Trip to the "Japanese Alps"

This past weekend we took a trip (an exursion) to Takayama, a small town in the "Japanese Alps," about a 4 hour train ride from Kyoto, in central Honshu that has the largest mountains, aside from Mt. Fuji, in all of Japan. Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics, is in these mountains. The trip was beautiful toward the end, as the train wound its way along the Hida River into the mountains. The Hida is white water much of the time and we passed at least 2 large dams that seem to be a huge supply of electricity for this part of Japan. Takayama, surrounded by 10,000 foot mountains, has retained a specific culture
because of centuries of isolation. The rich supply of timber created a tradition of carpentry and woodworking that is centuries old.

Takayama, like so much of Japan, is a zoning board's worst nightmare--a beautifully preserved downtown area of centuries-old one- and two-story homes made of dark wood. All this surrounded by ugly urban development that results in a jumble of ancient and beautiful with blight (not unlike Kyoto). You have to begin to erase the blight parts in order to enjoy Japanese towns and cities.

In the old section, several of the old homes house small sake distilleries and for a few yen you can sample the wares. In one of the places we sampled, the tradition was to drink from a small wooden box that was served with salt that you licked from your hand (a la tequila) after a swallow. Here it is being demonstrated; because the box is filled to overflowing (a sake custom), you have to bend down and slurp from the side.We were quite good at it, having practiced slurping noodles for several weeks now. Many of the other houses were made into small shops--very nice ones, with some beautiful carved wood, lacquered wood bowls and trays, and other local crafts.

We stayed in a minshuku, which is a small version of the traditional Japanese inn, a ryokan. Our room had tatami mats and a single low table with three chairs for sitting on the floor. That's all. In the evening the staff came in and laid out futons and bedding. The room had a sink and toilet, but for bathing, you don a yukada (cotton robe) supplied with the room and use the common hot baths. It's perfectly acceptable to hang out in the yukada and even to go to dinner in it. Which gets me to the Takayama cuisine.

Because of its isolation, Takayama developed a specific local cuisine that uses mountain vegetables (ferns and the like), many of them pickled (there's even a pickling festival in the fall), local river fish and Hida beef. The beef is often served shabu-shabu style. At our first lunch in Takayama, Bill, who ordered beef, was served at a large pot on a burner at the table. The waiter threw in a bunch of vegetables and then brought Bill a plate of thinly sliced raw beef. English was minimal but we figured out that he was to put it into the pot and cook it. So he did. I ordered a "lunch set" of local vegetables, which came with this little fish. For once I did not embrace all things Japanese--I just couldn't bring myself to eat the head, tail, and all! Dinner was at the minshuku, seated on the floor in a large dining room. We were served many, many small dishes, from sashimi to tempura, with more pickles and shabu-shabu, some of which we had no idea what it was. Most of it was quite delicious and probably better not to know too many details.

The best sightseeing of Takayma was a short bus ride to Hida No Sato, a folk village made up of houses of the region that were moved to this one site to preserve the culture. It's big--we went in about 10 different houses. This one picture of an attic shows the unusual construction--no nails, just rope to hold it all together. In some of the houses, people who actually live there were doing traditional crafts--here weaving--in another place making the shingles for many the roofs that have to be changed every 3 years. Some of the houses had the gassho-zukuri roofs (picture), the steeply slanted roofs because of the heavy snow that are said to resemble "praying hands." The grounds also included several rice paddies and a pond.

Bill here: the room at our minshuku was across the street from a temple. At 6AM a monk struck a very large bell and then proceeded to pound away on some loud drum in some apparently significant religious rhythm. A good start to the day?!

So overall--an interesting experience and a fascinating look at old Japan. We were happy, though, to return "home"--our sweet little apartment in Kyoto. Busy, busy week coming up. In Tuesday's class, I finish up the "basics" with a class on Torts; then Wednesday, I'm doing a class on constitutional law and the right to privacy; the students are reading Griswold, Roe, and Lawrence. "Privacy," says one of my slides, "is everywhere and nowhere." I realized that I have to take on levels of scrutiny (or "Tears of Scrutiny" as I like to think about it) for it all to make sense. By the way, movie night last week went great with "Runaway Jury." I started the movie after class, which is 7:45. It's not mandatory but everyone stayed. As preposterous as the plot is, it's filled with "peremptory challenges" and the like so it was fun for the students to see the abstract in action. I think the next movie will be "My Cousin Vinny." Also this week I'm invited to a dinner to meet other women faculty from the University (Tuesday night), Thursday I'm teaching a class on Civil Procedure to an undergraduate law class and having lunch with the professor, and Friday one of my colleagues from the law school (Yoshi Yamada) is taking me and Bill to tour the Imperial Palace and out to lunch.

The bell at Myoshin-ji is tolling--must be time to say Sayonara. Have a great week!

I'm just a girl who can't say Noh . . . .

Sunday we went to a truncated Noh performance and demonstration of some of the preparation of a Noh performer. All this was arranged by my Ritsumeikan colleague, Shiro Okubo and his wife Mariko. We met them at a train station and walked to a small theater (in their neighborhood, I think). We took off our shoes and sat on cushions on the floor. The theater is owned and operated by a Noh actor, who explained many of the concepts before being dressed as the character Tenko on stage and performing Tenko's final dance.

A bit about Noh--it's classical Japanese musical drama, in which many of the characters wear traditional masks. Here's a few of them:

Noh performances usually take place in shrines and a performance often lasts all day (reminds me a bit of cricket--incomprehensible and long). The piece we saw came from a play called "Noh Tenko," an ancient Chinese story from the 14th century. It begins when the boy Tenko finds a drum (Heaven's Drum) that has fallen down from heaven. On it, he plays beautiful music. The emperor hears about the drum and summons Tenko to bring it to him, but instead of obeying, Tenko runs away into the forest. He is caught and drowned as punishment. Now the emperor has the drum, but no one is able to get a sound out of it. The emperor summons Tenko's father, who does go and is able to play on the drum. When he plays, the spirit of Tenko appears and dances, as he does for all eternity, on the waves.

On Sunday, the actor came on stage and proceeded through the stages of the elaborate dressing that is part of Noh. Here are the stages from several layers of costume (several "dressers" are required to pull it all together), to the wig (this one is the typical "boy" wig), and then the mask (again, a typical "boy" mask). I might not get the pictures in perfect order (I'm not very skilled at arranging a blog), but I think you can get the gist.

The very first picture at the top of the post is how he turned out. I couldn't take pictures during his dance, which was accompanied by drumming and guttural chanting. I have to say, it was quite beautiful and very spooky with that impassive mask that does seem to change expressions slightly as the actor moves.

Bill's reactions: it was very spooky partly because it was clearly so much about passion and yet there was so little to see that was human. The costume almost completely distorts the human shape, yet while this shape moves around in a kind of ritualized dance the mask remains utterly impassive. The music comes occasionally from a breathy flute along with two drums, each making its own sound in its own rhythm, while the drummers are shouting in guttural outbursts. These sounds were not like anything I've ever heard, and this dehumanized shape was hopping around in some kind of response. Yet it remained compelling.

Shinto shrines

Busy week with a faculty meeting, lunch with the Dean, and two classes--Civil Procedure and Criminal Procedure. Eighteen Japanese law students are scratching their heads over the "Exclusionary Rule"--but, then, aren't we all? I also gave the first "Legal Terms Quiz"--we acquire terms in each class and every fifth class, they get a quiz on them. I think I was as nervous as the students because I had no idea if the whole thing was beyond them or not. Turns out not. They had 25 terms to study from "federalism" to "jury nullification" and many of them did great on the quiz! I'm hoping it will build confidence with their English and their overall view of what's going on in the course.

But, this post is about Shinto shrines. Did I mention that there are 3500 sacred sites in Kyoto? Yep. And close to 1000 of them are Shinto shrines. A shrine (as opposed to a temple, which is Buddhist) is marked by a vermillion gate in shape of the Greek letter pi (called a torii). This is the gate at one of the most important shrines in Kyoto, Heian-jingu, the one with the iris gardens that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The typical gate is guarded by these creatures, one at each side of the gate, one with its mouth open, the other with its mouth closed. Inside the torii, you find a jumble of lanterns and smaller shrines, each one dedicated to a different deity or spirit (kami). There aren't exactly gods in Shinto, but everything has a sacred spirit attached to it--a tree, rocks, rivers, the sky, even a teacup. And we all have kami nature within ourselves. For example, there are some shrines dedicated to the spirit of academic success, so the hoardes of middle-schoolers on their school excursions pray at these shrines before they take their high school entrance exams. Or, if your knee aches, you might go to a specific shrine dedicated to knee aches and pray for relief.This guy on the right is one of my favorites. I don't know what he specialiazes in but he was attracting a lot of young women. But before any prayer or any approaching the spirits, you purify yourself by washing your hands and mouth, using these wooden ladles and this stone basin that are found near the entrance to every Shinto shrine. Purification rituals are central to Shinto.At many of the small shrines, you can write your petition on a piece of wood and leave it hanging; this shrine, I can only guess, is dedicated to affairs of the heart.

You can also shake a box and get an oracle on a white slip of paper. If it's a good fortune, you take it with you. If not, you tie it around a fence-like structure near the small shrine and leave it to get better. Here's a bunch of bad fortunes, hoping to improve by proximity to a spirit.

But there's more.

Some of the shrines have a bell on a long rope. You give an offering, ring the bell, and clap twice so you can be sure the spirit is listening. Then you bow twice and offer your prayer (almost always a request). Then you bow and clap again.

Yasaka-jinja, where many of these pictures were taken, is adjacent to Gion, Kyoto's "floating world" of Geiko (geisha), Maiko (Geiko in training), hostess bars, excellent restaurants and cheesy touristy ones, and all kinds of sordid stuff found in any city of the world. Yet here, too, you find small neighborhood shrines, just a single small place where people come to honor a spirit/deity. Shinto and Buddhism have no clear demarkation in Japan; many Buddhist temples include a small Shinto shrine. The Japanese, most of whom declare themselves "atheists," nonetheless will take a baby for baptism at a Shinto shrine and bury their loved ones at a Buddhist temple. The Buddhist monk (who just taught us meditation--but that's another post) said that religion in Japan is "practical religion." You do what works (or what you believe works). Shinto has no text, no god, no official code of behavior or worship. It's the ancient, indigenous religion of Japan that still exists in this high-tech world.
This is a small shrine in Gion; it's about 6 p.m. on a Friday, and people stop by for a quick word with the kami.
Bill here: the grounds of a Shinto shrine feel very sporadic; almost everywhere you turn you'll find a particular shrine, many of them quite small. The Buddhist temples seem much more organized with large buildings serving as the center of many sub-temples within the temple complex itself. I never quite know where to turn next in a Shinto shrine, but I imagine it being something like a large European cathedral with many side altars where one might pray or petition at a side altar dedicated to Mary or St. Peter.

Terry again--arguments abound as to whether Shinto is a religion or a "folk way." Yet its rituals and festivals, rooted in the cycle of life and in the numinosity inherent in all things, certainly persist in 21st Century Japan. The practice of Shinto, they say, leads us to live in harmony with dai shizen no meguri--the ceaseless cycle of Great Nature.

An "Excursion" and Zen food

"May we have a conversation with you?" Every time we visit a popular site (usually a temple) where there are groups of schoolchildren, we are approached at least once for their "English homework." Once, one of their teachers explained to us that her girls were from a rural area and never had a chance to speak to a native English speaker except on these school trips. So, of course we can't say no. At Tenryu-ji yesterday, 3 giggling girls came up to us as we sat gazing at the bamboo forest (picture). After the usual first few sentences - "What's your name?" "Where are you from?" "Is this your first time in Japan?" this trio began a new sentence and dissolved into laughter, clearly stuck on a word. I asked if I could see the little book from which they were reading. They pointed to the sentence - "We are on a school excursion." "Excursion" was beyond them. So we helped - and they ably practiced -" we are on a school excursion "- completely pleased with themselves. After each of these conversation sessions, we are politely asked if we will pose in a picture with them. So we are memorialized in school notebooks all over Japan by now.

To get to Tenryu-ji ("Temple of the Heavenly Dragon"), we traveled on a funny little train-trolley with a station just up the street from our apartment to Arashiyama, a westernmost part of Kyoto, nestled in the mountains. Once you get off the main tourist strip, it does feel like a charming mountain village. The main temple in Arashiyama is Tenryu-ji, famous for its World Heritage status Sogenchi Garden. The meditation rooms look out on the beautiful strolling garden and we were able to sit and view a piece of the garden as one would do when meditating.

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A stroll through the garden, which is one of the oldest landscape gardens in Japan, can take an hour and takes you past bamboo forests, which are eerie, seeming to be filled with mist as small yellow leaves fall continually, like a soft rain, and blanket the floor beneath the austere bamboo trunks.

We found this tree, with both red and green leaves, in one of the many sub-temples on the grounds.

Tenryu-ji is part of the Rinzai Zen Buddhist sect and was established in 1339. It was built after a priest had a dream of a dragon arising from a nearby river. The dream was interpreted as a sign that the Emperor's spirit was uneasy, so the temple was built as an appeasement.

After another Zen lunch (more later), we hiked uphill through the village to Adashino Nembutsu-ji, a very weird temple where the abandoned bones of paupers are gathered and more than 8000 stone images are crammed into the temple grounds. Most of the images are weathered away and some have faded red bibs on them, or are marked with small toys or child's things. These are the stones that commemorate dead children.

Behind the yards full of stone images, we find a stairway up through another bamboo forest. At the top there is a fountain encircled by 6 images of Buddha. Four young men who are also there tell us that if you wash each Buddha in a clockwise manner, your soul will be cleansed. Worth a try!

The walk to and from Adashino took us past a number of other temples and shrines, and past cute shops and places to eat. It definitely began to feel like a mountain village, the air changed, a cool breeze picked up, shadows lengthened and deepened.

And now Zen food. We have been in Kyoto for just over 2 weeks and we have already had 3 Zen lunches. Something very strange is happening. Yesterday's lunch was on the grounds of Tenryu-ji, in a lovely setting in the garden, with a pond full of large goldfish.

The Zen cuisine philosophy is that most of us "live to eat" but the monks "eat to live." In the Zen monastery, the fundamental act of eating is considered necessary for proper functioning, but nothing else. The meals served at a monastery are carefully planned by a monk holding the important post of tenzo, whose task is to plan meals that will enable everyone to practice Zen with the least hindrance. The daily menu does not vary much. There must be harmony of the 6 basic flavors: bitter, sour, sweet, salty, light, and hot. The monks in training have 2 very basic meals a day and all meals are preceded and followed by verses expressing gratitude. Here's one translation: "First, let us reflect on our own work,/Let us see whence this comes;/Secondly, let us reflect how imperfect our/virtue is, whether we deserve this offering;/Thirdly, what is most essential is to hold/our minds in control and be detached/from the various faults, greed, etc./Fourthly, that this is taken as medicinal/is to keep our bodies in good health;/Fifthly, in order to accomplish the task of/enlightenment, we accept this food."

For special occasions, the tenzo will prepare a feast--that's what we're getting in these Zen meals. They are completely vegetarian (Buddhist vegetarian cuisine is called shojin ryori) and is surprisingly delicious and filling.

They are often served in these red-lacquered bowls, which you stack together as you finish the many small courses. The monks have their own set of dishes that they rinse with hot water after each meal and, so as not to waste a particle of food and to properly honor all the time and energy expended to grow the food and make the meal, they drink the washing water.

Well, we are obviously addicted to Zen food. Who knew?

Zen Gardens and a monk's lunch

"In order to comprehend the beauty of a Japanese garden, it is necessary to understand ... the beauty of stones." Lafcadio Hearn

The beauty of stones / The breaking sound of silence / Waves on quiet shore. (TGP)

Today we rode our bikes north to Daitoku-ji, a walled temple complex of 24 sub-temples that is a holy place for the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism. We visited the 4 open-to-the-public sub-temples: Daisen- ji, Koutou-in, Zuihou-in, and Ryogen-in. Each has a central temple surrounded by Zen gardens - dry gardens and moss gardens. We took off our shoes, walked through the tatami-covered rooms, bowed to the statue of Buddha, and sat --- and sat. The gardens invite silence and meditation. These short visits ended up taking us hours because, well, we just sat and looked. I could tell you what they all are supposed to mean, but what's the point? The meaning goes beyond language and disappears into silence.

We did eat lunch inside the temple compound in a place reputed to serve authentic Zen temple food, just like the monks eat. Lots of tofu and vegetables, a small glass of plum wine, all very delicious. But the place--Izusen--oddly felt a bit commercial. We much preferred the Yu-dofu experience at Ryoan-ji last week. Those of you who know Bill must think that some clone Bill who eats tofu and vegetables has replaced the Bill we all know and love. But it's the real one (I think) going all Zen about food. That's the room in which we ate--sitting on the floor. In fact, speaking of the floor (Bill here, not the clone) when we sat down, the two women who were going to serve the many courses, immediately asked me if I wanted a "chair." It took me a while to understand the word, but when I did understand their offer I wasn't sure whether to be flattered by their typical Japanese attentiveness or worried about what I must look like to them. Of course, my pride refused the offer of a "chair," but they did insist on two cushions. Terry, then, became my food taster for what turned out to be a very nice vegetarian lunch. (Terry--"Food taster" means I take a bite of whatever form the tofu is in and pronounce that Bill will like it.)

Irises and noodles

I tend to disappear from Monday to Wednesday, consumed with class prep and teaching. Still we did grab a few hours Wednesday morning and biked over to Heian-jingu Shrine. The shrine, marked with huge orange (vermillion) gates, was erected in 1895 to commemorate Kyoto's 1,100 anniversary and is a replica of the original Kyoto Imperial Palace that was built in 794 (when they say "centuries" around here, they really mean it!). Much of the shrine on Wednesday was roped off in preparation for the evening's Noh performance, one of the most spectacular in Kyoto. But the main attraction, as far as we were concerned, is the garden. The irises were in bloom (which made me a little nostalgic for my Lake Michigan garden). Again, I defer to silence and let the pictures speak for me.

Afterwards, we browsed the seven floors of the Kyoto Craft Center that is across the street from the shrine. Want a kimono (old or new), a samurai sword, laquered tray, Japanese paper, pearls, Hello Kitty lunchbox, woodblock print, etc . etc. etc? Get your orders in. It's all there

Exhausted and over-stimulated with all those possible purchases, we relaxed in a wonderful noodle retaurant that we found on a little back street just south of the Imperial Palace. It's called Honke Owariya and, according to the English menu blurb, has been loved by the people of Kyoto since 1465 (when they say "centuries" here....). It has been, and still is, patronized by the Emperor's family and the odd monk or two. In the Edo period, Owaiya's noodles were actually served in the Imperial Palace.

PR hype notwithstanding, the noodles were amazing. Here is Bill negotiating soba with chopsticks, no mean feat. Owariya is not exactly "local" for us, but it just might become our local noodle place.


And here, at last, is a picture of the lovely Natsumi, my assistant at the Law School . A Kyoto native, Natsumi lived in Seattle about ten years ago, married an "Amerika-jin," and had a son, who is now eight. She is now divorced and lives in Kyoto next door to her mother and father. She is fluent in English and has good-naturedly accomplished my every request from renting "Runaway Jury" for "Movie Night" for the students, to finding out if we can have pizza while watching the movie (we can't), to helping me reigister for an alien registration card.

After each Wednesday class, I have dinner in the law school cafeteria and invite students to join me. Here we are last night, chatting about Japanese sweets and peremptory challenges.

So, one more gorgeous day here in Kyoto with a beautiful light that seems to deepen everything, especially the greens in the gardens. The contrasts in colors and shades are spectacular and always changing. There is always an abrupt transition from the silence and the colors back out onto the bikes and the streets. A very modern city that has managed to sustain a tradition of reflection.