Kyoto Special – Page 16 – goinggaijin.com

Stumbling

The Geisha – or Geiko as they are called in Kyoto – are the incorporation of everything Japanese, not only for foreigners, but for the Japanese as well. A Geiko is a manifestation of tradition in everything she does, a masterpiece of art in everything she wears, and a showpiece of that Japan that is all but gone and only survives in tiny enclaves like Kyoto’s Gion. In short, they embody everything that is beautiful, sophisticated, and rare in Japan. And rare they are indeed as their art is a dying one, and an evening of personal entertainment with a Geisha is a costly enterprise.

So, you can probably imagine the lengths to which people are going to even only see a Geisha. People flock to the few yearly events with public appearances of Geiko and Maiko. They spend hours wandering the streets of Gion in the early evening in the hope of catching a glimpse of a Maiko on her way to an appointment. Some very obnoxious fellows even follow them around when they are going out, just to get that one perfect picture.

I can certainly understand the first thing – I have done so myself – but I find the second a little odd and the third outright rude and impolite. That’s probably the reason why after two years in Japan I only have taken very few photos of Geiko and Maiko. But then again, it’s not as if I had to resort to such methods, my approach is much more casual…

A while back, it was such a nice and sunny afternoon that I decided to go out. There is a tiny little cafe near the Philosopher’s Path, with maybe 15 seats, interesting decor, and great hot chocolate. I had been there before and I felt like walking a bit. When I arrived, there were five or six men occupying the largest table at the back – never before had I seen so many customers there. Well, that was not how I had envisioned my quiet afternoon, but I ordered and crouched down over my notebook anyway.

Then, suddenly, they arrived from the room in the back: a young Maiko, flawlessly dressed and made up, with perfect coiffure in which stuck those little seasonal hair ornaments that are often worn during only a few days. She was accompanied by a somewhat older woman, obviously a senior member from her teahouse. Both women then took seats on the large table and started chatting with the men waiting there.

I was very surprised and tried very hard not to stare. After a while of talking and drinking coffee the women got up and everybody left. The whole meeting – from the time the women came out from the back until the cafe was empty again – took not more than 15 minutes. Interestingly, it was the older woman accompanying the Maiko who paid the bill, which makes me assume that the gentlemen paid for the meeting including drinks beforehand.

Afterwards, the owner of the cafe, an old lady who speaks a little English, confirmed that that had indeed been a real Maiko. See, that’s how you get to see them close up, just go to the right cafe…

Hanami 2015

During my time of internet absence, lots of things happened of course. In fact, I was really busy and sometimes quite happy that I did not have to write a lengthy post after a day of running around. However, I will let you know more details in the next few days.

In the last six weeks, it has slowly become spring. Mostly at least. Last Thursday, finally, the perfect day had come for this year’s hanami – cherry blossom viewing. I took the opportunity to explore new parts of the city on my search for the perfect cherry blossom. Essentially, I went south along the Takano river to Demachiyanagi where the river unites with the Kamo river and then along the other half of the V to the Botanical Gardens.

It was lovely weather, warm with bright blue skies, and as I was walking in the early afternoon, there were lots of people out for their own hanami. Throughout the city, both sides of the River Kamo are lined with cherry trees, and last Thursday was the day when they finally fully opened their white blossoms. Unfortunately, it started raining on Friday, and since then it has cooled considerably. Although the cherries are still in bloom, they have lost many of their delicate blossoms already, so even if the weather gets warmer again soon, I think the main season is over. Oh well, here are a few of the pictures I took this year:

Poetry Game

Last Monday, suitable for the Culture Day, there was a traditional event that goes back about 1000 years, centred on one of Japan’s favourite pastimes taking place in Jonangu shrine which is equally old and lies in southern Kyoto. The event is called kyokusui-no-en and it is a kind of poetry game or competition involving multiple poets, a little stream, and enormous amounts of sake.

The idea is as follows: A number of poets sit on the banks of a little stream that flows through Jonangu shrine. They all have to compose a tanka – a poem of exactly 31 syllables – on a predefined topic, in a predefined amount of time. How long they have is determined by the stream and the sake: Little sake cups are released upstream and when they reach the last person, the poets must be finished, and then all the poems are read aloud.

I arrived at the shrine – after a trip of 90 minutes, and I hadn’t even left Kyoto just yet – about one hour before the event started. The shrine is very large and has two beautiful gardens with stones and trees and big koi ponds and streams in between. It seems that the cherry blossoms are famous there, but even now the gardens are a beautiful sight. When I arrived at the appropriate part of the garden, I was surprised to see that benches had been set up for the spectators, not just for the honorable paying guests, but for all of us. Never before did that happen, maybe the event was just the right size for this to be feasible.

Another nice surprise were five ladies giving a little koto concert before the main event started. Usually, the spectators are expected to wait in silence until the start of the main performance, but I think everybody was pleasantly surprised. The koto is a traditional Japanese instrument, but they played comparatively modern songs – they had a melody…

The main event – I’m still undecided whether to call it a ceremony, a game, a competition… – started at one o’clock with all the participants, all dressed beautifully in elaborate Heian-style costumes, entering the garden from the main shrine building: First a few attendants from the shrine, then traditional musicians and a dancer, then the seven poets who would take part in the game, and two children who carried long bamboo sticks and were charged with an important role during the game. I’ll get to that in a moment. First, there was some traditional Heian-era court music, thankfully short, and a dancer gave a performance, with traditionally prescribed movements, all executed very precisely, and certainly with a lot of meaning behind each gesture, decipherable only for the initiated.

Then, the seven poets were shown a scroll – I assume that the topic of the poem they had to compose was written on it – and then they took their places along the little stream.

On each place there had been prepared a little cushion and a tiny table with writing utensils: ink, brush, and paper. When they were settled and ready to write, the first cup of sake was released upstream.

The cups were mounted on little duck-shaped boats and, as the stream was rather rapidly flowing, they picked up quite some speed. Probably because of that, there was not a single sake-duck released, but quite a number of them, although I could not count them from my vantage point. I did notice, however, that, although the stream was comparatively broad, that sometimes the little ducks would get stuck, and this is where the two children came in. With their long bamboo poles they were supposed to help the sake on its way, and they did so by wandering around the stream and the poets with earnest faces and a grave manner.

When the last sake duck had reached the last poet, all poems were collected. A group of five men dressed like priests would sit down on the platform where the dancer had given her performance before, and then would read each poem. First, the name of the writer was announced (and probably also the poetry school he came from, but I am guessing here) and then the poem was read once by one person, and then by all of them, both times in a kind of chant, as I have seen before at religious ceremonies. Obviously the topic had been somehow related to autumn, I could make out words like trees, colours, leaves, autumn, momiji…During the reading, more sake was sent down the stream, and this time I could see some of the poets drinking a cup or two. Howver, most of the sake was probably imbibed by the koi in the next pond… Anyway, after all the poems were read, the poets, dancers, and musicians left the garden. I thought there would be an announcement of a winner, a best poem nominated, but I was told that was not the purpose of the meeting. I know, however, that in the Genji Monogatari (*), where this game was already mentioned, there was always talk about people writing good and bad poems, so I think that in the olden days, there was probably lots of judgement going on… After the poets had left, there was a purification ceremony at the same little stream. People were invited to buy a little piece of paper in the shape of a man or woman, handle it in a prescribed way and then release it into the stream, to the incantations of a priest. Again, the two children were there and gently used their bamboo sticks to guide the prayers and wishes on their way.

(*) The Genji Monogatari, the Tale of Genji, is one of the oldest Japanese novels, written in the 11th century by a lady in waiting on the Heian court. Apparently, the game had already taken place then in the same shrine as now.

White Night 2014

Last Saturday was this year’s White Night – Nuit Blanche Kyoto – the all night modern art culture event inspired by its Parisian counterpart. This year, there were 35 locations, and together with a housemate I went to the French Institute not far from Ebisu’s to see an Experimental Tea Ceremony. The tea ceremony itself was not experimental at all. Although it was hard to see the details, the ceremony appeared to me very traditional: a woman in formal kimono, traditional tatami and tea utensils, refined and measured movements that were just so, an attendant to offer the finished tea to a special guest of honour in the first row of the audience. Cleaning of the utensils afterwards.

The experimental part was the surroundings: There was a saxophonist playing music, well, more tones than a melody, really… I liked it, it added something special, although I’m not sure whether he was playing live or the music came from a tape – it was heavily alienated and remixed with other sounds. The other additional thing was a dance performance that started about half way into the tea ceremony. It was a performance similar to the one of last year, but it lasted much longer, and it was more… vigorous, especially towards the end. The dance started when something that looked like stage decoration began to move slowly, then the dancer started to remove the coat he wore (underneath was body paint and a fundoshi, a Japanese loincloth). He seemed to somehow threaten the woman who had just finished the tea ceremony, but he was carefully avoiding to touch her in any way. She left after a while and the dancer then had the stage to himself until the very end. All through his performance, the music kept being played.

This type of modern dance is called Butoh, it has been developed in the 1960s as a rather special Japanese art form, and has since spread to other countries as well. My housemate was really thrilled about this, she likes modern art, and this type of dance especially. I was not so excited about it, to be honest. Different than last year, the performance could not grip me, I did not have the impression there was any story that was told, and I thought it too long; maybe 10 minutes less would have made a greater impact. I can appreciate the great body control that is necessary for a performance like this, but still, it is not quite my thing… My housemate went to another Butoh performance just tonight, but I passed on this one. I think I’ll need a bit more distance before I go and actively seek another one out…

Comb Festival

It was a great autumn day today, 30 degrees, sunny, with a clear blue sky… I celebrated by going to a quite unique festival in Yasui-konpiru-gu shrine: The comb festival or kushi matsuri. Similar to the needle festival I visited last year, here people bring their old combs and hair ornaments to the shrine where a ceremony is held for them. Apparently the idea behind these ceremonies is, that when an object has been used for a long time, they possess spirit – imbued by their owner’s or their own – and it is thus proper to send those spirits back to the gods instead of just tossing the item. Such ceremonies are held in various shrines and temples for a number of things: needles, combs, calligraphy brushes, dolls,… Unfortunately, I could not find out what would happen to the combs and hair ornaments that were brought to the shrine, but the thing in the back of the image below is called the kushi zuka, the comb mound, so maybe they are interred there, or at least, at some former time may have been. Just like last year, there was first a ceremony and afterwards a short dance performance called “black hair dance” as an offering to the gods. The special thing about this ceremony at this shrine, however, is the attendance of about 50 young girls sporting the hairstyle of various periods in Japanese history. Of course, they wore beautiful kimono of the appropriate time as well, but the show piece were clearly the various coiffures. I asked one of the girls in an elaborate Edo period hairstyle whether this was all her own hair. In case you consider me rude: Geisha very often have rather short hair and wear wigs for their performances, so I was curious.She said her hairstyle was about half-half, that some of the longer parts were hair pieces, made in the way they had been produced in the Edo period. It was very well done, and practically impossible to distinguish the pieces from her real hair, but, taking a closer look, especially from behind, you could see for example pieces of black paper that were used to style the hair.She also said that finishing her hairstyle would take about 3-4 hours – she must have gotten up very early this morning! After the ceremony and the dance, the girls formed a long procession through Gion, but I did not go with them, I had had plenty of photo-opportunities in the shrine already.

Expectations

Last week Thursday, a friend of mine from Tokyo came down for a spontaneous visit. She wanted to see two things – and me – and came laden with great expectations with respect to both.

In the morning, we went to Daigo-ji, a large temple complex in the south-east of Kyoto. I had been in the area before, and didn’t like it much, so I was surprised to find one of the main temples of the Buddhist Shingon sect there. The compound is very large, we visited only the lower part on the foot of the mountain, there is an upper part on the top as well, but it would have taken us two more hours than we were willing to invest. In any case, my friend was mainly interested in the five-story pagoda located on the temple grounds, built in 952 and one of Japan’s National Treasures, which had been featured in a TV program just a few days prior to her visit. The pagoda was nice indeed, situated close to the mountain surrounded by many trees. Interestingly, there were many young monks walking around and praying in front of the numerous temple buildings; they have to do this each day for a whole year, probably as part of their training.

We also went to another part of the temple, called Sanboin. This compound comprises the old living quarters of the abbot, and the buildings indeed have a stately feel to them with their large rooms and delicately painted shoji. However, the most exciting part of Sanboin is the main garden. Although typically Japanese, meaning a lake, mossy stones, and pine trees, it is absolutely stunning, perfectly laid out, the most beautiful Japanese garden I have yet seen! And it is not even the high season for garden watching (hanami and koyo, remember). Unfortunately, it is not allowed to take photos in there (and there are even guards to watch your every move), so I cannot share my impressions, but if you are ever there, it is certainly worth the 600 YEN entrance fee.

After lunch, we went to the Balthus exhibition in the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. My friend wanted to see it because she just recently read about him by chance, and as the book sang his praises, she wanted to check him out for herself. To be honest, we both were not overly thrilled by the exhibition. We found a few pictures nice, but there was only one painting we really liked. At the end of the exhibition was an extra room with large photographs of the artist in his Swiss home and atelier, and some of his personal belongings. Interestingly, there were photos of him wearing Kimono and Hakama – his second wife was Japanese…

In the end, my friend’s expectations were not met – or at least, not as she had expected. The things she came for had been nice, but it were the others, the unexpected ones, that she found more exciting. This has happened to me before as well, and probably to lots of other people. Conclusion: Maybe it’s better when looking for new experiences to leave all expectations behind…

Ears and Noses

The other day, when browsing Wikipedia, I came across a description of a place in Kyoto that I found most intriguing. It sounded so odd and interesting that I decided I needed to see it myself. This is it:

It is called the mimizuka, the Ear Mound – although at the time it was erected in 1597 it was called the hanazuka, the Mound of Noses. It is what the original name suggests: a tomb for noses, and the story behind it is rather… gruesome.

From 1592 through 1597, Hideyoshi TOYOTOMI – who, by the way, is enshrined in the Toyokuni shrine literally across the street – led an invasion of the Korean peninsula, with the intent to conquer first Korea, and ultimately, China. Wars in the 16th century were obviously not the clean “push-button-here” affairs that we can watch on TV now, and there were thousands of casualties, both on the battlefields and among civilians. At this time, soldiers were paid per kill, and one way to prove that was by taking the heads of the dead. By the second Japanese invasion in 1597, the custom had changed to take the more easily transportable noses of the victims instead, which were properly collected, counted, and then shipped to Japan as proof of the army’s efficiency. More than 200.000 heads and noses were taken during this time.

Interestingly, by the end of the invasion (which was unsuccessful, by the way), the noses were interred with proper ceremony in the hanazuka, and Buddhist priests were set to pray for the souls of the victims of the war. Only several decades later it was decided that the name hanazuka was too offensive and changed to mimizuka, but personally I don’t quite see the difference here, as the kanji for “ear” is still used.

Nowadays, it seems that many Japanese do not know about the significance of the mimizuka (there are a few others in other parts of Japan) and what the monument contains. Koreans do come to visit it, however, and there are even efforts being made to get the remains returned to Korea. Once again something I find rather odd – it’s 400 years ago after all, it is a nice and well-cared for monument, and there still seem to be regular ceremonies held there. But then again, what do I know…

Daimonji 2014

Indeed, the Daimonji festival took place on Saturday evening, despite all the rain. A friend of mine told me that it was a religious ceremony, nothing geared towards tourists, so they would try to do it at the designated day no matter what.

It rained heavily on Saturday, with brief stops in between, and all day I was unsure whether the daimonji would take place. However, the rain stopped at around 6 pm, and when it got dark about an hour later, you could make out people – or rather, their flashlights – on Mt. Daimonji, where the largest and the first of the five fires is lit.

I went to a friend of mine who lives farther North in Kyoto and who had arranged to go to the roof of a three storey building in his neighborhood. From there, four of the five fires could be seen, although not all picture perfect: the hidari-dai or “left dai” fire could not be seen in its full glory, but only as a single thin strip of fires. Here are photos of the three fires – from right to left on the mountains, in order of their being lit – that are more or less recognisable: The dai on Mt. Daimonji, which simply means “big”; the two signs myo-ho, part of a Buddhist sutra; and my favourite one, the fune, the boat-shaped fire.Watching the fires being lit one after the other to guide home the ancestral spirits was once again a wonderful, touching experience. The whole display only took about half an hour, and then I walked home, meandering through town in the dry, cool evening.

There is only one of the daimonji fires I have not seen yet: the big torii gate on Arashiyama. Maybe I will try to go there next year.

Anticipation

Tomorrow is the day of the daimonji, the end of the Obon-festival, where on the mountains surrounding Kyoto five huge bonfires will be lit to guide home the spirits that were visiting the Earth during Obon.

A friend of mine has secured a place on the roof of a building from where you are able to see at least four of the bonfires, if not all five of them, and I was planning to go there tomorrow evening and write a post with pictures.

Unfortunately, it has started to rain, and tomorrow’s weather forecast talks about “rain that periodically stops”… Usually, the festivals in Kyoto take place regardless of the weather, but I am not very confident that there will be the daimonji tomorrow. If it rains too much it will be impossible to see the fires – provided they can be lit at all. As far as I could find out, only once the daimonji had to be postponed by one day, let’s hope the second time won’t be tomorrow.

I’ll post an update and pictures when the daimonji has taken place.

Kyo-no-Tanabata

Tonight was the last night of the Kyo-no-Tanabata night displays along the Kamogawa and the Horikawa. I rather not call it a festival, because it was more about art and there were no food stalls anywhere in sight, although you could put up wishes on bamboo trees as it is traditionally done during tanabata. There are two venues with light installations and art displays, one along Kamogawa between Nijo and Shijo dori and the other along Horikawa north of Nijo Castle up to Imadegawa. I went to the second location and had a couple of hours of fun – although there were lots and lots of people crowding the small walk along Horikawa and taking pictures instead of walking along… I took a number of pictures too, but as I was trying something new with respect to taking pictures at night, very few of them are presentable, unfortunately.

The evening started at Nijo Castle, where there was free entrance to part of the grounds, and a projection of light onto the main castle walls, accompanied by music. It only took ten minutes, probably so that as many people as possible could see it, and I think it was very well done indeed. From there, I went down to Horikawa, a small stream running through town. There is a walkway beside it, but it is relatively narrow, so there was one-way traffic up to the north only, with the single entry point near Nijo castle. You could get out on the way if you wanted to, but not enter. At the entrance there were a number of Tanabata trees and you could buy tanzaku, paper slips, to write your wishes on.

The art displays started with long rows of paper lanterns with calligraphy and paintings. A long band of silk, maybe 80 cm wide, dyed in the famous Yuzen style, flowed through the stream. Horikawa lies close to the Nishiki silk weaving district, and apparently has been used in former times to provide the water for dying and washing the silk. A large tunnel with white, blue, and yellow LED’s resembling the milky way was the main attraction, I think.

The last photo above is the official photo of the milky way, I stole it from the Kyo-no-Tanabata website because it is so much better than any of mine (and there are no people in it…) On the website there are plenty of other pictures, also from the venue at Kamogawa, but some of them appear to be from last year. Anyway, enjoy!