All Things Japanese – Page 31

Famous!

Around this time last year, I told you that a friend of mine and I had been engaged as extras for a Japanese movie. Well, I can now officially talk about it since I just found out that it was released last Saturday! The movie is called Koto in Japanese (in English: The Old Capital) and it is a sequel to the novel of the same name by Yasunari Kawabata. Now the two sisters of Kawabata’s novel are grown and have children of their own who have their own struggles with Japanese society. Part of the movie is set in France, while the novel takes place entirely in Kyoto and its northern outskirts.

I have not seen the result yet, but another friend went to the cinema on Saturday, and he said that both my friend and I are featuring very prominently in a scene that is set in an old house in Kyoto. If you take a look at the poster to the right, we were in a scene with the actor in the blue kimono to the far right. Apparently he is very famous in Japan – does that mean I’m now officially famous too? 😉 We should be in at least two more scenes in the movie, somewhere in the background, but I cannot tell for sure until I have seen it – and this will take a while. My Japanese is not good enough to watch movies or TV yet (and fully understand what’s going on), so I will have to wait until there are English subtitles. The movie has already won a prize in the Kyoto Historical Film Festival (I think), and it may be sent to international Film Festivals as well – and that’s usually where the subtitles are made. I will see it eventually though, I’m sure.

Hakusasonso

Kyoto has lots of beautiful Japanese gardens, and there’s only so much time to visit them all. Last week, in the peak of the momiji season, I took time out to visit Hakusasonso, a private garden near Ginkakuji temple. I had passed by there many times before, but now I finally went in.

The Hakusasonso is the former residence of Kansetsu Hashimoto, a nihonga painter of the Taisho and early Showa period. He bought the site in 1913 when it was nothing more than rice paddies. Until his death in 1945, he worked on the 7400 square metres that make up the gardens now and most of it – including the buildings – are unchanged. Today, the garden is still in possession of the Hashimoto family.

There are five old buildings in the garden, two small tea houses, one private Buddhist temple, and the old residence that is now used as an expensive kaiseki restaurant. The most interesting building is called zonkoro, it is essentially one very large hall that Hashimoto used as his studio. All four walls have large glass windows, and you can see almost all of the garden from the studio.

Not only did he paint, Hashimoto also designed the buildings and the garden himself. He collected stone lanterns, pagodas, and Buddha statues (many from China) and placed them throughout the garden. Especially lovely is the little hill where Buddha statues meditate underneath large bamboos.

At one end of the garden there is the museum, a modern, two storey building where Hashimoto’s works are displayed. From the second floor of the museum, one can overlook the whole garden, and with the borrowed landscape of Mount Daimonji in the back, the scenery is made perfect. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Nihonga was a special style of painting that combined Western painting methods and ideas with Japanese materials and aesthetics. Nowadays, most Japanese painters work in truly Western style, and the distinction to Nihonga has all but disappeared.

Novelties

Last week, a friend visited Kyoto and we spent some time together. We went to Kurama and Kibune in the north of Kyoto and we went to Nara in the south. I had never been there before (and I will write a weekend post about it).

The nicest part about his visit was that I got to try a few things that I did not dare on my own. For example, we went to a Korean-style grill restaurant where we ate cow’s stomach, among other (less exotic) things. And we went to a pachinko parlour together… A pachinko place was something I always wanted to try, but the whole idea was rather daunting: The large halls with loud music, the flashy atmosphere, the unknown everything… But now I know that playing pachinko is not that big a deal, in any respect.

When you enter, you choose a machine and you feed it with money; bills from 1.000 – 10.000 YEN are accepted. For each yen you enter, you receive a small steel ball. You then shoot each ball into the machine where it should enter one (or more) openings at the bottom of the display. Every time you hit one of those openings, a game is played automatically, where 3 numbers should match – like at a one-armed bandit, but with the difference that you don’t have any way of influencing this part of the game. When the three numbers match, you have won a jackpot, meaning that you get more balls to play with.

Of course, this only scratches the surface of the whole pachinko idea, I am sure there is much more to it. Since we did not win any jackpot, I cannot tell you about the game in more depth; and since I don’t have the money to spend – or the need to be addicted to yet another silly game – you will need to find more information elsewhere.

What was interesting to me was the lack of control you have. Other than regulating the speed with which you shoot the little balls into the machine, there is nothing else you can do, it is indeed a game of luck. It was also interesting to see the people around us. We went on a Friday night, and there were lots of people, even those that looked very distinguished and well dressed. A friend of mine told me that many people play pachinko as a way of stress release.

We did not stay very long, only spending 1000 YEN each. But when we left, we were half deaf. The noise is incredible! Each machine has noisy programs and all of them run on full blast, regardless of whether somebody is playing or not. This is unlikely to become one of my preferred pastimes.

Bunka no Hi

Today is a national holiday in Japan: Bunka no Hi or Culture Day. It is meant to promote culture in general, in particular the arts, but also includes science. Since I have written about this before, I will simply share a nice culture related image by a Japanese artist.

The painting/calligraphy is by Bankei Yotaku, a 17th century Zen master of the Rinzai sect.

Equinox

Today is a holiday in Japan, the Shubun-no-hi, celebrating the autumn equinox. I have written about it in the years before, so I will not repeat myself, but instead I present you with a beautiful woodblock print of the moon.

It is called “Bat Before the Moon” and was made around 1910 by Biho Takashi.

Yama no Hi

It’s a holiday today – and not just any old holiday, but a brand new one!

2016 marks the first occurence of yama no hi or Mountain Day, where the Japanese are encouraged to “get familiar with mountains and appreciate blessings from mountains.”

Since this is the most modern Japanese holiday, there’s no big and ancient story behind it that I could tell, except that the Japanese Alpine Club had something to do with it. It was chosen deliberately for August 11th, at the beginning of the Obon week to give people an extra day off. By now, there is a holiday in each month except June, and I wonder if the Japanese government will fill that gap eventually.

Of course, the most important mountain in Japan is Mount Fuji, and I am sure I will not run out of pictures here for a long time. Although I have passed Mount Fuji several times on my way from Kyoto to Tokyo and back, so far, I have not seen it myself. The mountain was always covered in clouds (after all, it is 3,776.24 m high), or it was pouring down altogether. So, I cannot share any of my own photos, but, there is enough Japanese art to share.

The image below is by Takeuchi Seihō (1864 – 1942) a painter from Kyoto.

Jinbei

The Japanese summer is hard to bear. The temperature itself is not extreme (in my view, that is) but the humidity presses down on people more than is comfortable. To help them surviving the heat, the Japanese have come up with a very special type of summer clothing, called the jinbei. Essentially it is nothing but a kimono, cut off at the hip, with shorts added to at least partly cover the nether regions. There is no obi belt for the top; instead, four ribbons are attached that are tied together, which makes the top sit rather loosely. The cloth is usually soft cotton dyed in various hues of blue, mostly with a subtle stripe pattern.

If you look closely at the picture above, one thing that makes the jinbei so cool to wear are the open stitches between the sleeves and the body. This particular one has the same open stitches at the side of the body as well, but the majority of jinbei I have seen do not have them. Also, there are holes underneath the armpits where the seams have been left completely open – this is a standard feature of women’s kimono as well, by the way. These planned holes allows for extra circulation of air at a time when every bit helps.

Wearing a jinbei is very comfortable even in the biggest heat, but: it is a men’s garment, and even men are supposed to wear it only at home. It is not considered in good taste to wear it anywhere outside of the house especially when mingling with other people, but at Gion matsuri’s yoiyama, some young people wear them regardless. Nowadays there are even jinbei for women, in much more flashy colours and with the obligatory flower print.

However, personally I prefer the subtle patterns of the men’s jinbei, and I will probably go out and buy myself another one since they are so much more comfortable than shorts and T-shirts.

Saki Parade

Today was the Saki Matsuri parade of Gion festival. A friend invited me to her home on Oike dori, where we could watch the parade from her balcony. It was a nice Gion matsuri party with food, drinks and air conditioning inside, because even though it was overcast and hazy, both temperature and humidity were quite high. I even made the effort to properly honour the occasion and wore a yukata, a Japanese summer kimono – but I’ll write about this experience some other time.

I have written before about Gion matsuri and the parades in quite some detail, so this year I’ll simply post a handful of photos from a different view-point. Enjoy!

Kibune

Last Thursday I went to Kibune with friends of mine. Kibune is a tiny little village situated in the mountains north of Kyoto. Okay, it’s not really a village – there is not space enough for that. Essentially there is a mountain, then a river, a road, and another mountain. Along a rather short part of the river/road, maybe 4 kilometres, houses were built wherever they could fit – and there is not much space left for this.

The fact that there is not much space has led to the biggest attraction of Kibune: its kawadoko dining. From June to September, platforms are built over the river where people can sit and have lunch or dinner – always enjoying the natural air-conditioning of the cool water flowing right underneath their seats. Kibune can be as much as 5 degrees cooler than Kyoto, which makes it a welcome retreat for people plagued by the unbearable August heat. Riverside restaurants are expensive since most of them serve kaiseki – Japanese Haute Cuisine – but there are also a few on the other side of the road. There are also a couple of ryokan for people to stay overnight, but since the valley is not very wide, the river is very noisy in parts, and I wonder if you actually can get some rest there.

The other great attraction of the village is Kifune Shrine (yes, with an F for some reason). According to myth, it was founded in the early 5th century by the mother of the legendary first emperor Jinmu. She took a yellow boat (Ki-fune) up the river from Osaka, and where she landed, she founded a shrine. It is dedicated to the deity of water and rain, and since the 9th century, people have been worshipping Takaokami-no-kami exclusively as the god who could send rain or withhold it. To appeal to the deity, horses were offered to the shrine, black ones to make it rain, and white ones to stop it.

Another, more grisly ritual connected with Kifune shrine is the legendary Ushi-no-toki-mairi. It started out as innocent worship at the shrine in the hour of the ox (between 1 and 3 am), but it changed into a practice to lay a curse on a person. Still done at the same hour, people were supposed to wear headgear with candles and drive nails into a nearby tree – preferably through a straw effigy of the person to be cursed. There are a number of legends dating back to the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and there is even a Noh-play dramatising the story of a scorned woman who, after heeding the advice received at Kifune shrine, turned into a demon to take revenge.

Even if you don’t seek revenge on anyone, Kibune is worth a visit. The mountains are covered in cedars and cryptomerias, and they are so enormous, that there are places where they reach across both river and road to form a roof of leaves. At this time, the greens are lush and beautiful, but there are also maple trees, which must be a wonderful sight during koyo. It is a bit tough to get there though without a car. The Eizan railway has a stop at Kibune-guchi, and from there it is maybe a 30 minute walk uphill to the shrine. It is worth it though I think, especially in the off hours when there are not many people, the whole setting is very quiet and energising.

Old Houses

Last weekend, I indulged myself – once again… There was an open house near Kyoto University, and since the house was a semi-traditional Japanese one built some 80 years ago, I just had to see it.

In fact, it was not just one house, but three buildings on the same plot of land. There was one very large main house with 10 rather large rooms on two floors. Then there was a much smaller house with three rooms in total, and some sort of shed in the back of the garden. Here are some pictures from the agent’s leaflet:

It turned out the house was built for a professor of Kyoto University by a quite famous architect of that time, Koji Fujii. Fujii was one of the pioneers of ecological building in Japan, and he certainly had a keen eye for details. The ceilings are restrained but beautifully decorated with differently colored wood; There are tiny windows at the right spots, and there is even a reading room/office with built-in desks right at the windows, still original.

It is not a truly traditional Japanese house, but it is not one of the westernised homes with European exterior that were so popular in the Taisho era and among the university professors either. It is a very well designed Japanese house with modern influences, and this fusion is so well done you don’t even notice them. For example, on the ground floor are rooms with normal wooden floors as well as rooms with tatami. The latter are raised significantly higher as usual than the former, so that if you are sitting in seiza on the floor, you are at eye level with somebody sitting on a chair outside.

The state of the house is not good, unfortunately, but not quite as bad as the last one I visited. On the other hand, since it is more traditional, the interior is rather dark with the small windows and the paper covered shoji, and the wood which is mostly painted dark does not help much to be honest.

Still, I hope there is somebody who buys the house and renovates it properly instead of simply tearing it down and building another bloody mansion on top… I wish I could save this house from certain destruction, but I don’t quite have the money for it. Anybody who has a spare million Euros for me?