuri festival.

Museums are always showcasing their holdings and special exhibits with posters such as this one on artifacts from the time of the great 9th century scholar Sugawara no Michizane.

I like this very simple and dignified poster for Raku pottery  showing a cup used  in the Tea Ceremony.

One of the interesting sights for foreigners in Japan is the sight of women in traditional garb at temples and historical locations, something the Kimono Passport promotes through reduced admission for those visiting in kimonos.

The Fujiwara Family

I’ve always read about the Heian Era being a time when aristocratic families ruled Japan, chief among them the Fujiwara. As the members of this family were prominent not only in politics but also in culture and the arts, I went searching for their legacy in Japan.

The first person I ran across was the statesman Fujiwara no Michinaga, who was not only Regent but also grandfather to three Emperors. On the grounds of the current Imperial Palace in Kyoto I found a sign marking the spot where Michinaga composed a famous poem in 1017 during a moon viewing party. The poem called Mochizuki no Uta compares his stature to that of the moon:

This world, I think,
Is indeed my world.
Like the full moon I shine,
Uncovered by any cloud."

The Fujiwara practice of marrying Emperors to the female members of their family ensured Michinaga’s descendents continued supremacy in the government until the rise of the Samurai class overshadowed the old aristocracy.

Going West to Uji, I entered the world of the Genji Monogatari, a novel whose protagonist (perhaps modeled on Michinaga) and author Murasaki Shikibu were themselves Fujiwara. Uji is also home to Byodo-in, the temple built by Michinaga’s son Fujiwara no Yorimichi, a replica of which can be seen in Oahu.

This postcard by the way shows Byodo-in framed in wisteria blossoms referring to the Fujiwara name which means “field of wisteria”, as explained to me by a helpful volunteer in the Nara Tourist office.

Nara is where the beautiful Fujiwara family shrine of Kasuga Taisha is located in a forest where deer roam freely. The pathways have hundreds of stone lanterns that are lighted several evenings in the year which must be enchanting.

In modern times the descendent of this illustrious family that most people are familiar with is the actor Fujiwara Kamitari. Though sharing the name of the founder of the clan Fujiwara no Kamitari, this actor ironically appeared regularly in roles as the truculent peasant in movies like Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress.

Matsuzaka and the International World Series

It appears that Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka is headed back to the DL again, for a fatigued shoulder due to overwork in the World Baseball Classic. While other pitchers were at Spring Training in Florida following a managed program to prepare for the season, Matsuzaka pitched 14 2/3 innings to help Japan win the WBC Championship for the second time. Named MVP of the tournament once again, Daisuke’s efforts for the Japanese team are appreciated far more in his country than here in the US.

This is partly due to the fact that Japan, unlike other countries with major league players, has a long history of baseball beginning in 1867. After the 1934 season, Babe Ruth and 13 other major leaguers toured Japan playing exhibition games against Japanese teams in front of enthusiastic fans. Most of the terms used in Japanese baseball like shikyu for “walk” were developed by the Meiji era poet and baseball lover Shiki Matsuoka.

Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1959, just twenty years after Cooperstown as they helpfully point out on their site.

Matsuzaka himself is a legend in another of Japan’s baseball institutions, the annual High School Baseball Championship (natsu no koshien) watched by a large part of the population. In 1998 he helped his team to the championship by pitching a 250 pitch, 17 inning game (!) then came back as a reliever the next day, followed by a no hitter several games later.

If Matsuzaka overcomes his arm problems and returns to the starting rotation, perhaps it will be due to his use of the mysterious pitch known as the “Gyroball”. A video of Matsuzaka supposedly throwing the gyroball and interviews with one of the professors who invented the pitch can be seen here.

The prominence of players like Matsuzaka and Hideki Matsui in the US has created a nationalistic groundswell among Japanese players and fans for a “true” World Series, matching the winners of the Japanese and American games. Robert Whiting, the well known writer on Japanese baseball makes the interesting observation that the migration of Japanese stars to Major League Baseball paradoxically makes such a confrontation less likely as the Japan League teams will steadily become less competitive.

The Rinpa School of Artists

I had the chance last year to see an interesting exhibit on the artwork of the Rinpa School at the Tokyo National Museum. Beginning in the Edo Period with artists like Ho'onami Koetsu and Tawaraya Sotatsu, members of this school recursively worked on themes developed by previous members of the school, in a variety of mediums including painting, calligraphy and maki-e lacquer ware.

Rinpa artists took these works and developed them in each successive generation, creating interesting and fresh takes on themes like the Wind & Thunder Gods or Cranes Dancing in a Field. Ho’nami for instance looked to to the Heian Era for inspiration and used classical Chinese models for his calligraphy, many times overlaying them onto paintings and ceramics done by others. This interleaving of arts across mediums and reimagining them across time is a hallmark of the school for me.

For those who’ve read Yoshikawa Eiji’s classic novel “Musashi”, Ho’onami makes an appearance early on, encouraging the young swordsman to explore his aesthetic side.

Ho’onami’s sometimes collaborator Tawaraya Sotatsu revived the classic Yamato-e style of painting and created the iconic “Wind and Thunder Gods” (Fujin to Raijin) for Kennin-ji Temple in Kyoto. As is usual for major shows at museums, the painting was far more compelling in its original setting at Kennin-ji contemplated in solitude on a tatami mat the week before, than jostling in a sea of patrons at the exhibit.

This exhibition was put together the commemorate the 350th anniversary of the birth of another of the school’s innovative members, Ogata Korin who worked with lacquer and painted. Though I’ve previously seen some of his lacquer works and a famous screen of Matsushima, this exhibit put his artwork in a more complete context.

Among the other highlights of the show for me was this well known picture of Cranes by Suzuki Kiitsu which somehow looked amazingly lifelike spread out on a large screen.

Hiroshi Hara and the Architecture of the New

As a Software Architect, I’m part of a new profession that looks to existing disciplines like physical architecture for models of development. For me the work of Japanese architect Hiroshi Hara is interesting in his attempts to integrate modernistic designs with traditional Japanese themes.

Hara’s most famous work is the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka which creates the impression of a floating garden in the air. I actually like two of his other projects more as they show how the architect resolved unique challenges in the design. One is Kyoto Station, a job where Hara had the impossible task of reconciling wildly differing visions of resident groups while building a structure too big for the space.

Hara’s design is a tall glass and steel structure filled with stores and restaurants that he says reflects a traditional Kyoto neighborhood, looking inward to a vibrant community while reflecting only the surrounding environment to the outside world.

This fit the needs of those favoring development in the city who wanted a building personifying Kyoto’s status as home to major corporations like Nintendo, while establishing a precedent for taller buildings. Traditionalists who desired a more organic design complementing the horizontal nature of traditional Kyoto structures while connecting the Northern and Southern parts of the city were disappointed.

Hara confronted a different type of environmental challenge in Hokkaido when he designed the Sapporo Dome for the 2002 World Cup. The structure has a variety of technical innovations including a grass field that rides on a cushion of air when being moved into place and a sleek aerodynamic dome. The heavy snowfalls in Northern Japan however led to the singular problem of giant snow drifts sliding off the roof’s smooth surface onto the sidewalk below, creating a hazard in winter. In describing this situation, Hara made a comment I’ve found very useful to remember in my practice: “ Innovative designs sometimes lead to unique problems”.

Katsu Kaishu and the end of the Bakufu

Despite what the movie "The Last Samurai" (made by a large greedy American company) claimed, large greedy American companies were not responsible for the ending of the Samurai era. In reality most of the leaders of the rapid evolution away from feudalism were patriotic Samurai who realized to varying levels that Japan needed to modernize if it was to exist as an independent nation. Reports from Japanese envoys that major Asian countries like India and China were now weakened colonies lent an urgency to the need for transformation.

Katsu Kaishu was one of these leaders, a scholar and historian, visionary of modernization and architect of the Japanese Navy.
Kaishu was one of the young men sent by Japan to learn from the West, studying naval technology in Holland and later establishing a naval academy in Kobe. His experiences abroad convinced him that Japan must give up its feudal system and unify across caste and clan boundaries to avoid colonial subjugation.

Kaishu captained the first Japanese ship to travel to America, visiting San Francisco as part of a group negotiating trade with the United States. In his two months there, Kaishu was impressed by America’s egalitarianism and mentioned how well he was treated on this trip, by everyone from political leaders to everyday people he met on the street.

Disliked by the Shogun for his oft stated views that the Shogunate should be abolished, he was still made Commander of the Shogun's forces due to his abilities when the Imperial forces surrounded Edo. Wishing to avoid the massive civilian casualties that a siege would have caused, Kaishu negotiated the peaceful surrender of the city to Saigo Takamori, preventing the destruction of Edo and saving countless lives. The best summation of Kaishu’s accomplishments in English I’ve found is this article originally published in the Tokyo Journal.

As impressive as his public achievements were his personal merits as exemplified by his motto:

“Detached from self, in harmony with others,
settled during calm, resolute during action,
composed in thought and firm during setbacks”

Film adaptations of Western Literature

I was just watching a great version of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. The movie is called “Aru kengo no shogai” literally “Life of an expert swordsman”, poorly translated as “Samurai Saga” in the U.S. and hard to find except on IFC periodically.

The film is set in the early days of Tokugawa rule when supporters and opponents of the regime clashed regularly in the Kansai region while awaiting their final showdown.

The story begins during a performance by famed dancer Izumi no Okuni in Kyoto where feelings against the regime are strong. Toshiro Mifune in the title role is a partisan of the opposition and a samurai with a reputation for both poetry and swordsmanship. His altercation at the theater and the follow on brawl are the regular subjects of eagerly awaited recitations the following morning by his comrades at the sake shop.

Mifune’s object of affection is his beautiful friend from childhood who loves another samurai, handsome as Cyrano is homely. Their three sided courtship touches many themes of traditional Japanese culture such as self sacrifice, sensitivity of feeling, the evanescence of deep affection and the nobility of failure.

The cataclysmic Battle of Sekigahara ends this idyllic period with the Christian character dead and Tokugawa forces in complete control of the country. Soldiers from the losing cause are mostly dead or in hiding and Kyoto ten years later is a city in decline, as power is cemented in the East at Edo.

Cyrano’s annual visit to the grieving lady to share news and events is a dangerous exercise in friendship, as partisans of the Osaka cause are unceasingly hunted by the Tokugawa authorities. The character’s steadfast loyalty to both his love and his deceased comrade are contrasted with the fickleness of others in the society who’ve adapted to the changing realities.

For those who’ve seen Inagaki’s “Musashi”, several of the Sekigahara scenes are stolen from the previous movie and inserted here. Also in his final recap of the year’s news, the Cyrano character mentions Musashi’s victory in his duel at Ganryujima, which is amusing for those who identify Mifune with that role in the earlier movie.

Bicycles of Kyoto

Having traveled around Kyoto by bus, subway, taxi and on foot, I’ve come to the conclusion that biking is the best way to explore the city.

The city is safe, mostly flat and has an expressway of sorts for bicycles in the esplanade by the river, allowing quick travel North and South. You’ll be in good company as half the people in Kyoto seem to use bicycles as their mode of transportation especially senior citizens, whom I notice do their shopping on bicycles.

Despite the fact that Japan is one of the leading manufacturers of high tech bikes , every bicycle I’ve see in Kyoto is a vintage 40’s design girls bike with a basket, kick stand and bell (to be used in extremis only). This is the bike provided to me as a complementary service by my hotel.

As usual in Japan its very important when riding to be extremely careful of others on the sidewalk and demonstrate your harmony with society, especially as a foreigner.

Since there are no gears, going up hills was a challenge and I simply walked the bike up to places like Kiyomizudera Temple which sits on the Eastern slopes.

As Japan is one of the safest countries in the world I wasn’t very concerned about someone stealing my bike, especially as it looks the same as everyone else’s. However a curious old time lock is another standard feature attached to the back wheel and opened by a simple key.

For those looking for organized excursions, the Kyoto Cycling Tour Project has some nice themed tours including a mystery tour that visits spooky places like Abe no Seimei’s Shrine. If you’re looking to leave the city and do some challenging rides, Spice Roads has a tour of the Noto Peninsula that promises beautiful scenery and some stiff riding.

Genji Monogatari

Perhaps the world’s first novel, the “Tale of Genji” describes Heian era Japan through a peek into the life of it’s protagonist, a prince at the Imperial court. Without having visited Japan, my first impressions of this book were unfavorable as I found the arcane details of a distant culture difficult to relate to. After being in Japan and learning of the historical context, I’m able to better appreciate the novel and the times it represents.

In the Heian era aristocratic families such as the Fujiwara , ruled the country before the rise of the Samurai class. Their tastes and mores appear to place emphasis on aesthetics and refinement above the well known Samurai values such as simplicity and self restraint.

An excellent discussion of the era with a somewhat revisionist perspective on the dynamics of the society can be found in this book.

Much of the latter part of the Genji Monogatari takes place in Uji located about halfway between Kyoto and Nara. Now a small town seeking to attract tourists visiting it’s more famous neighbors, Uji highlights it’s connection to the novel through a museum, an annual play based on the book, dances, symposiums, book tours and cultural events.

Even the street signs have images of the prince and his lovers.

If you visit Uji make certain to also visit Byodo-in, the Phoenix Hall Temple, built by a member of the Fujiwara family in his devotion to the Pure Land sect of Buddhism.

A final attraction of Uji for me is it’s renowned Green Tea, cultivated since the 14th century by order of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.